TheBipBoop2003
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34. Third meeting with the natives
🕑 Added 2023-05-12 15:48:24 +0000 UTCIt has been four days since the call with the two scientists has passed and Liam's daily life hasn't changed. Wake up, eat, work, play with his tames, work, eat, train, work, eat, train, eat, sleep, rinse, and repeat with the occasional moment where he scrubs himself clean and other necessities.
In an underground room with weak lighting, a man in only a pair of worn-out pants could be seen, a long diagonal scar running along the defined muscles of his back and a smaller scar on his right pectoral.
"And on.", Liam muttered his implant glowing brighter as he connected to the device on a stone table carved directly from the wall. It was a small induction forge powered by electricity produced from a generator on the ground.
A machine he didn't have a direct engram of, but that didn't stop him from crafting one considering he knew of them and that the concept behind them was understood to him, and it was pretty basic. There still were trial and error as he wanted the best possible from the available resource at his disposition and this was the result. He couldn't do so many things at once; he was a very busy man after all.
He had planned to add induction forges to the fabricator in miniaturized form and the future industrial forge. A forge he needed and wanted as it would let him melt all types of metal up to tungsten, purify them, do various alloys, and more not an exact copy from the engram as there will be modifications where he sees fit.
The copper coil didn't change outwardly but Liam knew it was working with the soft humm of the forge and the constant feedback from its systems to his implant indicating the rapidly rising hertz, the number of times the current passed within the coil per second, rapidly passing from 0 kHz to 90 kHz and stop at 95 kHz.
He took a crucible that had seen better days and placed a steel cylinder inside before placing the whole with the help of a tong in the copper coil cooled down by extremely cold demineralized ultrapure water flowing within thanks to a pump at the back of the forge.
In a matter of seconds, the metal started to glow a bright red, then shift to orange and settle on a bright yellow as it deformed due to its weight and its abrupt change from a solid state to a liquid one.
Smiling at the positive result Liam waited a little longer to then rapidly pick up the crucible with the tong to not have the poor tool melt and he proceeded to carefully pour the molten steel into three prism-shaped ceramic molds.
"This is vastly superior in speed than my other forges… level of heat exponentially higher, with great ease, control, and precision… But only certain materials can be melted with it and I can't really refine much with it. And it's portable… Could be useful in case of an emergency repair.", he said matter of factly. All in all pleased with this new addition.
He didn't bother with this type of forge for producing his titanium and many of this metal's alloys, its lack of refining capabilities being at fault.
Titanium, the way he wanted it to be useful, needed to be refined, a lengthy, time-consuming, and complex process, even more, complicated with the sheer amount of carbon on this moon. Also, the reason why it is so pricy even if it isn't as rare as gold or platinum.
The induction forge could heat things well and fast but forging was more, way more than this and some metal to be useful needed to be treated differently, just like cooking. Such as titanium as otherwise it would be brittle.
But titanium wasn't what he had in mind for now, mentally commanding the device to increase the frequency to 150 kHz, this being basically equal to 2500 C° (4532 F°) for whatever metal needed to be melted within.
A clean crucible appeared in the palm of his left hand and the millisecond after a thumb-sized nugget of raw pandorium/unobtanium. One of the purest he had, doing the same as for the steel, and nothing happened.
He waited a few seconds, seconds that turned into half a minute, and still nothing, frowning he decided to progressively increase the frequency such as increasing the temperature until it reached around 2900 C° (5252 F°).
'Ah finally! Lower than tungsten and way lower than Element but extremely hot to be used all the same.', he thought his earlier frown disappearing, his grey eyes locked onto the nugget of metal that was starting to glow a soft red to rapidly shift from orange to a bright yellow.
'Huh, shit. This is bad.', his eyes widened ever so slightly, as he got feedback that the hertz emitted by the coil suddenly went ballistic, he instantly shut down the forge but that was of little use as cracking with electricity and heat the piece of metal glowed ever so brighter turning almost pure white.
His mind instantly caught up on what was likely going to happen, his body moving in perfect tandem with his mind, a thick hard wood plank as large and tall as he was manifested from his inventory in front of him.
It covered his entire frame and not even a few microseconds later with a bang the piece of metal 'exploded' into more than a dozen small fragments each at minimum three times hotter than lava into the air at the speed of sound.
The crucible didn't hold them, and neither did the copper coil as it was shredded apart the water flowing out in abandon.
One fragment smashed into one of the bioluminescent mushrooms above turning the room dark as all others connected popped like balloons, four others flew all around digging deeply into the wall, two more into the induction forge, another one into the generator fuel tank setting it ablaze in a small explosion turning the room bright and the four last embedded deeply into his makeshift shield.
"Shit.", Liam swore as he let the shield go, not waiting for the fire to get worse he ran straight at it, and from his brightly glowing implant moist dirt from earlier work this morning on his small farm above was poured down on the blazing fire while he held his breath.
It isn't that the fume and gas would be mortal to him but it smelled and tasted horrendous when it wasn't an intentional explosion.
The effects were instantaneous as the fire, while intense and bright, was small and couldn't resist its source of oxygen getting cut off and the temperature shock getting poured down on it, cutting all of its access to oxygen. A few seconds later and nearly a hundred kilos worth of dirt and all the flames died.
"That didn't go as planned… Maybe putting the pandorium into an artificial magnetic field wasn't the brightest of ideas or it violently changed its polarity when entering fusion or both? Or something else.", he mumbled looking down at the red-hot shard of the metal embedded into the wood plank, if he didn't react fast enough this could have been in his head or chest.
Mistakes were made and will not be repeated but there weren't that many other options for him to learn about this metal. Asking the two scientists was and still is an option but not the wisest one since he did want their trust and this metal is the main source of conflict between humans and Na'vi.
Showing an interest in it this early was not good even if he doesn't need hundreds upon hundreds of tons of it.
And it wasn't even sure they knew about its intricacy, and not forgetting that it must be highly protected information, probably not even here. If it was, they likely wouldn't tell him. There needed to be some tact.
"At least I know at what temperatures needed for it to enter fusion but that's the tip of the iceberg of what I need and…", he paused, his eyes trailing over the destroyed induction forge and generator, "Probably will need to fix you two as well."
Day 155.
A few hundred meters away from Liam in half of his titanium armor, the upper body part except helmet because it was very hot today, and he was holding a roasted seasoned half-eaten stingbat's leg in his right hand, taking the last few bites of it he cracked it slightly then threw it behind into the air.
It was caught mid-fall by the glassy claws of Occiden who immediately flew atop the base's wall to gorge itself with the remaining scraps of meat still attached to the bone.
When nothing remained it used the top of the wall as leverage to crack open the bone with the earlier damage Liam had done and gorge itself onto the juicy bone marrow.
While this was happening Liam worked on the turret at his feet, a daily check-up to see if nothing was wrong, and also to reload them if necessary.
It rarely ever happened since having them constantly shoot whatever entered their radar was simply a waste of resources, and dangerous, and having to reload them every day was a pain. At first, it was the case but his 'training' of their algorithms didn't stop after the drone incident.
In fact, such accidents wouldn't happen anymore. He has a big enough digital database of the fauna to have targets put on 'exterminate' and others on 'spare the life' with a dozen other variables such as the presence of the pinging rings on his tames.
He could also use them to shoot a target with his will if he was in a 100-meter (328ft) radius of the turret not due to the turrets signal limitations, but because it required he mentally aimed the turret if the target didn't correspond to the one put on 'exterminate' and aiming like this was quite a bit more complicated when you don't have the turret or target in sight. He could also change their focus to a different target or stop them from firing.
It was, strange, addicting in a way to be able to wield technology as if it was an extension of his body but again it was only the technology he created specifically to be used by him this way. It was in no way magical and these turrets didn't make him some kind of god or more resistant to a bullet to the head from a sniper kilometers away, or orbital bombardment.
Their main targets, shot after ten seconds of weight to avoid wasted bullets were viperwolves and slinths as the main targets and in some cases if alone or in small group stingbats.
Herbivore being avoided as for most WAY bigger caliber bullets were necessary and he didn't want a stampede. Herbivores are way more dangerous than carnivores in his opinion, at least in his current situation and from his first-day experiences.
Having killing machines was fun and all but if there weren't any fail-safe this could lead to grievous consequences if some natives became too curious and tried to poke at it…
Or enter its 150 meters (~482ft) line of sight for a bit too long. Or the earlier case of stampeding, his walls, while they are strong, made of clay, stone, bones, and wood, still wouldn't hold much of a chance against hundreds of enraged elephant-sized creatures.
As if on cue three dots entered his peripheral vision, he stopped all of what he was doing as his head snapped in the 'dots' direction, his pupils narrowed almost to the point one might think he had a grave case of miosis.
The three were farther down the plain, the bigger greenish grey with six legs, he recognized it, it was a pa'li, or in English a direhorse not that he knew of this name in that language.
The two other dots were smaller, thinner, and bluer, these were Na'vis, one male and one female. Easily told differences by how one was less nude than the others.
He wasn't surprised one of his tetrapterodon had noticed a big clan arriving from quite a few days away by foot a few days ago but he didn't truly pay more attention than necessary, and that mining was out when a clan arrived and some areas became no zones too, he couldn't bother himself with every clan under the suns.
If he investigated every Na'vi clan big or small that moved in the plains he might as well abandon every other project he had and go play the hippy with them.
Knowing their general migratory routes, where they are, where they are going, and how many they are good enough, that didn't mean he didn't search for more but even with eight pairs of eyes in the sky he was far from being remotely omniscient.
Frowning he brought a spyglass from his inventory and looked through it, he recognized them, the two geniuses that thought going out in the middle of the night was a good idea.
And they weren't far from another turret but that wasn't a problem unless he seriously messed up the programming and if it was the case those two would have been long since dead. The consequences wouldn't be as light as the drone.
'What were those two teens' names again… right the boy is Mìruk and the girl is Tutee.', Liam wondered, after a few seconds of internal debate, whether or not going to talk to them was worth it.
But something made it all the clearer the answer was yes, Tutee was walking towards the turret, calling over her boyfriend, as he supposed it was what they were or at least the Na'vi equivalent.
Mìruk approached dragging the reluctant direhorse by its leash and the two Na'vi marveled at the turret, turning all around it, sometimes poking it with a stick, or probing it with their fingers.
Talking together enthusiastically as the barrel moved around, keeping track of their movement, the red laser tracking each of their heads caused them to laugh at each other over gaining third eyes.
While in truth it was the auto turret's subroutine system running over and over to make sure that those two weren't to 'exterminate'.
The two teenagers were so detached from the world surrounding them that neither noticed Liam approaching and arriving right behind or Occiden landing on the man's armored shoulder right after.
'I guess a demonstration as to why turrets aren't toys is needed. Even if they don't know what it even is.', he thought with a smirk growing.
The turret stopped moving all of a sudden, confusing the Na'vi as the strange creature froze, then it flicked its 'head' up and a loud bang echoed, loud enough to force the two to plug their ears folded backward and the direhorse drinking the nectar of a flower nearby jerked in panic.
<This isn't toy, dangerous. Why you Tutee and Mìruk here, alone, without adults?>, Liam questioned, middle amused but serious all the same after the two unplugged their ears and glared at the turret, his voice caused them to freeze.
Mìruk, who was on his way to kick the hard metal feet of the turret with his bare feet. He froze at Liam's voice, but the momentum of the kick remained, he comically slipped before face-planting in the grass.
Tutee on her side slowly turned her head to be met with the head of the Lost Child, then her gaze moved to his shoulder where a creature she only knew as shy and fearful glared at something behind her, the direhorse she immediately guessed.
<Why are you here far from clan?>, the Lost Child, and their savior, snorted in amusement before asking again, with one of his hair tufts above his eyes raised. And a hand scratching the bird's neck calming it down almost immediately.
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Thx for the chapter
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