Universe Online - Enter the Game: Complete Edition (10 page)

I shake off the depression though and instead move to where I found the metal struts.  They're stacked in a long crate, and are so heavy that even in zero-g I have to move them one at a time.  The have quite the mass, after all.  Doing more than that would be a problem.  I bring over three more of the struts, and put them end-to-end.

Close to the hole in the outer hull, I finally pull out my multi-tool.  It has a small laser emitter head used to make welds.  I set it to the highest setting, hook it up to my suits power supply, and go to work.

The visor in my helmet goes opaque as I bring the laser into contact with the metal struts, but a 3D grid pops up showing me the position of the materials I'm crafting.  The system had automatically brought up the Assembly Aptitude and Mechanical Aptitude along with their connected Aspects.  It really is useful.

It takes me more than thirty minutes to join the first two struts to each other though, and I have to make sure to make the weld as clean and neat as I can.  I don't expect it to have to hold a whole lot of weight or mass, but I don't want to risk losing my only solar cell, should something go bad.

It takes nearly two hours to get them all joined together, and I even dig out some of the braces and weld them on over the strut welds to provide extra strength.

After that I bring over one of the bulkhead patches.  A six-foot square sheet of metal.  I weld it to the end of the strut assembly, and then stretch out the solar cell over top of it.  Looking good so far.  The solar cell automatically seals itself onto the object it's stuck to, and I have to give it a signal to disconnect.

I could go ahead and push it out and finish mounting my makeshift solar panel just like that, but I caught sight of something earlier so I go and check it.

Bingo!

Pre-cut metal plates.  Shiny on one side.  According to my HUD, the material is coated in refined aluminum magnesium fluoride composite.  Used in laser assemblies.  Like big laser guns.  Extremely pure, they're used to reflect laser and light beams.  Perfect!

They're also a nice size, six inches square.  I grab a whole stack and bring it back.  From there, I bring over another strut and this time cut it into pieces in an array.  The angles are a tad funny, cause I'm doing it all by hand instead of with proper machining, but whatever.

I use the laser range finder from my helmet as a laser pointer to figure out the proper angles needed to reflect even more light down onto the solar cell.  I tend up taking notes on the spacing before going back to work.  This time I weld the new pieces around the unused space on the bulkhead plate I'm using to base the solar cell on.

Spread out at angles like an open flower at the base, then straightened and then slightly angled back inwards.  It creates a structure like a geodesic sphere with two feet per side.

Once done, I start attaching the smaller plates both inside and outside, angled toward each other.  With a much greater surface area than the solar cell by itself, it gathers sunlight then redirects it inside.  That causes the light to bounce and concentrate before shining it all on the solar cell.

Wiggling into it to get into the inside of the assembly is a hassle because of my bulkier than usual suit though.  It takes a bit of time.

Precious time.

Three hours later and I have to replace my air supply, while my battery alert is all but screaming at me.  At 30% power now.

Using the welder of my multi-tool is draining my battery extremely fast.

Finally though I pull out and step away, and use the laser pointer again to test it.

I can see the green mark bouncing across the plates and then finally striking the solar cell.  Yes!

But I'm still not done.  I go and grab a spool of electrical wiring and then two of three batteries from the capsule.  Getting them out is a lot easier with the extra space from removing the air processors and tanks earlier.

Going back while using telekinesis to pull my load with me, I'm quick to wire up the solar cell and then extend it down the length of the joint metal struts.  It’s a waste, but I end up cutting up lengths of wire to use to tie the main line to the strut, so that it is flush to the metal.  I don't want any to break.

Thankfully all the wire is already insulated, so I don't have to worry about being shocked if I have to go out and touch it.

That done, here comes the hard part.  Actually pushing the entire thing out of the hole and into space and then angled to catch the sun.

It is really slow going there.  The greatly increased mass, especially at the 'head' where the solar cell assembly is, makes it for tricky maneuvering.  I don't bother holding back either, and use both my body and telekinesis to do so.  My Psi starts dropping quickly due to how much force is required even to move it slowly in zero-g.

I really don't want to break any damned thing!

You try to move a roughly 60 feet long metal strut with a metal sphere on one end in zero-g and see how well you do!

I'm quite literally cursing under my breath as I finally start to put it out into space.  Slowly, ever so slowly it slides out.  And once the solar assembly hits the sunlight, I have my HUD start tracking the amount of energy the solar cell is already producing as I start to rotate it while pushing it further out.

I only stop when there's about two feet left inside.  More than enough to anchor it to the floor of the hold.

Spinning it, I find the greatest concentration of solar radiation and light by tracking the power spikes from the solar cell.

There!

I stop it and use my telekinesis to hold it in place as I grab three braces and start welding it to the metal composite floor.

Total time used: 8 hours.

Remaining power: 12%

My power is so low that by the time I finish welding it all into place, I can already feel my suit starting to slow down; its motions becoming rougher and more jerky than before.  Debuff icons have appeared in my HUD again, noting that my physical attributes have already dropped by 10%.

I would curse; except I'm too excited.  It was already working.  Now all that's left is splicing the power wires into the batteries.  That work only takes a handful of minutes, and the batteries I've wired out in a relay start humming, sharing their power load.

3%... 5%... 7%

Yes!  I did it!

I even go so far as to jump, which ends up sending my shooting to the ceiling with a bit more force than I had wanted.  Thankfully I throw out the magnetic rope to the floor and pull myself back before I hit anything.

Idiot move, there.

Still, now that the elation has calmed down a bit, I plug my suit into one of the batteries and sigh as it starts to recharge.

The solar cell is working at nearly 180% rated capacity.  The reflector array I had built around it really helps.

I'm not going to give you the math though. Lets just say that it'll fill up these two batteries in only a couple of hours and I can then wire in the third and use it as a breaker for the air processors in the capsule.

And with it being powered by the sun, it'll work 24/7 without any fuel usage.  So the batteries will always have a charge, regardless of what I'm doing elsewhere.

I finally get to sit down and relax for a couple of minutes while my suit recharges.

*DING*

Holy...  Whoah.

Not just stat boosts, but even the mid-tier Survivalist Aptitude too!  And five new Aspects to boot.

Hell, I'm happy with that.  I got 75 more Psi added to my total and 10 more points in Health and Stamina.

I quickly open up my Status Screen and check the results, as well as stack up my other survival Aptitudes to the Survivalist Aptitude.  Hehe.

A 10% bonus to all of them.  That more than makes up with all the hassle I've gone through.  Also the new Aspects.  They all start at level 2, as well.

Hehehe.  I'm laughing.  Laughing so much that I bounce a bit from my sitting position and start floating upwards.

Now things are getting interesting!

But I still have some work to do before I'm satisfied.  So I straighten up, catch my trajectory, and start making my way back to the escape capsule.  I check over the exterior again before finding what I was looking for.

It is a small sealed hatch used to connect to external systems.  I'd have to have to cut into the capsule simply to run power inside, given that I plan to use it for a while.   Especially now that I have access to a good amount of air.

I can finally re-pressurize the thing and get out of my suit for a little while.  After opening the hatch and making sure the adapters will work properly with a scan of my HUD, I go back and start rolling out another length of power cabling.

Hook one side up to the second battery, and then attach the adapter to the capsule.  Done and done.  I can already hear the hum come back as the internal power reconnects with the remaining battery I'd left inside.

It draws a large amount of power though, and I cannot help but cringe as I check the readouts.

Simply powering the gravity generator and the atmospheric process consumes 90% of the boosted power supplied by the solar array I'd built!  That's far too much.

But there is a way to reduce that.  So I slip back into the capsule and go looking for the gravity generator controls.  I end up back in the cockpit, with its smashed up console.  I sigh as I start tearing it open.

I use my Scavenge and Searching abilities to their max, and remove every working thing I can.  Chips, electronics, mechanical parts, wiring.  I strip it all down and then use my multi-tool laser to start cutting out the buckled shell of the console itself.  It’s basically scrap, but even scrap metal can prove useful.

Once the space has been cleared up, all that's left is the basic control computer of the capsule, which I've left without its casing.  The reason for that is that all the input/output hardware had been fried before I could shut off the power.

So I have to build a control system from scratch.  It takes a bit of time to find all the parts, resulting in me going through more of the crates in the hold to find what I need.

The end results is rather bareboned though.  Almost quite literally.  There isn't any monitor, and instead the feed is plugged into my helmets HUD.  I end up making a keyboard-like device, which is really old school.  No touch screens or panels or buttons at all.

It’s also a bit bulky, but it connects easily enough to the computer and I start accessing everything I can.

I immediately run into a problem.  Data corruption.  Whatever happened to cause the escape capsule to crash here also caused the computer memory to get burnt out.  Only its on-board memory was saved, but that's mostly for the controlling software for the internal systems.  Like hardware drivers.