Chapter 1: Where no Grawl has gone before
Space Colony 34
Orbit of the Gas Giant Bruno
Hawking System
It had been a few weeks since the climactic battle aboard Azathoth. It seemed that Grawla everywhere could breathe easier, as the Aliyum planet had been deflected away from Hawking, and was now headed towards one of the inner planets instead. The fight with the Daqin had left the Zoomer’s ship destroyed, but there were liveable pockets of space on Azathoth for the crew. Saylas and Eedded had helped get a small Grawl-town setup there before rejoining the Ewmans.
These Ewmans had a plan.
They would take them further than any Grawla had ever gone before and lived to write home about: The Gas Giant Bruno. Here were Ewman space colonies, giant rotating cylinders with trees and grass on the inside. They had open fields for farming, artificial gravity, oxygen, light, everything an aspiring space-grawl might need to survive in space.
But Eedded wasn’t sold on the idea just yet.
“The Ewmans say we can just have this whole place.” Eedded said, the grawla still in her space-suit. Though over the past few days her arm had made great progress in healing up. “They’ll even help us get to and from the surface, and fly us around space, and even give us some space on their mega-explorer-ship-thing.” Eedded didn’t look happy about all of this, despite the seemingly generous offer. She’d check her suit’s wrist where a small mirror would let her see the dials and knobs on her suit’s chest. There were green lights of course… and the atmosphere of this ‘space colony’ seemed safe enough. With a slightly nervous ‘but trying to look determined’ grunt she’d slap the side of her helmet, opening it up and letting the fresh air rush in while taking a big breath.
… she didn’t die…
… that was a good sign…
Eedded would turn to Sylas, “But they want our help with the other Grawla on the surface. Ain’t no one like having the Ewmans around… except maybe the River-city grawl. ‘Course I bet everyone back home hates us for going into space. We’ll probably be blamed for bringing that Aliyum planet too.”
“Let ‘em think that! We fucked up those stupid aliyums!” Sylas laughs, their helmet sitting on the
floor as they sketch a large nuclear explosion on the side, with some stick figure daqin being launched from it. Also laid across the floor is a dozen or so disassembled Daqin rifles, and the entire left arm of their suit lying on the ground. “Hey Eedded! Where do you think I could find a targetin’ unit? I wanna hook one of these Ewman guns up to my shouldah, but I don't know if I’d be able to aim it too well…” Sylas collects all of their loose pieces onto a push cart as she waits for Eedded’s opinion.
Eedded frowned, “That Daqin tech isn’t familiar to me. We’ve taken apart a few of the Ewman computers but they looked different than these computers. Seems like one more thing we’re gonna have to have the Ewmans do for us.” She hated relying on the Ewmans as much as any Grawl but they had so much more stuff. “If we had a few more Grawl we could figure it out ourselves… maybe build ourselves a good lab. There’s tons and tons of precious metals out here in space to fund anything we wanna do assumin’ we can get it back down to the surface to sell it.”
Eedded would move in a bit closer, inspecting the disassembled weapons, “How do you think they work?” She asked, picking up one of the bullets and moving it around in her fingers, “Looks like a small camera-thing on the front of this? Some holes for rocket exhaust on the back. I bet it works like our missiles… must follow a laser or something right?” She would put the bullet back and start looking at the individual components, picking up a module from the gun itself that had a laser sight and some servos to move it around, “This then? I bet if you run power through it then it’ll light up and those ‘smart bullets’ will go where you tell them to.”
“Ooh! Let’s try dat!” Sylas quickly assembles one daqin rifle, slaps a battery and a switch on the back of a laser sight, and starts pointing it at a wall and firing a few shots. Much like expected, the bullets follow the laser, and Sylas gives an excited gasp. “Oh this is going to be a lot of fun!”
Sylas then assembles a fairly rudimentary shoulder-mounted rifle prototype, effectively just a stripped down rifle on a swivel that attaches to a helmet, so that the rifle points where the head points. The laser from the rifle is attached to the head as well, just above the eyeline. Sylas is stumped on how to where to put the trigger, and decides that can wait for later, simply attaching a button to a wire, and putting it all on. “Eedded! What can we use for target practice? I don’t want to shoot the walls anymore, I’m afraid they might be load bearing…”
“What about putting the trigger on your spear? You don’t really need to hold the gun or even point it if the bullets just go where you’re lookin’ with the laser,” Eedded said, looking about for ‘stuff to shoot’ and only really coming up with one answer. “And what about that tree as a target?” She asked, pointing off into the distance. There were a few of them in this ‘grawl space’ that the Ewmans were offering. It was a simple matter to get a piece of sheet metal from their stash of supplies and prop it up against the side of the tree for use as a target. Eedded even drew a stick-figure on the plate with a grease pen just to make it look more targety.
Space Colony 34
Orbit of the Gas Giant Bruno
Hawking System
It had been a few weeks since the climactic battle aboard Azathoth. It seemed that Grawla everywhere could breathe easier, as the Aliyum planet had been deflected away from Hawking, and was now headed towards one of the inner planets instead. The fight with the Daqin had left the Zoomer’s ship destroyed, but there were liveable pockets of space on Azathoth for the crew. Saylas and Eedded had helped get a small Grawl-town setup there before rejoining the Ewmans.
These Ewmans had a plan.
They would take them further than any Grawla had ever gone before and lived to write home about: The Gas Giant Bruno. Here were Ewman space colonies, giant rotating cylinders with trees and grass on the inside. They had open fields for farming, artificial gravity, oxygen, light, everything an aspiring space-grawl might need to survive in space.
But Eedded wasn’t sold on the idea just yet.
“The Ewmans say we can just have this whole place.” Eedded said, the grawla still in her space-suit. Though over the past few days her arm had made great progress in healing up. “They’ll even help us get to and from the surface, and fly us around space, and even give us some space on their mega-explorer-ship-thing.” Eedded didn’t look happy about all of this, despite the seemingly generous offer. She’d check her suit’s wrist where a small mirror would let her see the dials and knobs on her suit’s chest. There were green lights of course… and the atmosphere of this ‘space colony’ seemed safe enough. With a slightly nervous ‘but trying to look determined’ grunt she’d slap the side of her helmet, opening it up and letting the fresh air rush in while taking a big breath.
… she didn’t die…
… that was a good sign…
Eedded would turn to Sylas, “But they want our help with the other Grawla on the surface. Ain’t no one like having the Ewmans around… except maybe the River-city grawl. ‘Course I bet everyone back home hates us for going into space. We’ll probably be blamed for bringing that Aliyum planet too.”
“Let ‘em think that! We fucked up those stupid aliyums!” Sylas laughs, their helmet sitting on the
floor as they sketch a large nuclear explosion on the side, with some stick figure daqin being launched from it. Also laid across the floor is a dozen or so disassembled Daqin rifles, and the entire left arm of their suit lying on the ground. “Hey Eedded! Where do you think I could find a targetin’ unit? I wanna hook one of these Ewman guns up to my shouldah, but I don't know if I’d be able to aim it too well…” Sylas collects all of their loose pieces onto a push cart as she waits for Eedded’s opinion.
Eedded frowned, “That Daqin tech isn’t familiar to me. We’ve taken apart a few of the Ewman computers but they looked different than these computers. Seems like one more thing we’re gonna have to have the Ewmans do for us.” She hated relying on the Ewmans as much as any Grawl but they had so much more stuff. “If we had a few more Grawl we could figure it out ourselves… maybe build ourselves a good lab. There’s tons and tons of precious metals out here in space to fund anything we wanna do assumin’ we can get it back down to the surface to sell it.”
Eedded would move in a bit closer, inspecting the disassembled weapons, “How do you think they work?” She asked, picking up one of the bullets and moving it around in her fingers, “Looks like a small camera-thing on the front of this? Some holes for rocket exhaust on the back. I bet it works like our missiles… must follow a laser or something right?” She would put the bullet back and start looking at the individual components, picking up a module from the gun itself that had a laser sight and some servos to move it around, “This then? I bet if you run power through it then it’ll light up and those ‘smart bullets’ will go where you tell them to.”
“Ooh! Let’s try dat!” Sylas quickly assembles one daqin rifle, slaps a battery and a switch on the back of a laser sight, and starts pointing it at a wall and firing a few shots. Much like expected, the bullets follow the laser, and Sylas gives an excited gasp. “Oh this is going to be a lot of fun!”
Sylas then assembles a fairly rudimentary shoulder-mounted rifle prototype, effectively just a stripped down rifle on a swivel that attaches to a helmet, so that the rifle points where the head points. The laser from the rifle is attached to the head as well, just above the eyeline. Sylas is stumped on how to where to put the trigger, and decides that can wait for later, simply attaching a button to a wire, and putting it all on. “Eedded! What can we use for target practice? I don’t want to shoot the walls anymore, I’m afraid they might be load bearing…”
“What about putting the trigger on your spear? You don’t really need to hold the gun or even point it if the bullets just go where you’re lookin’ with the laser,” Eedded said, looking about for ‘stuff to shoot’ and only really coming up with one answer. “And what about that tree as a target?” She asked, pointing off into the distance. There were a few of them in this ‘grawl space’ that the Ewmans were offering. It was a simple matter to get a piece of sheet metal from their stash of supplies and prop it up against the side of the tree for use as a target. Eedded even drew a stick-figure on the plate with a grease pen just to make it look more targety.