《Journals from the Terran Empire》 The Hole in the Ship Survival Logs Day 1: Imperial Year 38,204, Captain Sohtyr Undersen, Terran Empire, I don¡¯t remember much as to how I ended up in this situation. The last thing I remember is giving the order for an emergency FTL jump to our nav officer; We were in a bit of a bind after being hit by some heated flak, something I¡¯d never seen the Coalition use before, they must have gotten the idea from us. We must have been hit by some kind of missile that was fired shortly after the scalding debris, that would explain the flash I saw as we entered warp. I was knocked unconscious for some time too because upon coming to I was alone with a massive hole blown through the front of the bridge (thank God for basic protocol requiring that crew wear helmets in combat). Although I was without injury for the most part, my suit has not fared so well, my helmet had multiple holes in the visor in addition to having the left arm of my suit completely torn to shreds. Luckily the emergency membrane deployed correctly, surely due to it being the updated model given to captains, and it is most definitely the only reason I¡¯m still breathing (I¡¯ll have to thank Dr. Cartock for updating Buford''s design next time I see her, if I see her that is.) I managed to find a spare helmet and some duct tape to patch my suit, amazing how useful that stuff is, and managed to get the door working to the supply hall just behind the bridge, I can use this room for shelter as I assess the damage done to the rest of the ship and look for the rest of the crew. I have enough oxygen for at least two days so that should give me enough time to send a distress signal and make an attempt at getting life support operational again. For now, however, I¡¯m tired and need to get some rest. Day 2: The exit door is fused shut, the only way out of the bridge now is through the large, explosion shaped hole in it. Power indicators on the wall panels show that we¡¯re currently running on emergency power, meaning if I want to get a signal out to command then I have roughly 3 days to do so before the power shuts off entirely. I managed to make my way back into the ship through a malfunctioning escape pod door. So far no signs of any crew left on board, hopefully most of the crew made it to safety seeing as all the pods have launched. The lower parts of the ship have certainly seen better days, looks like we got dipped in lava down here, definitely no way we can get this repaired in a reasonable time assuming I can get her back to port. All the bulkheads are sealed tight so the inner parts of the ship, including the reactor, should still be intact, I might even find a few crew members to help in there too. For now I need to work on a way to bypass the emergency measures on the bulkheads or I¡¯ll be in big trouble in a few days time. My suits¡¯ internal life support system seems to function as best it can for now so food won¡¯t be an issue for at least 5 more days. I just wish the system monitor wasn¡¯t beat to hell when the arm of my suit was torn up, that might have given me a way to conserve more oxygen by switching some of the numbers around. As it stands right now I¡¯ll run out of oxygen in just over another day as this kind, monotone, computer generated asshole in my head keeps telling me.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Day 3: Oxygen is low, I haven¡¯t found any way past the bulkhead security measures. I¡¯ve tried everything I can think of to bypass the emergency lock. I even managed to find an old plasma torch that still had some juice in it. Unfortunately the materials used on the new designs for ship bulkheads are much too strong for such a small torch. I only managed to find my way into another sealed off area by burning through the weak spots in the ship¡¯s hull before the torch ran out of fuel so it looks like I¡¯m stuck here. I made an attempt to manually override the bulkheads but the control panel was destroyed so I had to try hotwiring my way in but the most I could accomplish was getting some lights to blink on and off. Ironically it managed to blink in an old S.O.S. pattern, but since I¡¯m the only one who can see it I doubt it¡¯ll be any help. Now my only hope of survival comes down to needing a string of miracles to happen. First I need the lights to have somehow been affected inside by what I¡¯ve been doing out here. Second I need there to be someone still alive on the inside of the ship. Third, I need them to successfully interpret the lights as a call for help and manage to get the doors open. In all likelihood this is my last journal entry, and with that I¡¯ll end it with a farewell to all those I¡¯ve served with, it¡¯s been an honor. Power Day 4: Apparently miracles come in threes, my efforts outside affected the lights on the inside of the ship, someone noticed what was going on, and I was pulled inside just as I was passing out. I woke up a few hours later according to the rest of the crew. I guess I have Tactical Officer Keegan Jones to thank for realizing that something was being tampered with outside the bulkheads, but it seems as though that¡¯ll have to wait as he was part of a squad sent to scout the rest of the ship for survivors and to reclaim the engine room. The situation here is more dire than I could have initially guessed. Engineer 1st rank George Hilbert has informed me that the ship has been infested with a sort of parasitic creature that reproduces through the consumption of a host body, in this case it¡¯s us. They¡¯ve taken over critical systems including the engine room that Jones was sent to investigate. We don¡¯t know much about the weaknesses of the parasites but we¡¯re hoping to learn more through the two expeditions we¡¯ve sent out, the second being that of Third Lieutenant Grace Tomlinson who was sent to retrieve supplies from the medical ward which should help us fight off the parasites. We currently hold the series of cargo bays that surround the life support systems but the doors to get in are malfunctioning so maintenance and emergency food supplies are currently not an option. As it stands we¡¯ll have enough food for a few weeks assuming all the remaining crew survive for that long so hopefully we won¡¯t need the emergency stash. Until I can get the parasites under control I¡¯ve elected to forgo sending out a signal to Imperial Command as my energy would be better placed into ensuring the survival of my crew. Since the ship is running on fumes now Hilbert and I are preparing to head out to engineering to see if we can get the power back on before we run out of juice in about the next twelve hours or so.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. Power (2) Day 5: Tomlinson arrived just before we headed out for engineering, she gave us some antibiotics to use just in case we got infected, usually parasites like this can be countered pretty easily even with basic antibiotics. The power went out about four hours ago but the ship''s life support can still function in a sort of limp mode by filtering ambient light from the exterior of the ship into the organic life support systems that come standard on imperial vessels. We¡¯ve managed to find a seemingly safe spot just a few rooms down from engineering. A few parasites caught our group by surprise and we lost two good men today. This was their first assignment and they looked so excited to help the empire scout out the galaxy, I¡¯ll be sure to tell their families personally that their sons died as heroes who gave their lives to save others. We could have very easily lost more lives today if the parasites weren¡¯t so easy to take down once we had our guard up, pretty much any way that would kill a human can kill the parasites since they appear to die if the host does. The lights going out on us didn¡¯t help much in terms of visibility but as fate would have it we ended up gaining an edge over the parasitic bastards. Normally not being able to see would be a bad thing but it would seem the suit techs back home thought of everything when designing these helmets, one of the main emergency features of the helmets is designed to give visibility in true darkness. A form of echo location is embedded into most imperial helmets that produces a white outline of the surroundings on the helmets overlay visor, but more importantly it tracks moving targets even in areas that can¡¯t be seen by the user yet. If I had only thought to turn this on before the lights went out I could have prevented the deaths of two of our own. I won¡¯t let anyone else die.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Repairs Day 6: We made it to the engine room just in time to save Jones from a parasite attack. He had been hurt during the fight so we gave him a dose of antibiotics just to be safe, no use taking any more risks than we have to right now. The reactor was still running but the main output connection was damaged during the crash so it took a while for the two remaining technicians of the combined groups to fix. Once we got the lights back on we were able to use the ship''s interior sensors to see just how rough our current situation is. The amount of parasites in the areas surrounding the reactor are far greater than those towards the exterior of the ship. In light of this knowledge we were forced to create a defensive position within engineering to buy some time to prepare for when we inevitably have to fight our way out. Now that the ships sensors are functioning again I¡¯ve been able to examine the parasites more closely and I was wrong about them dying with the host, in fact the hosts don¡¯t die at all, rather the parasite seems to put its host into a sort of hibernation and appears to heal the host at the cost of some of the parasite¡¯s own mass. I¡¯d rather not get too carried away but I suspect this parasite has been engineered by the coalition as a weapon to use against us, that could explain the behavior of the parasites seemingly targeting the reactor of the ship. Given the nature of our circumstances I¡¯ll have to use caution when sending a distress call, for now it appears my decision to hold off on a call for help was warranted. I have a plan to take back control of the rest of the ship but it¡¯s risky and I¡¯ll need time to prepare. Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Barricade Day 7: With the reactor back to relatively normal operation the parasites have grown more aggressive and have forced us to barricade ourselves in. Jones and I have come up with a strategy to give us control of the areas between us and the group holed up in the cargo bays. By using the parasites'' tendency to hibernate for a time after sustaining damage to our advantage we can move them out of the areas between us and Tomlinson¡¯s group. Hilbert and the rest of the engineers aren¡¯t too keen on the idea of displacing parasites into other areas where they could end up causing more damage but we¡¯ll need the supplies stored in the cargo bays if we want to make it out of here alive. I wish we could contact Tomlinson but the ships communication systems appear to be down at the moment and as part of a scouting mission our suits only have local comms functionality to avoid enemy detection. We have more than enough firepower to clear the area between us but it would be nice to make this a coordinated effort to ease the amount of work we¡¯ll have to do. We currently have ten people with us so we¡¯re going to send out a group of four including myself to see that the way is cleared. Normally as captain I¡¯d be under an obligation to not take any unnecessary risks to myself, but considering that our group consists of mainly rookies I¡¯ve chosen to lead this task force myself to ensure that no one else dies on my watch, plus I¡¯ll be able to make better tactical decisions if I have all the information first hand. After we re-establish contact with Tomlinson we can focus on getting the comms systems back on so that maybe we can see about constructing a distress beacon. Pretty soon we¡¯ll be on our way out of this nightmare we¡¯ve gotten ourselves into. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Cleared Path Day 8: The path has been cleared after much effort. The parasites were much tougher to take down than before, perhaps as time passes the parasite has absorbed more of the host body. In any case we¡¯ve made it through with only two moderate injuries, they¡¯re currently under the care of Dr. Fornsby who¡¯s making due with what he¡¯s got available in the cargo hold. I¡¯d like to get control of the med bay but seeing as it¡¯s roughly half a mile away it would cost too much time and resources to just gain control of the med bay. For now the patients are in stable condition and are on heavy doses of antibiotics to prevent infection so hopefully the med bay won¡¯t need to be a priority any time soon. On the bright side of things we¡¯ve managed to rig a makeshift comms network by stringing together ten helmets spaced roughly fifty feet apart to act as relays and thus make use of their local comms integration. With functioning comms between the cargo hold and engineering we should be able to operate much more efficiently. In addition to working comms we¡¯ve been able to get into life support since the ship is no longer running on emergency power so we should be able to run proper maintenance if need be as well as access the emergency rations should food ever become an issue. Tomlinson¡¯s group has been working tirelessly to rid themselves of constant annoyance from the parasites, it seems as though there are far more infected than I could have guessed. I had hoped most of the crew had made it off the ship through the escape pods, and that may still be the case, but now I have to operate as if none of the roughly five-thousand crew members made it off the ship. Regardless of the number of parasites we still need to get ship comms back online if we want to make it out of here, once we reach this goal then I can focus on sending a distress signal and taking my ship back from these pesky parasites.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. The Plan (1) Day 9: Diagnostic reports from the engineers came in today, looks like the ship is stranded until we can get a tugboat. Fortunately we¡¯ve got no need to be on the move right now so this shouldn¡¯t be an issue. I¡¯ve started discussing a plan to gain control of the comms room with Jones and Tomlinson but something I noticed a few days ago has been eating at me. When emergency power ran out during our mission to retake engineering I initially attributed our success to the heads up display provided by our helmets during the blackout but I failed to realize something far more important that became clear after ¡°Professor Brain Implant¡± took a deeper look into my memory. We not only had advanced warning due to our HUD but we also had the advantage in a zero gravity environment. What I had failed to recognize was that the parasites have no experience operating a human body, let alone making it work in zero G whereas zero gravity combat training is something every recruit in the empire accomplishes in boot camp. Our ability to run coordinated operations in a zero G environment could very well be the key to getting this ship back under our control. Jones and Tomlinson are having a hard time agreeing on how we should approach the comms room anyway, perhaps if I give them an option that¡¯ll get the entire ship back they¡¯ll see eye to eye for once. I¡¯ll talk it over with them tomorrow when I feel like their bickering has run its course. I¡¯ll probably need to talk it over with George too, it¡¯d be better if I can coordinate intervals of no gravity to make sure the parasites don¡¯t get too comfy in zero G.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. The Plan (2) Day 10: Jones and Tomlinson are on board with my zero G parasite removal plan. For once they actually agreed on the best approach, we have enough remaining crew to send four combat squads to push the parasites out of key systems which will allow the two capture and repair teams to get those systems back online. Our first objective is to make our way to the comms room to get a message to the empire. It¡¯s been almost two weeks by my count so we¡¯re on the clock now for this message otherwise protocol dictates that a fleet be dispatched to our last known location, which given what we now know about the weapons being used there would be a death sentence for that fleet. If we can get the message out in time we can save an entire fleet and I won¡¯t have to live with the guilt of having let hundreds of thousands of people die on my watch. George wasn¡¯t happy with my request for intermittent gravity, he says that starting back up the gravity field as many times as we would need to would put enough stress on the reactor to potentially blow the reactor if not careful. After who knows how many hours of arguing I told him to suck it up and make damn sure he didn¡¯t blow us all to hell. I hope this plan works because if it doesn¡¯t we¡¯ll most likely all be dead. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Comms Day 11: The plan was a success, for the most part. We managed to clear a path to the comms room and got things running well enough to send a message to command. We informed them of the opposition they faced if they warped to our last known location. An incoming transmission came in about 2 hours later thanking us for the information and saying they couldn¡¯t hone in on our coordinates, strange seeing as I checked the tracking systems and they were working fine. Before we can get a pick up and get the hell out of here we¡¯ll need to build a beacon relay around the star we¡¯re currently orbiting. Luckily we have all the necessary materials on hand since we control the cargo bay already, but this is where things get a bit dicey. During our push for the comms room we nearly blew the reactor, luckily George is as reliable as always and managed to keep the damn thing running but at the cost of most of the ships functionality. While the engineers are building beacons the combat team I assembled for the comms mission is going to take a space walk and cut open the doors to the hangar so we can use the four scouting vessels in there to place the beacons. I expect to run into more opposition from the parasites but this time we can space ¡®em if we can lure them close enough to the wall when we blow the hull open with breaching charges. George is pretty pissed at me for quote ¡°nearly blowing us all to hell¡± and understandably so but someone around here has to make the hard choices and that¡¯s precisely why I got command of this ship in the first place, plus it¡¯s hard to not have faith in the engineer I¡¯ve known for nearly thirty years now. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Discovery Day 12: I feel like a fool today, I never once thought to analyze the ship''s surroundings other than a basic threat scan. We¡¯ve stumbled across something truly amazing here. I first noticed it when the combat team took a space walk to blow the hangar open, that went perfectly by the way, parasites never knew what hit ¡®em. It was pretty trivial to lure them close to the wall by banging on the hull of the ship before blowing it open. Once we had access to the scouting vessels I was able to run some scans on the planet we¡¯re orbiting. The first time I saw it I paid no mind to it as was clearly just a barren wasteland, but when we left the ship today it looked like it had transformed into a lush paradise complete with blue oceans and various land masses ranging from heavy snow cover to thick rainforests to arid deserts, almost reminded me of home for a bit; Then right as I had been entranced by its beauty it transformed into a hellish ball of fire right before my eyes. Initial scans run by one of our scouting vessels suggest the planet is caught in some sort of superposition almost as if it¡¯s trying to be three different planets all at once. We need more data before we can know for sure what is happening here but this could be the discovery of a lifetime. I¡¯ve informed the high command of our findings and they¡¯re sending a research ship along with the rescue expedition. For now we just have to sit tight as they hone in on the beacon array we¡¯ve assembled on the outer edges of the system.This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Rescue Day 14: What a beautiful sight to see; The entire Imperial 3rd Fleet warped in today. I¡¯ve never been so close to so many of our own ships warping into a system before, I¡¯m usually on to the next system before the fleet arrives. I¡¯ve been told the 3rd is equipped with the new lasso drives developed by IRD, although with a mass entry into a system with no stable wormhole it¡¯s likely they just used older jump drives to get here. Still, it truly is an awe inspiring sight to see a 2 mile long behemoth tear a hole through space with ease followed by a hundred or so other ships. I certainly wouldn¡¯t want to be the target of those ships though. I still wonder how they managed to get heat management figured out on those things, it seems far too impractical to run at full power all the time, but who am I to judge our engineers when I¡¯m just a measly scout class cruiser captain. We¡¯ve been put in quarantine to make sure none of the remaining crew have been infected in some way, we¡¯ll likely be out of here tomorrow and sent to report to high command after we trashed one of their precious ships. Speaking of, a recovery crew has been sent to contain the ship as well as secure some of the parasites for study. Hopefully command plans on placing a remote research station in orbit of the star here because this planet is far too interesting to overlook, in addition to the parasites being a potential threat to humanity and all that. I¡¯m curious as to what our scientists want with the parasite specimens they¡¯re collecting since I think the planet is the more interesting point of study but I guess they must have something specific they¡¯re looking for if they¡¯d prioritize one over the other.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Subject 14 Test Subject 14: Subject 14 displays some promising results, while all 13 attempts to reverse parasitism among former crew members of the IES Ice Breaker have resulted in death, 14¡¯s goal was to gain more insight on the parasite¡¯s physiology. Previous tests showed us that even though the host body is still technically alive their brain has been infested by the parasite and any attempt to remove or kill the parasite results in irreparable brain damage, killing the host almost immediately. 14 has shown us that reducing the biomass of the parasite seems to reduce the hold it has over its host¡¯s mind, though any attempt to converse with the host is like trying to pull teeth out of some of those giant flesh eating creatures on outpost E-4R7H. I fear that we will be unable to save any of the infected crew but have hopes that we can implement some countermeasures to prevent this from happening in the future. Regardless of if a cure is possible, 14 has also shown us some interesting facts about this parasite. While the host seems to gain more control as the parasite reduces in mass the healing properties exhibited by the parasite are lessened but not completely gone, suggesting a potential symbiotic relationship in the future, ours is a fragile species when confronted with the weapons of other space faring species and having a reliable way to heal without needing a full sized hospital on every ship could tilt planetside battles in our favor when ground invasions are necessary. More to the point however, subject 14 displays some unique properties with regards to combat function, as the parasite grows in size and gains further control of the host it seems to retain information retaining to the instincts of the host but not the training or memories of said host meaning when fully in control of the host the parasite becomes of very little threat in a combat scenario but exhibits and extreme sense of self preservation. Any damage sustained by the host body will be regenerated by the parasite at the expense of some of the parasite¡¯s mass, further suggesting a potential symbiotic relationship in the future. I¡¯ve attempted to remove some of the parasite in an effort to study its biology in a vacuum however any sample dies and degrades beyond use within a matter of minutes when no host body is present. I will have to find some other way to conduct the experiments I have planned. Unfortunately, subject 14 died after we attempted to reduce the parasite¡¯s mass below 15% of total mass, suggesting some kind of self-destruct feature when heavy damage is sustained, but for a brief moment he seemed almost human again.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Subject 23 Test Subject 23: We finally got approval to introduce rodent test subjects into our research; No more unnecessary human deaths, assuming they can be cured at all that is. The kinds of experiments we need to do now require transferring the parasite to a new host which we refuse to do on other humans, those who have already been infected remain under quarantine but I hope we can find a cure soon. Any attempt to remove a portion of the parasite and transfer it directly to a new host resulted in failure, suggesting that it needs a live host to transfer it directly to a new host. Releasing a rodent into the same room as an infected human results in dinner for the human subject, rather unfortunate for our furry little friend. We¡¯ve found that infection can be prevented entirely with a healthy dose of antibiotics, so it seems as though Captain Undersen¡¯s quick thinking may have indeed saved some lives. We can successfully infect new subjects by creating small incisions in the skin and exposing them to the parasitic growth extruding from already infected hosts. Any attempt to slow down the progress of the growth in the newly infected host with antibiotics either results in the death of the parasite (and in some cases the host as well) or outright failure. Surgical examination of the subjects is rather difficult given the regenerative capabilities of the parasite but a few hasty autopsies during a time span shortly after death of a potential host during the process of infection reveals that the parasite targets the heart and brain first meaning any antibiotics administered after one of these organs are infected will likely result in catastrophic organ failure and ultimately death. Seeing how the parasite prioritizes its own life over that of its host makes me fear that our human patients may never go back to being truly human ever again. Any damage done to the host body is repaired rapidly but if damage is sustained in portions of parasitic growth as well as the host¡¯s main body, the cancerous sections will be repaired first. An interesting feature that was discovered when transferring the parasite from a human host to a rodent host came after some genetic sequencing tests. Blood taken from an infected human displayed new genetic markers that aren¡¯t present in that of a healthy human suggesting that the parasite has, at least to some extent, the capability to splice sections of its host¡¯s DNA. The really interesting discovery came from doing this same test with the rodent test subjects. While we were expecting to find those same genetic markers found in human DNA the parasitic markers found in rodent DNA are entirely different suggesting that not only can the parasite modify its host¡¯s DNA but that it can also modify its own. We will run more tests to be sure but these are some fascinating preliminary results. Once we know for sure we will pass our findings up the chain of command.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Subject 42 Test Subject 42: We¡¯ve finally done it, we finally isolated the parts of the parasites genetic code that are responsible for genetic splicing. Unfortunately the genetic code responsible for self modification is completely separate from the code for host modification so it was a bit tricky to successfully isolate both at the same time. Our next step is to attempt to modify this genetic sequence in an attempt to reverse parasitism among our human patients. For now we¡¯ll have to stick to testing on rodents but we¡¯ve hit a major milestone today, perhaps one that marks a new age for humanity even. I have hopes that we can use this parasite to perhaps enhance the natural capabilities of our species. Before I get ahead of myself we must figure out a way to remove the harmful parasites from their hosts without killing the host. I suspect that this can be done by altering the genetic sequence of the bits of DNA responsible for host and self modification. Hopefully by changing the parasite to favor the host''s life over its own we can produce something more along the lines of a symbiotic organism rather than parasitic one. First things first we¡¯ve managed to adjust the self modifying strand of DNA to hopefully rewrite the parasites objectives to favor the host, the problem we¡¯ve encountered however is that by introducing this strand of DNA to an infected host body is problematic at best, largely due to the larger mass of malignant parasite overwriting the changes we¡¯ve made. We need to find some way to change the genetics of a large section of the parasite before exposing it to smaller portions of parasite to give the new parasite, which I will now be calling a symbiote, a chance to win the battle. I see two potential methods to achieve this goal. The first is rather tricky since it requires a live parasite outside of a host body which means we will have very little working time and will require constant feeding of organic material during the process. The second method is much more technical than the first but may end up being our only option to keep the parasite alive during its transition to symbiote. To accomplish this we must infect a new host with only one cell of parasite and quickly modify its DNA before it begins to take over the host. If we can successfully manage a symbiotic version of this parasite perhaps we can then cure our human patients with similar methods, and then once that is done maybe I can secure funding to study this creature for further, more beneficial, uses of its DNA splicing abilities.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Subject 51 Test Subject 51: Even More remarkable news today, during one of our previous gene splicing experiments Dr. Charlis Hanbak noticed a surprising similarity in the behaviors of the parasite and Urci embryos. When studied further, although it took a few tries to get a stable specimen to study, we revealed that the parasite is indeed a heavily modified form of an Urci embryo, this would explain why the parasites showed some symbiotic behavior rather than killing the host subject outright. Humans and the Urci race had been at each other¡¯s throats for centuries shortly after the war with the Ympine but while we were in the first encounters stage of our relationship a few ¡°curious¡± individuals found out that the Urci are a unisex species that implants a parasitic embryo in their partners (or victims in most cases). These embryos inevitably kill their ¡°mother¡± when it is time to be born and claw their way out of their incubation chamber which sparked the centuries long conflict between the Human and Urci races. Now, the unique thing about Urci spawn is that during the incubation process the embryo gains some of its hosts¡¯ features, weather those be physical or mental, so over time the Urci have picked up traits from the Elphari, Darvic, Humans, and even many predator species from their homeworld. Somehow they even managed to pick up photosynthesis along the way, giving them their distinct green skin.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Despite the horrors that are the Urci reproductive cycle a coalition of Human, Darvic, and Elphari scientists developed a way to inoculate our populations to the harm done by Urci embryos making it so the fear of dying to an Urci time bomb was no longer present, making it so relations between Urci and the other three races could become more diplomatic in nature. While this heavily modified version of an Urci embryo shows an impressive mastery over genetic manipulation the fact that they managed to miss our species wide resistance to this phenomena shows a distinct lack of foresight and capability to gather information. Now that we know these parasites are Urci at their core it should just be a matter of digging up old research logs and modifying the original cure to fit our current needs. Our adversaries have resorted to hastily produced bioweapons in an effort to stop our exploration of the galaxy but we won¡¯t be deterred so easily. As long as I draw breath I will make sure the Human race stands tall in the face of all who would seek to bring about our end. I¡¯ll also have to make sure to thank Hanbak for his contribution to this discovery. Reassignment Pause in Research: We¡¯ve been instructed to pause our research for the time being. I¡¯ve been told that we are being relocated to outpost E-4R7H, a watery planet with one large landmass ruled in large part by reptilian and avian creatures, among some other various types of life, both aquatic and terrestrial in nature. With our recent discovery as to the true nature of the parasite found on captain Undersen¡¯s ship, High Command has seen fit to reassign us to this outpost as a staging ground for future experiments into the genetic splicing characteristics of the parasite. While we are away from our lab, infected human subjects have been moved into cryogenic containment pending a potential cure, if we manage to come up with a safe way to remove the parasite. Preliminary reports from the outpost show promising results as to the use of these monstrous creatures for military purposes, namely their large size and intimidating stature would make quite the statement as the vanguard forces of an invasion should the need arise. Despite these promising results, the team at this outpost has lost several members in attempts to subdue the native species. Our primary goal going forward is to find a way to make these creatures more open to suggestion in order to facilitate the conditions necessary for them to be able to follow orders given to them by us. I have my reservations about the viability of this plan, from what I¡¯ve heard about these creatures they seem to operate on pure instinct with nary a thought about the consequences of their actions, we seem to have our work cut out for us indeed. Due to the unlikely nature of successfully achieving this goal I have come prepared with a backup plan. In the event that we do not, in fact, manage to subdue the native species of this planet and bend them to our will. I have proposed a series of experiments to see if we can use the parasite to grab some of these creatures¡¯ DNA and transfer it to another species that is more receptive to our commands. If all else fails we can turn this rock into a training ground for our own troops, it seems highly unlikely that we¡¯ll run into anything more ferocious than what this planet can provide on our travels through the cosmos so this will be the perfect training regimen for our soldiers, perhaps we can even start our own little super soldier factory with the help of our parasitic friend. Regardless of the path we end up following, this planet has opened up some interesting opportunities, ones that I will be sure to take advantage of.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Subject E-12 Subject E-12: With the latest test subject in what I¡¯ve so creatively dubbed the ¡°E¡± line, named after the outpost in which we now operate, we¡¯ve finally made minor progress toward our end goal of successfully integrating the parasite into our reptilian friends. These enormous brutes have proven to be rather hard to capture alive, a bit surprising I suppose but irritating nonetheless. Failure in all eleven of our prior attempts to infect the larger specimen of this planet have forced us to resort to more, let¡¯s say, humble methods. With no progress being made and with larger subjects so rare, we¡¯ve switched our focus to smaller members of this planet¡¯s ecosystem which immediately showed promising results. In the prior eleven attempts to infect a larger host with the parasite all subjects appeared to be immune to its effects, at first we attributed this to a mismatch in the genetic code of our subjects and the parasite, perhaps they were just too dissimilar from what the parasite was intended to do. Upon completion of the tests conducted on subject 12, however, we have seen results that could disprove our prior hypothesis. After successfully infecting a host taken from one of the smaller species of the planet we took a look at their genetic code and compared it to that of the larger species and we found that key genetic markers that would be changed by the parasite are identical in both the larger and smaller species, suggesting that some other mysterious force is behind the failed attempts to infect the larger species.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. Going forward I have devised a few key points I want to focus on in future experiments. The first is testing whether or not we can now infect a larger host by using a sample of the parasite taken from the infected, smaller, host that we already have. Next if this fails perhaps we can infect a larger host by increasing the amount of parasitic biomass introduced at the time of infection, it sounds a bit pedestrian but it won¡¯t hurt to check all avenues of investigation in this matter. And on that point I also want to do a deep dive into the specific anatomy of the immune system of these creatures, perhaps our initial assumptions of the mechanisms of these creatures are missing some key detail that could prove to be the reason behind the resilience of these creatures. Regardless of the slow progress I¡¯ve found that I have grown quite fond of these strange ¡°monsters¡± as my colleagues have taken to calling them, their behavior, although a bit brutish at times, shows flashes of intelligence and empathy that you wouldn¡¯t find on creatures from our home world. Subject E-16 Subject E-16: After 3 more failed attempts we¡¯ve finally achieved some results, although I don¡¯t think they were quite what we expected, but they should be useful nonetheless. After our last three attempts failed to successfully infect a larger specimen we decided to hold off on parasitic experimentation until we knew more about these creatures, ¡°monsters¡± as my associates would call them just doesn¡¯t feel right, perhaps we can figure out a better name in the future. Anyway, we¡¯ve decided to do a deep dive into these creatures¡¯ anatomies, something we should have done from the very beginning but we were hasty and wanted quick results. We started with an analysis of some blood samples taken from both large and small creatures and what we found was very intriguing indeed. Larger and smaller specimens seem to have two entirely unique blood chemistries, the larger creatures seem to have an additional type of white blood cells and an incredible immune response to foreign invaders, whereas creatures of the smaller variety have only one type of white blood cell and have a much more delayed response to infection than their larger counterparts. I hypothesize that this could be due to the larger creatures engaging in much more fights that could result in a multitude of bacterial or viral infections, meaning that if we manage to successfully complete our initial goal we¡¯ll have an even stronger weapon than we initially realized, we could perhaps even manage to produce a vaccine from their blood as they are now, obviously this would require extensive testing as to the safety of such a thing but the opportunity still remains if we should decide to take it. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Our next step toward achieving our goals is to figure out a way to combat the larger creatures extreme response to foreign bodies, a few members of the team are in favor of a full blood transfusion from the smaller creatures but to get enough blood would take almost ten fully grown subject just to get enough for one of the larger specimen. I¡¯ve proposed a compromise, we¡¯ll first take blood samples from both subjects and mix them together in order to see if the immune response of the larger one can be mitigated in some way. If that doesn¡¯t show any promising results we move on to more drastic measures, such as attempting a full transfusion with infected specimen of the smaller class of creature or perhaps even attempting to reprogram the parasite to follow our orders in the smaller creature, if that can even be done, then having a swarm of small creatures attack a large one in hopes of overwhelming its immune response. This project is proving to be one hell of a task, but at least it keeps my mind occupied. Subject E-19 Subject E-19: Today is a day filled with both wondrous discovery and extreme sorrow. We''ve made major breakthroughs in our research but in doing so some of the members of our team went behind my back and managed to kill one of our infected people that we keep quarantined. A few days ago we were studying the effects of adding this additional type of blood cell from the larger specimen into other species, what we found was remarkable. We discovered that we could use the gene splicing traits of the parasite to modify a single of these additional cells to fit another species. We¡¯d then introduce this newly modified cell into its host before then trying to infect said host with the parasite. What we found was that a host body with enough of these cells could effectively fight off any parasitic growth. I then formed my hypothesis of using these cells to modify our own bodies to protect us against the parasite, effectively giving our soldiers, and any colonies too of course, a shield against it should the enemy deploy such a weapon again. Unfortunately some of my team drew their own misguided conclusions. After seeing the results from tests done on a few other species a member of my team somehow got the idea that these cells were a cure all and could be used to eradicate the parasite from our infected patients, one of which was this man¡¯s wife. Driven by undeniably good intentions he was led to take untested and unsafe measures, out of a desire to cure his wife he introduced many of these modified cells into his wife¡¯s infected body. Normally this would have done nothing to an already infected host but he had used enough to displace the amount of parasitic cells already in place, this led to the parasite dying off rather quickly and as we discovered in the early days of our research led to, rather predictably, the death of the patient. Stricken by grief the man attempted to kill himself but was unaware that the parasitic remains of his now dead wife could still infect others and as the life was fading out of his body a parasite was worming its way in. He now exists in a parasitic suspension, neither alive nor dead. I¡¯ve often wondered if the infected retained any memory at all under that mass of parasitic goo but perhaps I no longer wish for that, if we manage to find a way to cure these people and he has to come back knowing what he¡¯s done I fear he will be broken beyond repair.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. The rest of the team is understandably demoralized by these events and productive research has slowed to a snail''s pace but as the leader of this team it is my duty to lift everyone''s spirits, hopefully I¡¯m up to the task. Subject E-25 Subject E-25: Progress has slowed significantly, it¡¯s felt like we¡¯re on the cusp of a breakthrough for months but we can¡¯t seem to get this damned parasite to mesh with larger specimens and we¡¯re beginning to run out of options. The parasite adapts too slowly to be able to overcome these creatures'' unique blood structure, the only thing I can think of right now would be a complete blood transfusion from a group of the smaller category of creature but that doesn''t even guarantee compatibility of the blood itself. Even if the larger creature survives the process it would likely become too weak to even be useful to us. If we can¡¯t think of something soon we¡¯ll have to resort to this method as a last ditch effort but to give us some time I''ve placed live test subject experiments on hold in order to run more tests on the parasites themselves, perhaps there are some things we missed in our initial analysis of its biology. Due to slow progress and low moral I ordered a mandatory vacation for the entire team two weeks ago and we just got back to work a few days ago, so while progress has continued to be slow it¡¯s showed signs of picking up again with the team in higher spirits, it seems like just a matter of time before we¡¯re making breakthroughs left and right. With all this in mind I¡¯ve also split the team into two groups, an analysis team and an implementation team. The analysis team will be responsible for studying the parasite closely to perhaps pick up on any traits we missed in our prior examination of our goopy adversary. Meanwhile the implementation team will test out methods of forcing the parasite to adapt to certain conditions and perhaps even make it a symbiote if the proper conditions are met. If the analysis team comes up with any useful information the implementation team will act on it accordingly to develop new methods of adaptation, infection, and prevention. In light of needing to halt live subject testing, our need for acquiring new subjects will be drastically reduced for the time being so our capture team will be switched to maintaining the current subjects for the most part while keeping track of potential subjects for future tests and/or if the current subjects need to be replaced for one reason or another. We¡¯ve had a rough time these past few months but we¡¯re determined to see this through to the end, regardless of what we may find.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Analysis Team, Day 11 Analysis Team, Day 11: The analysis team came back with some amazing results today. We may have finally discovered a way to bypass the larger creatures'' unique defense systems. By taking an already infected host and introducing a small amount of dead or near dead blood cells from a larger specimen, treating it in a similar way to a vaccine, we appear to have inoculated the infected creature against the unique white blood cell of the larger creatures. Further testing has proven that these ¡®vaccinated¡¯ parasites have almost no degradation when live blood cells are introduced into the host. At first we had assumed that the parasite had simply changed its DNA once again to fit its needs after being introduced to weakened blood cells from the larger creatures, but additional analysis into the parasite''s makeup has almost completely disproved this hypothesis. After intense study the team concluded that there must be some other method of self preservation present in the parasite which allows it to react in such a way to dead cells but not to live ones at the moment of first introduction. Further tests after this conclusion have shown that newly infected hosts using the parasite which is now immune to the larger creatures¡¯ blood have also exhibited the same immunity. Knowing this we took a look at the parasite¡¯s blood during the vaccination process, since we can¡¯t simply look at this thing under a microscope since any parasite taken from its host will die after a short amount of time we had to come up with another method. We decided on injecting microscopic cameras into the parasite along with the vaccine. This proved to be a wise choice, the parasite doesn¡¯t exactly have a vascular system so blood is essentially just floating around in free space, oxidation coming primarily from the host¡¯s cardiovascular system. Despite not having any vascular system of its own the parasite¡¯s own white blood cells have an unusually quick response to new threats, from what we can tell, all the white blood cells present in the parasite clump around any new threats in an attempt to eliminate the threat, however in certain cases this isn¡¯t exactly what happens. The parasitic cells seem to have a ¡®contest¡¯ of sorts to see which is the strongest. In the case of the weakened creature white blood cells the parasitic cells win out and begin to carry a sort of chemical marker that is then shared with other white blood cells which tells them to kill any of the creature cells that get introduced into the system. However, something remarkable happens when healthy cells are introduced. When the ¡®contest¡¯ is performed against healthy white blood cells from the larger creatures the parasitic cells ¡®lose¡¯ and then all become blood cells from the creatures which then kills the parasite and its host. These finding suggest that not only does the parasite have the ability to change its DNA on the whole, but rather it can change each individual cell¡¯s DNA to suit its needs, in the case of white blood cells the parasite seems to look for whichever is strongest, regardless of if it¡¯s detrimental to itself. The Implementation team is going to have a field day with this.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Implementation Team Implementation Team, Day 14: As I suspected, the implementation team is running wild with a ton of new ideas they want to test and have already successfully tested many others. The team has already been able to successfully infect larger specimens and do so consistently, they¡¯ve also managed to make the parasite less infectious once it¡¯s taken residence in a host body that suits it well. Perhaps the most exciting thing they¡¯ve come up with however is a combination of modifying the cells harmful to the parasite to be less of a lethal threat, as well as modifying the parasite itself to be more compatible with the cells. The general idea is to create a version of the parasite that acts as a boon to its host rather than a bane. To achieve this the team first uses the parasite''s genetic modification abilities to modify a single white blood cell taken from a larger creature specimen, this modified cell has been tasked with monitoring the parasite to make sure it stays mostly dormant within its host''s body. The parasite itself is then slowly introduced to these new cells which take control of the parasite over time, this forces the parasite to comply with whatever parameters the white blood cells have set for the parasite. The goal we are trying to achieve is creating a version of this parasite that could no longer be classified as a parasite, but rather a symbiote. This symbiote will no longer have the main directive of taking control of its host but rather will seek to aid its host however it can. We suspect this can lead to many things, faster muscle growth, higher muscle density, definitely faster healing, and perhaps even faster information processing in the brain. While these possibilities are extremely exciting I¡¯ve warned the team to be cautious with their testing as we don¡¯t want a repeat of the ¡°Incident¡±. Regardless the team remains in high spirits and progress continues to push on at a steady pace, things are looking good for this avenue of research.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. I¡¯ve also received word from high command. They¡¯re looking to implement our results as soon as possible. I¡¯ve warned them that we are still months away, at best, from having these things ready for battle but they are pushing me to speed up the implementation process. I have not told the team about this as I don¡¯t want them to feel the stress of being constantly hounded by high command to produce results, that could only ever lead to mistakes and poor results overall. I shall continue to keep this secret from the team until we are finished, I just hope they don¡¯t see this as me distrusting them and that they¡¯ll forgive me for keeping this to myself. Symbiote Creation Project Symbiote Creation Project, Day 13: We¡¯ve made solid strides towards achieving our ultimate goal of creating a symbiotic relationship between the parasites and mankind. So far we¡¯ve managed to create a version of the parasite that could now be classified as a symbiote. As of now this symbiote only functions within the body of the reptilian creatures found on outpost E-4R7H. Our next step is to move on to rodent trials using already infected rodents to see if we can incorporate this symbiote into a parasitic host in order to modify said parasite into a symbiote. So far the reptilian creatures have shown very promising results, they¡¯ve displayed a significant improvement in various physical tests. Most notably is the fact that any physical damage sustained appears to be healed much faster than normal, albeit slightly slower than the parasite would heal, and said damage seems to be less painful for the test subject when inflicted. We¡¯ve also noticed a roughly 30% increase in stamina when chasing prey, this could be attributed to either the physical augmentation provided by the parasite or perhaps mental augmentation providing an increase in will power, further study is required to know for sure. Something slightly concerning is that creatures with a symbiote appear to be much more docile, or perhaps friendly would be the right term, when they aren¡¯t hunting, however during the hunt they are much more aggressive than normal, suggesting that the symbiote alters the mental state of the creature it inhabits, definitely something we need to look into more.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. I suspect that the unstable mood of our reptilian subjects could be attributed to their bodies attempting to reject the symbiote but I can¡¯t know for sure until we conduct some more tests, for which we require the equipment necessary to conduct some brain scans on these creatures. We have the equipment to do this on humans and rodents but with these larger creatures we will likely have to modify some of our existing equipment. I¡¯ve already notified High Command about our situation but they¡¯ve said it would take months before we get any kind of equipment capable of what we need it for. If scans show a high amount of mental tampering by the symbiote we¡¯ll most likely need to modify it some more before we can even begin to think about implementing it in human trails, we¡¯ve all been itching to save the infected crew members of the IES Ice Breaker but we need to take every precaution we can, especially now that we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Perhaps I¡¯ll think up some incentives to keep everyone on the team as cautious as possible until this is done. Test Subject Terminus Test Subject Terminus: Well, we¡¯ve really done it now. We were on the cusp of greatness, but perhaps we wanted too much, flew too high. Our time on outpost E-4R7H has come to an end. During our last experiment we placed a heavily modified version of our symbiote into one of the larger specimens in our care. At first things looked great, physical strength was up as well as apparent mental acuity. Regeneration of damage sustained was remarkably fast. Everything was in place for this to be the perfect test; We even tested on a subject previously infected with the parasite we¡¯ve been so desperately trying to rid ourselves of, no problems removing said parasite. But as we entered the final stage of our test, giving the creature command signal via a device that could communicate with the symbiote, disaster struck. When given a command signal the test subject entered a state of wild frenzy and managed to breach containment. We managed to track its path through the planet but unfortunately it did not stay solitary for long. Upon reaching other living creatures it began to attack them, spreading the symbiote to anything it came into contact with, all sent into the same frenzy the moment it took hold. Perhaps we messed up with our calculations or maybe the parasite fought back in some unforeseen way when introduced to the symbiote, we¡¯ll likely never know for sure. What is known is that we were ordered to destroy the infected test subjects and get rid of any evidence that these experiments were even taking place. High Command doesn¡¯t want to take any chances of the enemy finding out what we were doing here.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! We¡¯ve hauled a large asteroid into orbit and have been ordered to drop it on the planet. However there are some parts of the order I cannot bring myself to follow. We are instructed to leave our human patients on the planet when we drop the asteroid but I refuse to do so. What is the point of all the effort and research if we just kill off the infected anyway, no, I will not admit defeat so easily. I¡¯ve made one last adjustment to our symbiotes DNA, removing the parts intended to respond to commands, the parts that apparently put us into this situation. I¡¯ve also made the executive decision to inject all of our human patients with this final symbiote formulation. The results seem acceptable given the circumstances. All patients have seemed to regain control of their own bodies and the parasitic mass protruding from their bodies has vanished. Unfortunately it appears that their minds are too far gone, they show no signs of having a memory of what happened, nor do they show signs of being able to even speak. I cannot bring them with us, lest High Command learn of my transgressions, but when the dust settles they will have a home on this blue gem, perhaps time will be as kind to them as it once was to us. Orders from High Command Old Ships Suck: I can¡¯t believe the job I¡¯ve been tasked with today, those idiots in High Command want me to update the designs for every ship in our navy. I wish I could call them idiots to their face but if I did I¡¯d be tried for treason and given a death sentence for sure. Anyway these mudbrains thought it¡¯d be a brilliant idea to update ships that are, oh I don¡¯t know, roughly four millennia old. I¡¯m sure I could come up with the designs for the ships pretty easily, at least over the next few years would be no problem, which is what I told them of course, guess I¡¯m an idiot too. The problem is that no one has built any new ships for our empire in four-thousand years, most of our shipyards are in decay and the ones that aren¡¯t are only ever used for ship maintenance, which is an automated process anyway. No one actually knows how to work on these ships, nor does anyone know how to build ships anymore. We¡¯ve become complacent in our status as the most powerful navy in the galaxy for quite some time, and now that we¡¯ve actually faced some resistance we can¡¯t even build more ships to replace our losses, it seems like we¡¯re screwed to me. The Darvic peoples that were once considered the best ship builders, and were one of our closest allies, have been wiped out by our foolish leadership ages ago, it¡¯d sure be nice to have some of them around now. Basically I¡¯ve been tasked with single handedly pulling an empire out of a four-thousand year decline, a task that most would consider impossible, luckily for me I have some ideas. If I¡¯m going to be able to pull this off I¡¯ll need to gather a team of curious individuals, a lot of them, who will go to what was once the Darvic home world. Once there this team will dig up anything and everything related to shipbuilding, if we¡¯re going to have even a slight chance of pulling this off in time we need to know the Darvish secrets to building ships, they built our super dreadnoughts after all. High Command gave me some old design documentation for all of our ships but they are woefully uninformative, perhaps if we can find some Darvish documents for the same ships we can cross reference them with our own documents to perhaps figure out exactly what these old design docs are really saying. I¡¯ve got my work cut out for me, without a doubt, but the more I think about the situation, the more I have hope that this will work.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. The Darvic Library Darvic Shorthand: Well, I finally got my hands on some Darvish documents related to the construction of our super dreadnaughts after weeks of digging through an old library on Darvac 4. Unfortunately the notes spread throughout the documents are practically indecipherable, everything is written in some form of shorthand, it would¡¯ve been hard enough if it was written in plain Darvic Script but now I have to practically translate an entirely new language all on my own. Even our best linguists had no idea what they were looking at. I¡¯m beginning to think my initial assessment of this plan as wildly idioctic was correct, not like High Command would admit it though, I¡¯d probably be executed for even saying something like that about them. On the bright side, however, I have an entire Darvish library at my disposal, maybe I can find some information related to the shorthand used in their documentation of ship designs. At the very least I should be able to gain some insight about how they designed ships, what techniques they used, how they made their materials, production flow, things of that nature. As much as I¡¯d like to just bury my nose in the contents of this library it would seem that I must stay focused on the task given to me. With our enemies continuing to band together against us time seems to speed up, giving me less and less to make a difference. Time may not be on my side, but as of now information is; The Darvic people were the best shipwrights in the galaxy, going back to the dawn of our empire. I¡¯d liked to have learned from them directly, unfortunately they were wiped out in the Second Urci War, or so I¡¯m told, the books I¡¯ve found here relating to the Urci all tell that by the time of the super dreadnaughts the Urci were far too weak to take on imperial fleets. I suspect High Command knows what really happened to the Darvic and is hiding the truth from everyone. I want to get to the bottom of this, so the Darvic can have their story told properly some day, but for now I must focus on the survival of my own people, the dead have time to spare whilst the living must grasp every second as if their life depends on it, truly an unfair deal.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. I¡¯ve gathered a collection of roughly thirteen books about shipbuilding and drafting, if I am to learn anything about how the Darvic designed ships it¡¯ll be contained in these surprisingly well preserved relics of an age long past. Then maybe, just maybe, I¡¯ll be able to create a design worthy of being called an upgrade to the work of these master craftsmen. Setback Water Damage: Some idiot spilled whatever they were drinking all over my data pad yesterday, of course that idiot was me and I was drinking water, but I¡¯m still mad about it regardless. Nearly two weeks of translated texts down the drain. I spent all yesterday attempting to repair the damage but sadly much of the internals have been fried and the data is likely gone for good. With this setback I¡¯ll likely have to consider calling in a few favors with some of my colleagues to help finish the translations. I had hoped to have these translations done by next week to be on schedule for the next step of the process, or at least the schedule I¡¯ve set for myself, officially there is no deadline but I¡¯m certain High Command won¡¯t have infinite patience in this matter. Ironically, I¡¯m sure those ever crafty little Darvic technicians have some kind of text relating to the repair of such devices but I simply don¡¯t have time to conduct such a silly side quest when the fate of our entire species could potentially rest on my shoulders. Hopefully I can finish these translations relatively quickly. In lighter news the archeology team has found some old examples of Darvish ships that were in production in an old shipyard two star systems away. Roughly fifteen ships were found, all in various states of completion. I can¡¯t wait to get my hands on those ships which are set to arrive here next week, the reason for my current translation related dilemma. If I can finish translating the Darvic documents by the time those ships arrive I¡¯ll have both written and physical documentation of the Darvic ship building process, information that will be invaluable during the later stages of the project. The information that I retained during my own translations of the old texts gave me a bit of insight into the shorthand notation on some of the old drafting documents that the Darvish designers used, it seemed rather crude but also quite efficient, so I can¡¯t really fault them for having such a system in place. I can tell that there is so much knowledge in this place and it¡¯s a shame it has been forgotten for so long. It really makes me wonder just how much of our own knowledge we¡¯ve allowed ourselves to lose over the years, with machines performing much of our construction and maintenance duties it¡¯s no wonder nobody has any idea how to design a new ship. I¡¯d bet we hardly have anyone who can even reprogram our shipyards to be able to build a new design anyway, we¡¯ve been building the same ships for so long it¡¯d be a miracle if they could.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it Translations Complete Good Progress: Our setback last week turned out to be not so bad, after calling in a few favors with some friends we were able to finish the translations of the Darvic documents in just under a week, days before the ships arrived. With a few days head start of analysis on the documents I was able to get a better understanding of the ships that were sent to us before they even arrived. Unfortunately for us, many of the materials needed to make their ships so tough are made in very specialized forges that were designed to be operated by the Darvish people, the difference in stature and muscle density between our species would prove to be a major roadblock in the manufacturing process. So naturally someone is going to have to try to redesign the Darvic forges to be used by human hands, likely adding seemingly unnecessary complexity to cope with humanity''s naturally weaker frames. Despite yet another setback such as this we¡¯ve made great strides in our understanding of Darvish technology and manufacturing as a whole, many of the pieces of this puzzle are starting to come together and perhaps there is a glimmer of light at the end of this tunnel. In the short time that I¡¯ve had with the ships I¡¯ve noticed some interesting quirks about Darvish designs that I¡¯d like to incorporate into my own. First off they seem to use the entire hull of the ship as a heat sink rather than having a dedicated heat sink within the ship, on larger ships such as the ones I¡¯m tasked with refitting this hull design would add an exponential increase in effectiveness against energy weapons, the kind of weaponry that many of our enemies currently employ. Another feature that I¡¯ve noticed is that the ships appear to be built in a modular manner, having a shipyard for each module could speed up construction times but retrofitting this means of manufacturing onto the frames of our current ship would be next to impossible; I know high command will want me to try anyway because they have no understanding of how this kind of thing actually works but perhaps we can use this for some future ship designs, say some kind of new ship class to support our dreadnaughts in battle.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. I¡¯ve just barely scratched the surface of the wealth of knowledge the Darvic people had on the subject of ship construction and manufacturing but my spirits have been lifted just from having access to readable forms of their documents, their shorthand is beginning to make more sense and I even feel as if I¡¯m beginning to understand their thought process and design philosophy in relation to shipbuilding to some extent, I hope this trend continues. Darvic Ship Construction Darvic Shipbuilding Characteristics: It¡¯s become apparent in recent days that the Darvish shipwrights held firm to a philosophy of quality over quantity, perhaps a philosophy which ultimately led to their demise. Many of the examples brought over from the old shipyard have proven to be much more sophisticated than even our own ships of the time, I¡¯ve been told that the Darvish people aided us in shipbuilding during the time of the great expansion but it seems as though they might have been our primary source of knowledge on the subject, the heat management and energy deflection systems are lightyears ahead of anything we even have now, it appears as though the Darvic race were masters of defensive strategy. This revelation had led me to wonder about the nature of their downfall, I was always told that it was the war with the Urci that led to their demise but from the information I have here the Urci wouldn¡¯t have had anything that could come close to even putting a dent in these ships, granted, the ships we have here were likely still years away from completion, suggesting that perhaps the Darvish wrights simply couldn¡¯t keep up with demand for new ships. Regardless, the history books are starting to look just a bit more suspect in my eyes. Obviously I can never let anyone know that I think this but perhaps I can find the truth amongst all this rubble without raising the suspicions of High Command.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. With regards to my current mission I¡¯ve found what I believe to be the secret of the Darvic manufacturing process, graphene layered hulls. In some of their texts there are references to a large graphene foundry called ¡°Thinstone¡±. Apparently they use this foundry to produce a ship hull made of multiple layers of graphene and some currently unknown alloy appearing to consist largely of nickel; I''ll likely spend the next few weeks analyzing this alloy. These layered alloy hulls are then brought to a shipyard to be fitted with whatever systems are necessary for the role the hull was designated for, apparently they used a modular design in order to use the same hull for any role they wished, perhaps another limiting factor in their doctrine but I¡¯m not a military analyst so that¡¯s not exactly my place to say. Regardless, their focus on raw strength and durability is admirable and it remains obvious that there is much to learn from these long deceased shipbuilding masters. I will return to the library soon to compare the methods of shipbuilding to the documentation found about our own ships that we had built by them. Perhaps there could even be some documentation about the alliance between our peoples hidden in there somewhere to sate my curiosity. Secrets Uncovered Incredible Find: The Darvic library has proven to be much more interesting than I had expected, not only have I learned an incredible amount about how the Darvish people built their ships, I¡¯ve also learned much about Darvic culture itself. Apparently the Darvish leadership was determined through a series of competitions centered around craftsmanship, with the most skilled craftsman becoming what could be classified as a king among the dwarves I suppose. However, despite having a king, Darvish society did not function like a monarchy, instead the runners up in the competition became a small council of sorts who held the power to nullify any decrees regarding internal affairs made by the king through an 80% majority vote. Foreign policy decisions had to be made through a unanimous vote among all members of the small council. I¡¯ve also discovered something that could shake the very foundations of the empire and my focus has been dwindling lately because of it. Upon returning to the Darvic library to conduct more research I noticed a small breeze coming from one of the walls while reading, when I inspected the wall I found the base of what appeared to be a lever with the handle broken off of it. Initially I thought nothing of it, that is, until I found the missing handle in the clutches of a Darvic skeleton behind a large shelf that had fallen over, the poor creature must¡¯ve been trapped for days. When I activated the lever sparks flew from the base of it and it appeared as though nothing else had happened, until I noticed a small crack forming in the wall next to it. I spent roughly half an hour prying the walls open to reveal a much larger chamber housing what appeared to be some kind of war room. The smell of rot and decay filled my nostrils and felt as if it were eating away at my skin, to my horror this room had become a mass grave for the Darvic leadership, they must¡¯ve been trapped by the damage done to the door controls. The bodies weren¡¯t the only disturbing find, in that room I found documents regarding the last days of the Darvish people, documents that showed who killed them off. I could hardly believe it when I read them but as more and more documents and readouts from their ancient computers confirmed their contents it became evident that I had been lied to my whole life, we were responsible for the extinction of the Darvic people. I am ashamed that the High Council would hide this from everyone and I have become conflicted about my current path. For now this is a burden I must bear alone, nobody can know about this, if the public found out now then it could tear the empire apart. I¡¯ve sealed the room so no one else can enter and I will return to work as if nothing has happened, perhaps there will be a time in which the truth can be revealed however if High Command finds out that I know this information then I will surely be killed to maintain the coverup. I need to know why they¡¯ve done this but any further digging will surely lead to my death. For now my loyalty to the empire must appear as unwavering as ever.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Creeping Paranoia Activate Shipyards: Getting back to work, I¡¯ve come to realize that Darvic shipyards are much more capable than I had initially given them credit for. With some broad repairs and some fine tuning perhaps I can tool one of their shipyards to produce the new ships my team and I have been designing. Granted this is a short term solution which would give us very limited production capabilities. Ideally I¡¯d have enough time to reverse engineer the entire shipyard in order to be able to create new shipyards capable of creating a wide variety of ships, but my time frame for this project is already rather short. Perhaps I¡¯ll designate a secondary team towards reverse engineering while I get some of these old shipyards functioning again. Working with the rest of the design team has proven to be more difficult in recent days. I find myself constantly on edge, wondering if they know about what I¡¯ve uncovered. Their eyes watch me as I attempt to maintain composure, unsure if they can see through this facade I¡¯ve created. I know I shouldn¡¯t worry but if anyone finds out what I¡¯ve been hiding from them I¡¯ll likely have to disappear, I could never show my face in human territory ever again, even the frontier colonies will be on the lookout for the man who leaked the empire¡¯s secrets, I¡¯ll have to go to some alien world and humans are not treated kindly by the other species of the galaxy.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. I¡¯m trying to keep my paranoia in check but I can¡¯t escape the feeling of impending doom. I must push on with my task, the empire has put its faith in me and so I shall see this job through to the end. The design team has been branching out with a multitude of new designs each iteration more compelling than the last, I¡¯m unsure if these designs will be compatible with the Darvic tooling we currently have available but I suppose we¡¯ll cross that bridge when we get there. For now I will let my team run wild with their designs and we¡¯ll update them to fit our tooling once we get to that point, perhaps we¡¯ll be able to modify the shipyards to fit our needs by then. I¡¯ve also sent word to high command requesting a psychiatrist to be sent out in order to maintain the mental health of the team, obviously this is mainly for myself but I can¡¯t let high command know I¡¯m going crazy so I¡¯ve stated that it¡¯s for the teams mental health and not just for me, I¡¯m sure some others are in need of this anyway. Looming Threats Stress Relief: The amount of stress this job is causing has proven to be more than I think any of us had expected. The psychiatrist I hired has deemed that we¡¯re all in an unhealthy mental state, I suspect she has some ulterior motive for this diagnosis, perhaps she wants to sabotage our work, maybe get someone else to take over, someone close to her that she can reap the benefits of this project from. What if she¡¯s trying to find out our secrets to blackmail us, dear gods, if she ever found out about what I¡¯ve uncovered I¡¯d be finished for sure. I must find a way to get rid of her, even if it means killing her, no, that¡¯d be too far, I need to maintain a certain level of sanity if I want High Command to let me continue my work, it¡¯s far too important to throw away like that. The shipyards have been activated and my team is working on getting them set up to build our ships. The design team has been lagging behind lately so the designs might not be ready in time, I need to push them and myself harder, we need to get this done in a timely manner, the empire needs these new ships. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Perhaps a feast will ease everyone¡¯s minds, if a break is what they need, then a break they shall have. Organizing a feast for an entire planetary workforce will be hard but it should be worth it in the long run. I¡¯ll run my plan past the psych to keep her off my back while I create my plan to rid us of her, I should have never let her in this place. Hmm, perhaps I can rid myself of her sooner than I planned; If I show her what I¡¯ve found and then lock her in the hidden chamber then I won¡¯t have to worry, it can be written off as an accident, a simple missing persons case, yes this can work. A big feast to keep everyone distracted while I rid myself of this parasite that has been eating away at our souls. Work can finally resume at a normal pace once the feast is over, everyone will be happy, including High Command once they see how quickly our productivity increases. Soon this world will once again be home to the finest ship manufactory in the galaxy. I can see it now, waves of ships rushing out of our shipyards ready to pummel the empire¡¯s foes, nothing can stop us from achieving our goals now. I must go now, there is much planning to be done, and we don¡¯t want to keep our guests waiting. The Feast A Grand Feast Indeed: The feast has been had, the rats are gone, how did I ever think this could go bad? Everything has become so clear now, those vermin were trying to poison my mind, but I wouldn¡¯t let them, noooo. I¡¯ve become the master of this outpost and my grand manufactory shall become the greatest in the empire. They tried to stop me, but my work cannot be halted so easily, my thirst for perfection cannot be quenched. Those fools tried to make me slow down, but progress cannot be delayed, we must move forward if we wish to live on. A traitorous bunch indeed, a bunch I¡¯ve been forced to feed. The rats went to bed, but no longer shall be fed, I¡¯ve made my ships as good as they can be, soon all will see. The secrets this place holds are all mine to uncover, I can sense them right under my nose, soon I¡¯ll be the primary source of the ancient knowledge. People will need to go to me to know the truth of the past, but I won¡¯t tell them everything of course, some things need to be hidden or else there would be nothing to discover.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. My fleet will sail the stars to bring our enemies to their knees and the empire to ever greater heights. High Command will surely promote me to grandmaster of the fleet after my successes here. Surely I can no longer fail, with the traitors dead I can focus on my mission, I have much to do so I must be brief. Some of the shipyards are functioning but most are lying dormant, waiting for a gilded hand to show them the way. This planet is a living creature but it has been wounded for millennia, I must nurse it back to health and none can stand in my way. I will form an impenetrable wall around the empire, and this planet will be the center of it all. Many could not see my vision, so they¡¯ve been let go. The wall will creep ever forward, carving out a haven for all of humanity, our enemies will know fear, all of creation will come to know my might. I am the one who will become master of space and time, The Emperor will see my deeds and ask me to be his equal, but I will refuse, for there can only be one emperor, the people must be guided by a firm hand, all will soon see the light of my glorious foundry, yes, yes what a grand feast indeed. Investigation Surprise Investigation: High Command has sent me to investigate one of their top secret projects, apparently there¡¯s been no word from them for a few weeks now. At first I thought nothing of it, probably just another outer rim colony experiment gone wrong, happens all the time. This one was different however, a planet so far in the interior that I was surprised it hadn¡¯t been fully terraformed for humans yet. When I reached the project site I could see why the planet hadn¡¯t been converted for human habitation, it was massive, roughly twice the size in diameter of Terra by the looks of it, must be an old Darvic planet knowing how keen they were about living on large planets. Still, it struck me as strange that there weren''t any human habitats built, it¡¯s not like we don¡¯t have gravity manipulators to reduce the amount of gravity felt in the colony. This whole thing felt strange from the very beginning. As I approached the planet there appeared to be a high level of activity from local shipyards, scans indicated that they were running at only 23% efficiency, and had been for quite some time, so something was clearly not right about this place just from that alone. The closer I got the more strange things got, empty husks of ships floating around, not even complete, holes opened through the midsections, some missing entire sections of the ship, but for some reason all of them had what looked to be fully intact engines and reactors. I examined the shipyards closer for a few hours and what I saw confirmed my suspicions, the yards were manufacturing partially completed ships and were focusing primarily on the propulsion systems so ships could be flown out on their own power to make room for the next ship to be built. The next move I made was pretty stupid in hindsight but there¡¯s nothing I can do about it now. I attempted to shut down one of the shipyards in order to analyze what was causing the inefficiencies but when I did so it caused every ship in that graveyard to come to life. Fighting zombie ships was definitely not on my bucket list so I made a break for it, luckily, Imperial Investigator Ships come equipped with warp functionality not usually seen in such a small vessel so I was able to escape unharmed. I¡¯ve reported my initial findings to high command and called in a favor with Admiral Hipper to help clear the shipyards, he owes me one anyway.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Planetary Scans Suspicious Findings: Admiral Hipper arrived shortly after I sent word about my predicament, I guess the 42nd fleet doesn¡¯t have much to do while patrolling the interior these days. I had assumed that the 42nd would make quick work of the floating husks that were preventing me from investigating further, but they were at it for nearly two days, the ¡°ships¡± just kept pouring out of the shipyards making progress slow for the 42nd. I asked the admiral why they couldn¡¯t just go in guns blazing and mow them all down, he responded with a rather concerning look on his face, telling me that the weaponry on the zombie ships was surprisingly powerful and that if they were to rush in they would likely sustain numerous casualties, I suppose the slow approach was preferable in that case. Just as my patience was reaching its limits Hipper gave me the all clear but stayed around just incase something else came up. I had asked Hipper to do as little damage as possible to the shipyards so I could see the entire picture of what was going on but I guess that request couldn¡¯t be fulfilled, or he just ignored it, that seems more like Hipper anyway. Regardless of the damage I was able to dig up some interesting findings, initially I had assumed that these stations were either remotely activated or had a sort of internal timer that told them to come back online, however, all the evidence suggests that someone on world activated them, despite my initial scans showing no signs of life anywhere on the planet. I had decided to run a few more scans of the planet, this time from a much closer range, luckily Admiral Hipper stayed in orbit so I was able to borrow a few planetary probes, that way I wouldn¡¯t be around if they managed to trip some sort of tripwire again like I did with the shipyards. After the scans were complete there weren¡¯t any signs of intelligence, however there were trace amounts of some sort of unknown fungal spore in the planet¡¯s atmosphere, the probes will need some time to analyze the results without compromising the safety of myself and the 42nd, my patience for these setbacks is already running thin, but I suppose I can¡¯t wait this one out for the sake of safety. In the meantime I¡¯ve asked Hipper to prepare some hazard suits and a crew in case this stuff ends up being dangerous, I want to get to the bottom of what happened here but I want to do it safely.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Fungal Atmosphere Dangerous Atmosphere: The probes brought back some samples and the science team aboard Hipper¡¯s IES Slipstream have made some interesting findings. The fungal spores that are spreading through this planet¡¯s atmosphere are indeed quite dangerous, they latch on to internal organs and slowly feed on them to reproduce. The team suspects that originally these spores originally only fed on lung tissue but have evolved a method to work their way into the bloodstream in order to feed on every organ in a body. Apparently the process is so slow that it could take years to fully complete feeding, that must be an excruciating way to go, it¡¯s a good thing I wasn¡¯t too hasty here. Hipper has prepared a surface team and readied the hazard suits, the science team has confirmed that the spores are unable to penetrate them so the crew and I should be safe for our little expedition, obviously we can¡¯t stay on the surface too long otherwise we¡¯ll starve so we¡¯ll have to return to the ships for decontamination to eat and rehydrate, this is gonna be quite an irritating investigation.This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Additional information supplied by the probes indicate specific hot spots on the planet''s surface where the spore have gathered in greater number, I think it¡¯s worth checking these areas first so I¡¯ve let the team know our schedule for investigation, there appear to be four major hot spots all relative spread out from one another, so we¡¯ll only be able to check one at a time before returning to the ship for decontamination. As a precaution we¡¯ll also be running mandatory medical checks after decontamination to make sure none of us have been compromised by the spores before we¡¯re allowed to enter the ships. We know these spores aren¡¯t native to this planet so there¡¯s a good chance these spores are what I was sent to investigate, I¡¯ll have to gather data on them as well as look for any surviving members of the researchers working on this project that has clearly gotten out of hand. Hopefully the areas of high spore density are markers of life nearby, and hopefully those life signs indicate surviving members of the research team, that way we might be able to find out more about what caused all this, and why an entire array of shipyards were activated at such low efficiency, and why were the ships they were spitting out so strange looking. I have so many questions but I guess that¡¯s why I¡¯m here in the first place, and I will have my answers, no matter what. Gory Details Gruesome Scene: My investigation has led me to something truly awful, bodies around a table, all of them cut open in one way or another, their organs laid out across the table with bites taken out of them. The scene looked as if it was supposed to be some kind of joyous occasion, yet it ended in such a gruesome way, the worms and maggots have clearly already been at it for a while, I¡¯m glad I was wearing a hazard suit otherwise the smell would have certainly been enough to knock anyone out cold, even just the sight alone made one of the crew sent with me throw up, they had to be sent back to the ships to try and clean out the inside of the suit. The rest of us continued to gather evidence at the scene, something struck me as odd the moment I regained my composure. The seat at the head of the table was empty, two things entered my mind as possibilities, either whoever was at the head of the table ran off when they were attacked, or they were the one who killed everyone here.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. As I studied the gory scene a bit longer I realized that the bites taken out of the guts strewn about the table were clearly made by human teeth, and given that no other seat at the table is empty I can only assume that whoever was at the head of the table was indeed the killer, but why, and how did they manage to kill all of them in the same place, without any of them fighting back. This was the weakest of the hot spot areas covered in spores, perhaps the killer is still out there, are they the ones spreading these spores? Do they know we¡¯re here? I have too many questions that need answering and I refuse to stop until I know that whoever killed all these people is brought to pay for their crime. I found a room containing documents nearby, all of which had been burned, save one, an indecipherable mess of scribbles and nonsense words, perhaps its writer and our killer are one and the same. Have the spores scrambled their mind? Do they even know what they¡¯ve done? Are they even still alive? More questions that need to be answered, I must push on to investigate the other hot spot areas. Suit Mishap Weakening Suits: From the information I had about this planet, it was supposedly a treasure trove of knowledge stored by the Darvic people, but from my investigation to the second spore hot spot there appears to be a distinct lack of writings or databanks anywhere. The building is clearly intended to be a library but the team and I haven¡¯t found any documents in this place, perhaps they were moved during the project that was being conducted here, despite all the micromanaging High Command likes to do, it appears that they know little about what was happening here, or perhaps they¡¯re just keeping everything close to the vest, don¡¯t know why they¡¯d launch an investigation if they were withholding information but here we are. On top of all these frustratingly minute details, our little expedition appears to be getting more dangerous for those of us on the planet''s surface, the spores appear to be slowly eating away at our hazard suits, on of the Hipper''s crew that he sent down with us, I don¡¯t know his name, had to be rushed back to the ship after brushing into the wall slightly caused his suit to rip open. We had no idea that our suits were slowly being compromised with every minute we stayed on the surface. Forced to return to the ships, we thought it best to halt the investigation while we come up with a long term solution for dealing with the spores. Upon boarding the ship I went to the med-bay to check on the poor soul that had been exposed to the spores, they¡¯ve got him sealed up in one of those new pill-shaped ¡°Medi-pods¡±, seems more like a coffin to me. Apparently they¡¯re quarantining him inside of the med-bay as well to avoid any additional exposure on board the ship, but from what I can see, they just want to be as far away from him as possible incase he breaks out of that pod, he¡¯s been banging and bashing around inside of that pod since I showed up, the spores seemed to have induced some sort of madness, might explain what happened at that ¡°feast¡± we saw not too long ago.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Despite this troubling development, we need to push on, while the investigation is officially halted I¡¯ve decided to investigate the third hot spot anyway. A couple volunteers from Hipper¡¯s crew have decided to tag along in an attempt to keep me safe but I don¡¯t see the need for them, I was trained in all forms of imperial combat after all. The lower team size should free up enough hazard suits that we should be able to use new suits every day to avoid the degradation we¡¯ve experienced so far, I was hoping to go alone to further extend the suit supply but Hipper insisted that I not go alone for this so it seems like I¡¯ll just have to deal with it. Connecting the Dots Breakthrough: The third hot spot was a wealth of information that has busted this case wide open. Initially what appeared to be an empty building used for general government functions became a labyrinth of underground tunnels, typical of the Darvic people to use tunnels, which led to some hidden rooms housing a multitude of documents from both the project lead and some ancient documents from some Darvish shipwrights. This project was clearly intended to be an R&D lab for the production of new ships, at least until the spores were released. I¡¯m still unsure as to how the spores were released into the atmosphere on such a scale but I found a broken jar in one of the rooms connected to the tunnels that had a rather large buildup of spores on the inside of the jar, suggesting that the Darvic leadership was holding on to at least some samples of the stuff, maybe for use in weapons development before the collapse of their empire. Regardless, the discovery I¡¯ve made today explains why all the shipyards in orbit were operational, at least partially. High command clearly wants some new and improved designs for their ships, makes sense considering our current vessels are practically ancient themselves, but as for why they wanted this project to be secret I can only speculate, perhaps our position in the galaxy isn¡¯t as secure as they make it out to be.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. I¡¯ve got one more hot spot to investigate, and with the dots beginning to connect like they are I suspect all my questions will be answered there. Someone had to turn on the shipyards manually and since none of the DNA results taken from the bodies found a few days ago came back as the project lead I suspect he¡¯s the one I¡¯ve been looking for. He must still be alive but whether or not he¡¯ll be capable of answering my questions is another matter entirely. Exposure to the spores have likely driven him mad if the condition of that poor young man in the medi-pod is anything to go off of. Perhaps medical will find a way to get rid of this ¡°spore-madness¡± that many of Hipper¡¯s crew have taken to calling it, in which case I¡¯ll definitely be able to get the answers I¡¯m looking for, but first things first I need to find this guy before he does something even more insane than killing his entire research team. Madness Unfortunate Events: Today I found the lead of the project being conducted on this planet, unfortunately I was unable to get any information out of him, he was dead when I found him. The state he was in suggested he had starved to death while in his state of madness, poor bastard must¡¯ve forgotten about food entirely while he went off the rails. I managed to recover his journal which more or less confirmed my suspicions about this place, a large effort to come up with new designs for our ships which are sorely lacking in current war efforts. The spores appear to have come from some sort of trap triggered by this man or perhaps some fungus laid dormant for all these years which awoke when it sensed some fresh food. The man, in his state of insanity, then hastily activated the shipyards surrounding the planet in an effort to complete his project, though in his madness he seems to have thought that the empire was out to get him and programmed all ships to fire on any intruders. The last few pages are just random strings of unintelligible nonsense so perhaps this indicates that the madness had finally taken him completely. It seems I¡¯ve gathered all the information I can about this project, and it might have just cost me my life.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. When reaching for the man¡¯s journal, my suit was punctured by a knife in his pocket, likely the murder weapon used during the feast. Although it was a relatively tiny hole, I¡¯ve certainly been exposed to the spores and will likely lose my mind in short order. I¡¯ve come to terms with this outcome in hopes that someone is able to find a cure before this disease tears me apart like it did to the project lead here, perhaps it¡¯s a bit ironic that he ends up with one last victim. My end, if that¡¯s what it boils down to, won¡¯t be in vain however, I¡¯ve sent his research and my findings about these spores to both High Command as well as every scientific mind in the empire in hopes that someone out there can finish the ship designs or find a cure for this curse inflicted upon me. I¡¯d likely be tried for treason for doing this, but I don¡¯t seem to have that much time anyway so I no longer care about that kind of thing. At least I won¡¯t have to worry about, wait, I see it now, it all makes sense, it wasn¡¯t nonsense, Uvtu pbzznaq unf orra ylvat gb hf guvf ragver gvzr, V''ir orra fb oyvaq, vs bayl V pbhyqi''r frra vg sebz gur fgneg. Halted Progress Invasion Progress Stalled: The invasion started off about as well as we could¡¯ve hoped, we gained large amounts of ground in the opening days. Standard orbital bombardment tactics sent those little furry bastards scurrying to their tunnels. The planet appeared to have no capital city so we chose what our intel told us was a vital location for arms production on the planet to launch our invasion. We gained an area of roughly 500 square miles before we ran into some resistance. Somehow the navy crapped the bed and we¡¯ve just received word that enemy ships have broken through our blockade of the planet¡¯s surface, meaning we¡¯ll no longer have orbital support until the navy can regain control. Another attack went tits up since it was launched before word came through from navy command, what should¡¯ve been a softened target was heavily fortified and forced us to retreat after taking heavy losses, General Rocklin was pissed about that one, pretty sure everyone on the base could hear him yelling at the navy officers responsible for communications, telling ¡®em that they just got thousands of men killed. While he¡¯s not wrong, the general¡¯s outburst just killed what little moral we had left. We¡¯re stuck here in this hellhole with no orbital support and no supply lines. The Ogacihc have started sending out squads to launch probing attacks on our position, luckily those little rats won¡¯t be getting to us any time soon since we managed to fortify our position to try and hold out for the navy to regain control of the skies, who knows how long that¡¯s going to be. As far as I can tell they¡¯re in a constant battle up there, at night you can see the explosions in the sky, occasionally bits of ships come crashing down to the planet''s surface, most of ¡®em burn up before they hit, creating a strangely beautiful lightshow in the sky. I still don¡¯t fully understand what we¡¯re doing on the backwater of a planet, we were told it held valuable resources but so far it¡¯s just like any other rock to me, but I guess it must be important enough to make an attempt to run our blockade, I¡¯m kinda impressed that those rodents actually managed to pull it off. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Major Bardzo Tworczy cooked up a plan to try and get us back on the advance, we¡¯re going to send in a team to destroy the enemy tunnels when they launch their next attack, we don¡¯t know when they¡¯re going to attack but we can see ¡®em coming so we¡¯ll be able to send a team in as long as everyone remains ready. I have no clue if Tworczy¡¯s plan will work but I need to be ready to go in at any moment, I guess that means I should try to get some rest.