Part of Outpost Houtman (Archive): Start-up problems

Oh baby it shakes good

Outpost Houtman - Temp CO Office
October 2400
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The supplies were regularly coming, and almost all personnel had arrived at the base. Soon, the base would be ready for the first stage of actual colonization and building the required buildings for this colony to function and grow. However, over a lengthy period, the base had been hit by various tremors, raising some concerns. The problem was only going to get worse. 

Taking a sip out of his mock of black coffee, Nakil looked at the shape of the base slowly forming. The shuttle landed to unload more building materials, and the working bees were ready to start their duties. Nakil was slowly seeing progression in the whole situation and nodded to himself. “This will get on the road. It seems,” He muttered to himself as he heard a blip behind him”It is rude to just barge in, you know”

“What a sight to see there, Commander,” A voice came from behind Nakil “I always have the right to barge in Nakil. But don’t worry, I will make my announcement ahead of time when you got the base operational”

Nakil sighed and turned around, seeing the deputy director of colonial service standing in a hologram form “Hello Jack” He spoke, leaning against the window “The base operational standards are getting to the green area…”

“I hear a bit. What is wrong, Commander?” 

“Remember when I told you that I am not a fan of crater bases, for obvious reasons that I don’t like them”. He took a sip of his coffee as he could taste the bitterness of the flavor. “The base on such a level will have to endure various problems, such as wildlife and fauna that we simply don’t know yet” Nakil looked over his shoulder outside. “This location might be open and top-notch, but we are experiencing a different issue also. The tremors”

“That issue sounds shaky” Jack tried to joke a bit and shook his head, “Bad joke. What is the status of the tremors?” 

Taking a sip of his drink, Nakil looked dryly at Jack for his poor attempt at the joke, “The tremors start to get regular, and the engineering team has found out that it is related to handling heavy movement in the area. It seems that the area is not as stable as initial scans indicated” Nakil placed his cup on the table and crossed his arms, “We are looking into the potential use of dampers”

“Dampers, mmm I could send your way if that is all you need to resolve that problem….” The hologram started to get disrupted, “Nakil? Are you there?”

Small tremors started to be felt as Nakil looked at his side to the cup seeing it content slowly shake, and then the cup started to shake. “Oh frak” He rushed to the Operational Center as another shake hit the base throwing Nakil to the ground “Come on…” He crawled up to his feet and continues into the room.

Everyone was slightly panicking, “Stabilize the building! Get everyone inside!” He pressed the console as the building red alert went off as cracks started to form and the intensity raised. Nakil held onto the console keeping an eye on the internal structure status of the building as pupils widened, seeing an alert from the landing path. He looked outside, seeing the landing path cracking open as the shuttle lost balance and drops into the crack.

It took only a few minutes, but the base was damaged severely. People were wounded, and things were only to get worse if they stayed.