Ortner's Wall

 

YEAR: 52028 HE

SHIP: Matriark II, Super-Frigate Exploration class

SUPERVISORY COMPUTOR SYSTEM: Exterior Guard Drone five

LOCATION: Nojo memorial Farms and Gardens

PRESENT: CORPORAL MACKING

 

Sub-Captain Ortner’s Watch Log

     ORT: There falls another Hahaoyan day. The darkness grows like a fog over the dust. I don’t like it. This wall is all that protects us from the night. The drones picked up nothing. But I can’t shake the sense that something is watching us after the sun goes down; one of those grey-skinned mother fuckers. It’s almost time for the changing of the watch. I feel much safer when I’m inside the steel. This watching and waiting doesn’t help. It’s like we are waiting for an attack. I would like to take a few solar trucks filled with troopers over the mountains and raid.

     MACK: You think there’s more of those grey skins over the mountains?

     ORT: I don’t know, but nothing survives deserts not even these pond apes could survive without water. There’s big lakes on the other side of those mountains. The drones have scanned them, but as you know, if they are hiding deep under the water they may have gone unnoticed. If they are going to attack us it will be from the mountains.

     MACK: I’m glad Pines is taking the night watch. You have given me nothing but bad dreams.

     ORT: I’m frank with you because you can handle it. Or I thought you could. I wouldn’t willingly spread fear among the watch. The grey skins can be killed. They don’t look as if they would remember how to use a gun even if they found one. Not if they’re anything like Specimen Alpha.

     MACK: He was old. The younger ones might be harder to subdue.

     ORT: You speak what I have been thinking. The one we killed may have been an outcast. The others, if they are any, may be less inclined to stand in from of a wall and be gunned down. They may hear the sound of our guns and flee.

     MACK: They might have died out. The one we killed might have been the last of them.

     ORT: I hope you’re right. Judging by the loin cloth, I doubt they have anything more advanced than bows and arrows. But if they come in their thousands we will need bigger guns. There are some nuclear powered anti-tank laser turrets in the ships arsenal. If I were Prime-Captain, I would have them mounted along this wall. But Larkina doesn’t want anything nuclear near the crops. We’ll see. Don’t let your guard down Corporal. I don’t think we’ve seen the last of these grey skins.

     MACK: I hope you’re wrong.