chapter 53 pleasant surprises (work in progress)

it looked like a spider, it walked like a spider, why was the analysis saying that it was with 77% probability the evolution of a crab, it didn't even have any pinchers, and it walked straight, even stranger was the cellular structure, this creature didn't follow any rule of biology

Daniel discovered that the spider-looking crab, survived by eating the biological component of the starship, it was like a vampire but instead of blood, anything biological would do and could support the body, and in rare cases even enhance the species, it was also as intelligent as a human, thanks to the analysis he figured out, that the only reason the creature chased mindlessly, was that it was starving and saw someone steal its meat, even a humanoid would go mad in that case

the spidercrabs had actually survived till now because they rationed the ship, so the only reason the heart of the ship and consequently the woman survived, was that these spidercrabs were saving them for last while trying to survive as long as possible

Daniel really wanted to study the spidercrabs, but the creature was already dead anyway, and since there were no strange bacteria, parasites or viruses, nor toxins or radiations, it was safe for consumption, the meat pelletizer will work nicely on it, and finally, he will have the untainted food for the fishes

from the same analysis daniel got another idea, he had eaten crabs, and they were delicious, even if they were just boiled in salted water, so he decided to save the legs, he would try one, and if it was tasty enough, he would eat the others too, if not, he could make pellets out of them, at this point, he would take anything edible to avoid eating mushrooms at every meal

thinking about it, Daniel turned to look at the meat pelletizer, it had been put together in a hurry, so he wasn't proud of it at all, and since he had time Daniel started working on it to make it more efficient, while the maru's gathered the dead spidercrabs and kept digging with most of Tickles

soon it was time for dinner, and for the first time, Daniel was cooking himself, usually, he had Tickles do it, but this one he wanted to try to do it himself, soon he had a container of boiling water, made using the lab equipment, and added a little of purified salt crystals from the sand below

soon later, he dunked the 1.5 mt long spidercrab leg in, and immediately the smell made him salivate, it wasn't as good as the smell of sister chaos's cooking, but it was much better than roasted mushrooms, or boiled mushrooms, or nothing because to get oil and condiments you had to use toxic plants, even butter was off-limits on retak, and this planet was a lifeless desert

while cooking it turned from black to a strange color that could only be described as a brownish red, but the smell was absolutely amazing, he couldn't wait and bite into it, from all his analysis, he knew that the only bad thing that could happen, was that it tasted bad

but as he took a bite Daniel discovered that it didn't, it was an idyllic taste, Daniel was already imagining this made in a proper way, maybe boiled with onions, tomatoes, spices, a lemon or two, it was flavorful, buttery, in less than 10 minutes, he had wolfed down the entire thing

as soon as he finished he set an environmental cell to preserve the meat, which was wrapped and frozen instantly at shocking temperatures, to make sure it didn't spoil, Daniel also decided that all the legs will be wrapped and frozen while the rest will go in the pelletizer, while he was there, he also threw out the stockpile of tainted fish pellets, those things had outlived their usefulness

a day passed, and Daniel had finally finished upgrading the meat pelletizer, it now was faster and more efficient he didn't even need to separate bones and meat it did it all, and finally didn't look like it was improvised anymore

at the same time, Tickles and the maru's this time doubled the reinforcements of the digsite, just to make sure, since the sand was treacherous and would immediately rebury the ship again at the slightest chance

on that note, Daniel also decided to refrain from using 11 fighters to guard the well as they would destroy the supports again and only left 3 of them to guard for eventual spidercrabs survivors, the 2 empty ones and the bait/locomotive

Daniel also ordered, that in case there were weak spidercrabs, they had to catch them alive, but seeing the trend, all the spidercrabs below the third stage were probably eaten, to allow the strong ones to survive longer, and those at or above the third stage would break the environmental cell

but the most important thing was that finally Tickles's ability recharged today, so he could soon eat the phaser weapon, and finally upgrade his weaponry and work toward M.A.R.U v4

the work continued for the maru's, while Tickles came back up to eat the phaser weapon, and as soon as he did, Daniel was surprised, the amount of informations was staggering, he was very happy that he didn't use the badge, or his head would probably explode, after all, while Tickles was busy updating himself he couldn't help him like with sister chaos inheritance, after a full hour, he finally digested the information, and when he saw tickles he gasped

right now Tickles became a lot bigger, he needed 12 days of recharging after 15 grams of increase, so now Daniel was worried, because he fattened up by half a kilogram, while the informations were only 4 times more than the shield

suddenly Daniel had an illumination, the growth wasn't based on how many informations the sacrificed item gave, but on how advanced it was, the power plant was industrial age, the toybox was post-industrial age, but this phaser weapon was a full-fledged space-age weapon

he still had to work out the finer details, but this made sense to Daniel, he even theorized that Tickles would become exponentially bigger, with more advanced technology, but this will have to be tested in the future

for now, the recharge had become obviously slower, much slower, so from now on he should use it more wisely

Tickles didn't go back to work, because, with the information fresh in his mind, Daniel immediately created a blueprint for a brand new phaser cannon, and ordered Tickles to build it on all 11 fighters, the bolt weapon was good, but not good enough, so it had to be replaced

for Tickles it would take a short time to build a full maru, so substituting a weapon was child play, and 10 hours later he was back down, digging

in the meantime Daniel was working on M.A.R.U v4 it would be a little bigger, and it would have the phaser, the wall launcher, and the spear, this was the limit though, without better batteries, he wouldn't be able to build a stronger maru than this one

but this was a problem for a later date, now Daniel was happily working on it, knowing that this maru should reach at least the low-fourth stage, maybe even mid-fourth

in the meantime, the work below was proceeding rapidly, the maru finally dug out the Biomech heart and put it into storage, it was dead but not decayed, maybe Tickles could use its ability on it

for the rest, the digging operation went faster after Tickles became 1.520 kg

Tickles had separated into different units that were breaking down the ship in its base materials, many of the metals in it were much better than the ones he used to build the cloudtrain, more resistant, durable, and would give the sections a slightly cloudy copper color hence Daniel named this material dead cloudy copper

Daniel was really excited about it and wanted the whole spaceship made into ingots, while he was doing that, Tickles had to make more empty sections with it, so they could store the new materials

after a couple more days, Tickles had made four more sections, daniel had ordered for the lab to be moved to the new more durable sections, and then he moved the environmental cells too, but he didn't recycle the old section, they became storage at the end of the train, the maru's, were already filling them with the materials extracted from the ship, it was a very big ship, full of good stuff

Daniel was happily working on M.A.R.U v4 when a call came, it was the scout on verulus, he answered and on the screen, the 4 members of the specter family appeared

Sophia said in an accusatory tone "didn't you promise to call more often? 10 days already passed, if we didn't when would you have called?"

Daniel said "sorry grandma I was distracted, I found a crashed spaceship, and inside there were some delicious spidercrabs, a woman in a glass jar, and since the ship it's made of many good materials, I had my hands full recycling it"

Phoebe asked "a woman in a jar?"

and at the same time, Vincent asked "some delicious spidercrabs?"

Daniel said "don't worry grandpa, I saved some for you all, I also have some fish from retak to show you, as for the woman there she is" he said pointing towards the cylinder, the camera turned to show her, and he continued "she is in suspended animation, but I don't know if she has a terminal disease or something, so I can't just wake her up, and risk losing the Biomech technology"

Phoebe immediately said "cover her up" after seeing she was naked

daniel said "why?"

Phoebe said "just do it" in a rushed tone, she didn't want Joseph looking at the naked beauty

Daniel used Tickles to build a simple cover around the cylinder, in the meantime, Sophia was looking at her with a confused look, after the tin can was covered she said "what is she?"

Daniel responded "according to sister chaos, a Skurian amazon mixed with some garian, the rest it's still unknown"

Vincent said "you are still in contact with her?"

Daniel responded "she is my friend, so I gave her an itchy"

Vincent asked "itchy?"

Daniel nodded and said "the system I developed to talk with you, uses a piece of Tickles, so I called it itchy, and I gave 1 to her, well in reality two, but that's another story"

Vincent wanted to say something, but then he held himself back and said "I see"

Sophia immediately said "I want one"

Joseph said "me too"

Phoebe said "I want one too"

Vincent was about to add something when Daniel said "I will give one to each of you on the first occasion don't worry, I already have them ready"

everyone nodded happily and after talking a little longer the call ended