chapter 55 legend / puddle experiments (work in progress)

while he was looking around, Phoebe and Sophia, finally snapped out of their shock, and as soon as they saw the image of the soldiers, they immediately said to the scout to call Daniel

Daniel was surprised by the call, still, he responded and said "I was about to call, I found some of your soldiers in a spidercrab spaceship"

Phoebe said "we know, what's their condition?"

Daniel was confused and asked "how can you know, anyway they are alive, but weak"

Phoebe said "we watched the entire thing, the scout called us, saying that you were under attack, anyway save them, they can probably tell you where you are, then let me know, so I can come fetch you"

Daniel was confused, and said "the scout called you?"

suddenly another voice arrived "it was me master" said Tickles

Daniel asked "you called them of your own initiative?"

Tickles said "affirmative"

Daniel asked "why?"

Tickles answered "knowledge required for strategy insufficient, external input needed"

Daniel said "so you called them because you didn't have enough knowledge about strategy, I understand, good job, but ask for permission next time"

Tickles said "affirmative"

Phoebe and Sophia were confused by the conversation, but they accepted that some of the things Daniel did were unusual

Daniel said to Sophia and Phoebe "I'll give them food and water, the rest is up to them I'm no doctor"

Phoebe said "that's probably all they need"

Daniel ordered a maru to prepare a big meal with the mushrooms, and some first stage spidercrab legs

while the other transported them out, in a cover created near the dig site, Daniel had no intention to bother with them more than that

after being brought out, a group of barely conscious soldiers woke up smelling the food, but as they raised up, the scene in front of them was from a horror movie

spidercrabs slumped dead on the sand, a big and terrifying robot brought a big pot to them that was full of food, while a flying little robot was supervising their work, he seemed to be choosing some hive creature corpses

these corpses were then butchered by the big robots, and have the legs removed, than wrapped in some kind of plastic film, and put in a strange technological box

the rest of the hive creature corpse would be thrown in a machine, that made a strange growling sound, and some lentil sized bits would come out and fall into another box

these robots seemed to be recycling the terrifying hive creature corpses, still fear wasn't enough to deter these hardened soldiers, they limped to the pot to eat, it was clear that the robot left it there for them, there were plates and seats, there was also a cover from the unforgiving sun and plenty of water, so these robots were probably allies of the sun federation

the soldiers ate and tended to each other injuries, while watching the robots' efficient work, after a couple of hours, there weren't any corpses left around, they even saw the princess of the hive, being butchered and pelletized, and the robots were now cutting apart a nearby buried ship, while building more robots

the little robot leader had returned to the strange, spear-shaped ship, while the other robots worked

the soldiers rested and the next morning the little robot came down, with a bigger one transporting breakfast

Daniel arrived and said "you all are safe, the spidercrabs are all dead, and I need a piece of information from you all, what are the spatial coordinates of this planet?"

the leader of the soldiers, a very dandy man said "we don't know, we can send a distress call, when they come to pick us up they can tell you the coordinates"

Daniel said "good, then do that, this is breakfast, I'll go back to work"

he disappeared again leaving the soldiers shooked, usually they wouldn't be allowed to send distress calls and risk giving away their position, their allies would contact one of their ships, so the soldier started thinking that maybe these robots were lost

and before eating breakfast they sent a covert distress signal since this was probably hive territory

in the meantime Daniel was toiling away, he was working on a better environmental cell for the electric eels, while waiting for news from the soldiers, he also called home to tell them they didn't know, and Phoebe gave him a military code, to make whoever came answer without questions

the soldiers in the meantime were still tending to their injuries while watching the robots work without a pause, in two days, the 8 roughed up robots, ad the 2 who served as guards, became 20 brand spanking new v4 maru's, and the increase in robots increased the speed of the work

the 21 sections were now filled with precious materials again, and Daniel was forced to stop and change project, in order not to waste the rest of the ship's materials, which was more than half of it, he started working on a satellite, that was like the satellites they used for the internet in the sun federation

if he made enough of them and sent them out, the signal would extend in the universe, and he wouldn't need some random soldiers to understand where he was, he called them itchy network satellites, even if they will not contain a whole itchy but the bare minimum for a signal to appear

just as he started, an arrow head shaped ship, similar to Phoebe's one appeared in the orbit of the lifeless desert planet and contacted the soldiers, soon later a man came down with 4 more soldiers

Daniel went down, and before the man could start to make his diplomatic moves he said "blu, purple, sierra, niner 6741"

the captain immediately saluted and said "what do you need"

Daniel said "current spatial coordinate, and enemy movements"

the captain answered " 321.5456, 543.7896, unnamed planet, of the contended Tryuren galaxy, the hive ship have already consumed this quadrant of the galaxy, so they concentrated their efforts on the westmost point of this galaxy, were more living planets are"

Daniel nodded and said "good, take these soldiers back and tend to their wounds, goodbye" and went back to the cloud train

the captain immediately ordered everyone back and the ship went away, while the ship was on course the soldiers asked what the code was, but no one answered, soon a legend based on a few pictures and videos was born thanks to the soldiers, the legend of the metal army that butchers hive creatures for fuel

in the meantime, Daniel said to phoebe where he was, and she flew up to the Quilin V, and since the place was dangerous, Sophia went along to fetch him, still, it would take a month for them to arrive, so he had time to complete some work and went back to work on the environmental cell

in a week, Daniel finally managed to create an environmental cell v2, that had a dry season for the eels, and a amphibians and mammals settings, whatever the spidercrabs were he could now keep up with them, he also changed the name into livebox v2, because it was shorter

the various specimens were moved in the livebox v2, so while he was at it he worked on the fishes, the squids had finally done their duty, the females had thousands of fertilized eggs in their ovaries, and after squeezing them out, like in trout breeding, the squid's were left in the v1, while the eggs were put in the v2 in hatching mode

the carps were much easier to work with, they left their eggs on the fake vegetation, so the vegetation was moved in the livebox v2 to hatch

the other specimens still had to produce any results, but at least the dry season started, so the electric eels got to work, apart from their meat Daniel was thinking that the electric eels could be used as an energy source, but for now, the charge was too little it would need some work to be useful

the spidercrab eggs were still not hatching, but Daniel was patient with them, since he still didn't know how the spidercrab reproduction worked, or how long it would take before they hatch

now Daniel was thinking, that since he didn't need to use the drop this time, and a second one wasn't charging, he could use this chance and free time to experiment and see if it really was like a wormhole or just similar

Daniel needed to test the duration of a portal if he didn't enter it since both times it closed after he passed, then if it was true that things ended in different places if they were not physically connected

Daniel thought that if it was like that, he could send numerous itchy's that would end up all over the galaxy, with the mission accumulating material so they could then make satellites to extend the network, in his mind it was perfect, after all, Tickles will grow more next time he uses the ability

with that in mind, Daniel spent the next three days creating many different itchy protocols with Tickles's help, like what to do if the planet it's deserted was protocol 1, what to do in case of an encounter with the natives was protocol 7, there were scripted scenarios for many different situations preprogrammed in case he was busy

Tickles even added some touches of its own to the itchy protocols, it was becoming more and more a living being, instead of a cold unfeeling machine, and Daniel was happy about it, even if the godlike blind adoration edging on zealotry that Tickles exhibited towards him wasn't really to his liking

in the afternoon Daniel had 30 spherical itchy's to experiment with for a total of 300 grams of Tickles nanites, but this time, differently from the regular itchy, they were just nanites, without extra materials, the idea, was that the itchy would slowly source the material to build the satellite on their own

Daniel watched towards the desert and threw his drop, the explosion happened and it sank into the vertical puddle of cyan watery energy

this time Daniel didn't walk in, he threw a itchy, than he waited for a signal, and a second later, there it was, he could feel it was far away, from the data sent it was in a tropical jungle

daniel said "now it's the moment of truth, let's see"

he threw the second itchy inside, and after a second, a signal from another direction came, and the itchy was in a body of water

daniel looked at the puddle and said "how does this work, how can I control it to go where I want" looking at the third itchy in his hand, said "go in an interesting place" and threw it in, that once again landed in a different direction

Daniel continued, the itchy never landed in the places he imagined, throwing the fifth one he said "go in a sun" and the fifth itchy signal never came

Daniel got confused, one of the few things that could instantly disintegrate an itchy was, a sun, but also a black hole, a supernova, and other rare phenomena, the things that could disintegrate it instantly like this were very few in number but numerous in the universe

the metals Tickles was made of, were originally seventh stage materials and had become stronger with time, so this incident made him reconsider, maybe he really could control it, so he tried to direct the itchy, but it didn't really work with what he wished

Daniel said to the sixth itchy "go to a planet with advanced technology" he imagined metal buildings, and flying vehicles, but the itchy landed in a primordial prairie filled with dinosaurs

he said "go where there is a solution to my condition" and the signal never came back

he said "go to a planet full of delicious food" and the signal never came back

Daniel was confused with this last one, but he had an idea and said "go to another planet with delicious food" and the itchy landed in some sort of boiling swamp

this started to give Daniel a headache, sometimes it worked, in the sense, that in a swamp there were bound to be some delicious animals or vegetation, but how could he know which it was? and why did the signal never come back the first time he said that?

Daniel shrugged, there wasn't time for philosophical thoughts, the duration of the puddle was sure to be limited, so he threw the tenth, one inside saying "go expand the signal"

and threw ten more inside, comprised 2 at the same time and they did land in different places

the puddle was open after 2 minutes had passed and the timer still going

he threw another one inside, but at the moment he couldn't think of anything good, and just thought to send it to someone interesting, and didn't say anything, sadly like three other itchy the signal never came back, making a total of four missing itchy's

he had totally run out of things to think, so he threw another 3, casually and they all sent signals back

as he was about to throw in the 25th one when the puddle collapsed on itself and closed blocking the timer at 2 minutes and 22 seconds