301 Tripod Hunting Stand
"~hmmmm~" Donovan stroked Diana's hair as she hummed into his chest. "I wuv you."
"I love you too." He rocked to and fro with her, partly to soothe her, partly to keep them moving down the ramp. Having arrived in the Ambrosia system an hour or so after dinner, Diana had been up all night talking, updating, and just generally yapping away at a Donovan who was occupied with such insignificant tasks as piloting the ship, realigning the orbital satellites, and picking up the 'special order' equipment from a rapidly expanding set of orbital construction facilities.
"I wuv you more." Diana twisted her head to look up into his eyes, ear still glued to his chest so she could hear his heartbeat.
"Do you really want to play that game?"
"You don't want to?"
"No, I'm just afraid you'll lose." He tilted her chin up for a kiss. "And that would make me very sad, because then you wouldn't love me as much as I love you."
". . . point taken." Diana blushed and dug herself further into his chest, inhaling before releasing him. "Now go take care of our pest problem!"
She gestured to the components arranged neatly in the center of the bay as she walked deeper into the ship, the bags under her eyes betraying her intentions. Aside from last night, during which she certainly hadn't slept, Arc suggested from her behavior that the previous week had not been full of restful nights either.
"Of course, my love." Donovan offered an exaggerated bow. "I need only set the trap."
Diana giggled before closing the elevator doors, leaving Donovan to deal with the squad of men Titanyana had selected. Speaking of, Titanyana was not among the group having elected to interact with and address the needs of her people. It was a decision Donovan respected given how little she would be able to help with this specific task. Even if they had been hollowed out to the limit, the support columns and base plates still weighed a few hundred pounds each.
Her time was better spent lifting spirits, not steel.
"Alright, which of you were selected to be pilots?" Donovan shifted gears immediately after the doors closed, from doting lover to disciplined superior. "Six . . . I can work with that. Three shifts of eight hours each, two sleeping, two working security, and a pilot co-pilot pair. You lot will come with me, the rest of you will stay down here."
""Yes sir!"" The men Titanyana selected to be pilots saluted in unison, while those serving as the construction crew were a bit slower on the draw and far less organized. Given the difference in physical appearance, Donovan assumed this was a manifestation of their clan structures.
- - - - -
"How much did she tell you about what you will be doing?"
". . ."
"Are you mute?" Donovan gathered they were stunned by the interior of the Pegasus, more so by the pilot room, but they didn't have time to marvel. "How much did Titanyana tell you?"
"U-uh, she informed us that we would be taught how to fly a ship."
"How to fly a different kind of ship, this kind of ship."
"And that it could save a lot of people."
"Not as much as I would have liked, but I wasn't expecting much to begin with." Donovan slid down into his seat, still warm from his descent. "For the time being, you six are to stick with me like shit on a boot. You will listen to every word I say, directed towards you or otherwise, and watch my actions with as much focus as you can possibly muster. The only time you may expect a break is during the night, when I expect you to sleep, and when I am discussing higher order or personal matters with Diana, Titanyana, or Seppard. Am I understood?"
""Yes sir!""
"Good, now I want all of you to gather around the pit here and pay attention. It's a short flight, so I won't be able to teach much, but I don't want to skip an opportunity for you to learn the basics."
- - - - -
"Should we, uh . . . give them a hand?" One of the camp's guards whispered to a Seppard wholly disinterested in the commotion at the fence line. The whisper was unnecessary given how far away the group was, but given the Nekh's hearing it wasn't strange for him to be afraid of such.
"You can join them if you wish, I doubt any wild beast would attempt to sneak up on us with that thing hovering nearby." Seppard of course referred to the Pegasus, parked a few feet off the ground directly behind the construction team. Despite it's uninspiring geometry, or perhaps due to the brutal simplicity, the sight was more menacing than Seppard felt necessary. "I'm sure Donovan would appreciate having someone who knows the difference between a screw and a bolt to supervise the lesser educated. Grab a few others if you so please, I'm sure everyone involved wants this done as soon as possible."
"Yes sir." The guard plodded off towards an off-duty patrol watching the spectacle with as much interest as he had, leaving Seppard to his tea and paperwork. Most were something like job applications, people willing to move out and work the frontier as permanent residents - citizens - of the Terran regime. There were quite a few of them given how many could arrive on a single ship, however they usually came with one or two boxes of such documents if they brought any at all, and ships that carried them grew increasingly sparse.
Most who heard the call and had the reason to come already submitted an application, which was either rejected by Seppard outright or placed in a box somewhere in a vague order of priority, saving them for when more manpower would be needed. Most wished to bring their families, meaning they wouldn't be helping the housing and food situation, but those that wished to move out alone raised alarms in his mind somewhat. Those who fell into this category were usually young men, thirsty for adventure or blessed with a strong desire to seek salvation.
Both types tended to be strongly motivated and incredibly productive once they familiarized themselves with the workflow, however they were still young men. Fights could be understood to some extent, as could drinking to stave off feelings of homesickness or boredom, but the fact remained they were young men. Seppard had no aims at playing matchmaker, but with his experience managing the extreme gender imbalance during the early days of the colony he knew a certain level of female presence was necessary. Moreover, this female presence could not be filled by the Nekh.
Seppard himself would not tolerate such behavior on the grounds of taking advantage of someone in a difficult position, however after learning of Nekh mating habits the fear of incidents grew significantly. Naturally, he and the more mature elements of the Holifanian delegation understood full well why the Nekh were intensely protective of their women, this understanding simply wasn't shared by the young men with more . . . liberal . . . ideas of what love, dating, and marriage should be like - which wasn't helped by Holifanian tradition and marital policy in the slightest. Already a fair few brawls between the relevant parties had broken out, frustratingly all ending in favor of the Holifanians, and so a moderate sense of resentment had begun to build up under the covers.
The only saving grace of these brawls, if Seppard could even say there was one, was that the Nekh women generally found this behavior appalling. To his knowledge, only two 'bonds' had been made between a Nekh woman and Holifanian male, both accidental and both men having sworn to marry the afflicted once they learned the consequences of their actions. Those incidents served to increase awareness of the issues associated with courtship (and to a lesser extent body odor's role in the process, of which Seppard was particularly thankful for) however the general reaction of the Nekh was definitely one of suspicious appreciation.
It was only a matter of time before one of these incidents went the wrong way. After all, not every man was without a sweetheart back home, and not every woman was up to the 'tastes' of every man, even if they were generally desirable as marriage prospects.
The female applicants weren't that numerous to begin with, and many of the skills they presented were, to be frank, less than desirable for the work that needed doing. Ultimately, he decided to play the game of 'matchmaker' between men and women who had never met, and did not know he had intended a relationship between them. Unfortunately this meant he was judging female applicants based more on looks and character than skillset, but at this point their skills weren't the primary motivation for bringing them along.
"I hate this shit."
"Then why don't you hand it off to someone else?" His wife, standing behind him with another folder of applications, gently scratched the top of his head. "It isn't exactly complicated work."
". . . would you like to take it?"
"I would not be opposed to a more official assignment." Seppard leaned back in his chair, head tilting upwards to look at his wife. His eye shifted focus between both of her's. "You know, I've been a bit worried about your physical fitness recently. I don't think you'll end up fat or anything, but I worry you won't be able to keep up."
"I'll be fine. Even if I'm not in the field, I still perform my morning exercises."
"True as that may be, there's a difference between repetitive motions and, oh I don't know, building something with your hands?" Seppard would have to be an idiot to miss her hint, but he really wasn't feeling like manual labor today. She seemed to have picked up on that as well. "You know, I've been thinking this would be a good time to expand our family-"
"I'll go." Seppard needed no further enticing. Wifey wanted him to build a watchtower, he was going to build a watchtower. Besides, he wanted to be able to pick up his daughters well past his prime. Some less conventional weight lifting would be necessary to keep that capacity alive.
- - - - -
"So it's just a bigger hunting stand?"
"Not as much a stand as it is a tower, but yes." Donovan spoke with a bolt in his mouth, attaching some strange device to the as yet unconnected roof segment of the structure. "Hold it in place for me, will yah? Hands on the base though, I'll kill ya if it breaks."
"How comforting." Seppard put his hands firmly on the base, watching the other work teams assemble their components with a degree of trepidation. This thing looked like the only component not made entirely of steel, which made him nervous about the temperature and corrosion of the structure. "What is this thing anyways?"
"IRST - Infra-Red Search and Track. It'll be able to pick out heat signatures, determine what they are, and alert me of any that may pose a threat. Ideally it will give me enough forewarning of pest infestations to set up my varmint rifle, though it won't be as good if the targets are cold-blooded." Donovan snatched the bold from his mouth and slid it into one of the holes, wiggling it slightly before ratcheting away once someone on the other side confirmed the nut was in place. "How big is the thing I'm shooting?"
"Uhhh, maybe about as big as this tower? To be honest, we don't have much info on it." Seppard looked at the legs, two of which were in the process of being connected to each other with lateral supports. Each was about 20 meters long, one and a half of which would fit into the holes being dug. The resulting fire position on the platforms would be well above any of the complex's buildings and more than enough to get a clear shot beyond the perimeter. "Are you certain this wasn't overboard?"
"If you think this is overboard, you should see what I'm shooting the fucker with." Donovan slapped the metal face twice. "Alright, lets leave this here and get the legs taken care of."
- - - - -
"Hold it steady, once the first few sets of lateral supports are on we can let go." Donovan, leading by example in the most difficult position, instructed those further down the leg without so much as breaking a sweat. The legs being separated by four meters at the base meant the end of this leg would be around three and a half meters in the air, well beyond his reach, so he was almost a third of the way towards the other end but still taking more weight than the others. "Make space as they finish connections, even if that means you need to move your hands. A moment of increased burden is less fatiguing than an extra minute holding it up."
Donovan took this time to gauge the strength of his men, and he wasn't pleased. He knew his minimum expectations would not be met, his time training Len, Sanna, and Wall instilled a level of understanding about the physical standards of this world, however he had not anticipated it to be this bad. Sure, latent malnutrition and an environment hostile to life more generally wouldn't do wonders for someone's strength and endurance, but struggling to hold a hundred pounds or so at around shoulder level for a moderate amount of time was not inspiring confidence. Even if his desired standards were not physiologically possible, he would need to incentivize some level of physical ability.
Hopefully this problem would solve itself though.
"How many do we have on?"
"Two pairs."
"Once we get to four, you can let go. Understood?"
""Yes sir!""
- - - - -
The row of men who volunteered to hold up the leg collapsed off to the side after the rest of the supports were fastened. In spite of their less than desirable performance, Donovan would not scold them. They had performed to the best of their capabilities, and had remained disciplined in the face of exhaustion and prospective injury. If anything, Donovan's problem was that his expectations were too high.
He wouldn't praise them though. Praise, particularly in this context, was reserved for exceeding expectations or meeting a standard approaching perfection.
"How deep are the holes?" Donovan had hardly broken a sweat, and turned to the other portion of work being done.
"Almost done with the base points. How deep do you want the hole for the pulley arm?"
"It can be a little shallower, maybe shoulder height." Donovan walked over to inspect the holes being dug. There were four of them, all measured out by Donovan beforehand, each equipped with two shovels, two buckets, and a team of five. Seppard served as the foreman for all of them, making sure they were doing everything right and occasionally tagging in to lift and dump buckets of soil whenever someone needed a breather or quick drink of water. "I'm just glad the grass here has deep roots."
"Why's that?"
"Excavations deeper than chest height can become very deadly very quickly. Normally there'd be something like a trench box to keep the walls of the hole from collapsing in, but the roots are absorbing the stress and preventing a shear plane from developing. It they weren't that deep, I'd have asked you guys to keep a one to one slope."
"And it would have been a lot more work."