Updated May 2023
I recently changed Reddit accounts and it's been about a year, so it seemed prudent to repost this for visibility. :)

Link to the Below Zero guide

https://subnauticamap.io/ - This is an interactive map of the crater. However, be warned that it will show the general location of things you need to find. This can be toggled but if you have zero point of reference for the places mentioned in this guide, this map should provide one.

General tips are at the bottom, however, they rely on you having played at least part of the way through the game so I don't recommend checking them until at least part 3, AKA "Going Traveling"

Subnautica is a game primarily about exploring your environment while overcoming the trepidation that the game sets up in you over doing so. Although there isn't a perfect guide to being able to clear the game, there also isn't an unambiguous path of progression for the player, either.
Consequently new players often find themselves at an impasse in terms of progression and where to go. The following is a no-nonsense, straight to the point guide on how to progress, but it's not a bible. You can do most of this just by exploring and wandering around.
A blind playthrough is critical to the first time player experience. This is often true of every game but for Subnautica it makes or breaks the whole story - you need to have no idea what the hell is going on the first time you clear the game. If you spoil it for yourself you will regret it, please believe me in this. This guide is meant to give you a nudge when you find you don't know where to go next, it's not really meant as a walkthrough, even though it can be used as one. Do yourself a favor friends, don't go wandering /subnautica or the wiki too much and this guide will not lead you astray. It is written specifically for brand new players.

The Beginning

When you first arrive on 4546b, you find yourself with basically nothing. You're hungry, thirsty, your lifepod is broken and your cookies are gone. The Aurora is burning (and you nearly did too) but despite all that, you're alive and this planet is about to get some Ryley in it.
The environment around you has most of what you need to get started. The metal scrap strewn around the shallows provides an easy source of Titanium while you can break limestone and sandstone to get the minerals you need for your starting tools. You'll want the quartz you find for glass.
Although you have a number of options for making equipment, at this stage I don't recommend using resources for the air pump or pipes. Truth is they don't really have much use; they create a breathing line from the surface for when you're diving, but they're expensive and there's better alternatives in your near future.
Once you have a scanner and knife, take the time to scan everything you can. All the local wildlife can be scanned and most of the flora.
Your objective at this point is to build a repair gun, knife, seaglide, flashlight and scanner.

Branching Out

Now that you've got your basic tools and you can get around a little, it's time to begin exploring. At this point you've seen the deeper waters on the edges of the kelp forest.
It's time to go take a look.
The red grassy plains have what you need to progress to deeper waters. You'll want to explore the wrecks there. There are four grassy plains surrounding the shallows at compass points and cave systems exist in three of them which will become relevant later, but are largely out of your reach for now. It is out here that you will find fragments necessary for an important task you must complete soon. Raiding the aurora will require the laser cutter you learn to make here. You'll also want a propulsion cannon, which you can find the fragments to near the side of the Aurora. DO NOT GO AROUND THE BACK OF THE AURORA. SERIOUSLY. You are not prepared for that level of giggling insanity yet.
By now you've fixed the radio and may have triggered the sunbeam event, in which case you will want to go follow that. Give yourself the full span of time to go to the island and explore unless you'd prefer to explore after the event, but don't let yourself get distracted by what you find there and miss the ship arriving. The signals you've been getting are important prompts and need to be checked out when possible, so make sure you take the time to do that. Also, when you go to either island DO NOT PARK YOUR SEAMOTH NEAR THE BEACH. DO NOT PARK YOUR SEAMOTH NEAR THE BEACH. There is a real risk of it phasing through the ground and becoming inaccessible and then you'll end up on this subreddit asking how to get it back like the other 5 guys a week. Seriously.
Also note that bringing an ion cube to the top of the mountains caves will let you do something interesting up there, but I won't be specific. A scanner room at this spot is ideal not just to track the reaper leviathan on the eastern side of the island but there is quite a lot of shale and lithium here as well, which is probably something you're gonna want.

Going traveling

At this point you should have a seamoth, your basic tools, a laser cutter, propulsion cannon and lead suit. You are prepared. It's time to go to the Aurora... but only if you've gotten the communication from Alterra with the captains door code. Otherwise, you must wait for that radio event. You can go explore the ship anyways of course, but not having the code means you can't get into the captains room, requiring you to go back and get it later. So it's up to you. You can open the door anyways if you get the code off the internet or something but since the game gives it to you anyways, you can always wait for the prompt. If not, the door code is 2679
If you have a cyclops I don't recommend taking it, since reapers hang out at the front and back ends of the ship. However, a seamoth is small enough to fit through the broken superstructure of the ship at the front and thus avoid this danger. There are two ways to access the ship and although it seems impossible, you CAN in fact climb up to access the open one. Otherwise, you can use the prop cannon to move the debris out of the way of the door near water level. Be sure to take the time to explore inside and use the carry-all bags to leave stuff you want to keep from the ship out the front so you can come back and pick it all up later. There's lots of useful stuff in there.
As a side note here, the leech-like things that annoy you in the reactor room are called Bleeders. I hate Bleeders personally, but I noted that if you grab one with the propulsion cannon and fling it into the wall out of sheer spite then other bleeders will be attracted to the body, which makes grabbing and doing the same to them quite easy. Clearing the entire room of those little #*([email protected]'s only takes a couple minutes.
You can get the codes for various rooms inside from the PDA's you find. Also note that some doors can only be opened once you repair them. Sometimes the Aurora glitches and these repair sections don't work but because the ship has two entrances, you can always go around the back to clear the whole thing, which is... annoying. If you don't mind being patient, leaving the Aurora and doing other things for awhile will reset the wreck, allowing you to come back later and potentially be able to repair the doors then.
The codes for the ship are:
Cabin No. 1: 1869
Captain's Quarters: 2679
Cargo Bay: 1454
Lab Access: 6483

Time to go down

With the Aurora repaired you have the ability to wear things other than the lead suit, so it's time to chuck that in the trash 'cuz you won't need it again. It's time to get the outer wrecks in the zones beyond the shallows and hoo boy ain't that gonna be an experience.
The cyclops is your friend here. But what's this, you don't have a cyclops? Well, that's okay. You may have found one of the engine fragments on the aurora in the cargo bay but if you missed it, it's not really a big deal. Your next objective to build one is to go explore mushroom forest and the underwater floating islands for the fragments you'll need. If you've been following your radio signals you've probably been to the aurora rendezvous point by now, but if not, take the time to go thoroughly explore that island. One of the PDAs you need to find the next place is not at the degasi base, but on one of the paths of the island near an arch of rock. You'll need to explore the island thoroughly to find it. Make sure to scan everything and bring back plant samples if you have a seabase. You can use plant pots to keep food trees on your cyclops for easy access to food without worrying about curing everything all the time.
Once you have the cyclops, you need to take the time to upgrade your seamoth to depth so you can explore the various wrecks, supplement your PDA database and establish yourself properly for long-term operations. At this point in the game you should be aiming for or already have:
A seabase, even a basic one. A couple corridors with lockers are invaluable for storage and operations and the scanner room is MISSION CRITICAL. If you haven't built one yet, get on that!
A seamoth, either at or being upgraded to 500m depth
Knife, flashlight, repair gun, seaglide, scanner, laser cutter, propulsion or repulsion cannon, rebreather
Be sure to check everything, then check it again! It's easy to miss things on the island. Be sure to check the buildings on the tops of the hills there too. Although it would be nice to be able to plant land beacons (hint hint, Unknown Worlds), it's not feasible for marking out the precursor gate on the floating island so unfortunately, it's not of much use unless you have your base on one island or the other. I don't recommend the floating island for this for reasons which will become apparent later in the game.

Looking into the abyss

If you've explored most of or all of the wrecks and no longer have missing technology, it's time to go deeper. If you've been following your PDA signals you need to check out the degasi bases and follow their story, as they lead you to a large, deep cave which is the path to deeper places you need to explore.
There are several inlets to the place you need to reach. Northern Bulb Zone where it meets Mountains has a large entrance. Blood Kelp Zone and Trench both have entrances. The last one is in deep grand reef, where the final Degasi base is. I personally recommend either Deep Grand Reef or Bulb Zone but the latter has the most accessibility.
Raiding the final Degasi Base before exploring this cave system will get you the orange precursor key which you'll need to access something hidden at the southern end of the caves near blood kelp trench's entrance. While working down here I strongly recommend making liberal use of beacons as navigational guides if you're new to this place. It is VERY confusing and looks very same-y if you haven't spend a lot of time here.
Deep inside the caves you'll come upon a chamber with a massive skull sitting on a chunk of land in the middle and access to a slightly lower part of the cave system which is not green. This is the Cove Tree Cave and the brine there will not hurt you the way the green brine does. This leaves you able to free dive there to gather materials without needing to rely on your prawn.
This chamber with the skull is, in fact, the central chamber of Lost River. It is an excellent place for building a scanner station and the entire area is ludicrously rich in resources. It's a perfect place to stock up and catch up any upgrades, tools or devices you may be lacking so far. You'll want the resource stocks for later and honestly, it's just a really cool place to have a base in general.
The Disease Research Facility is in the north-eastern arm of Lost River, accessible through the Bulb Zone entrance. A juvenile ghost leviathan guards the path but as with most leviathans, operating in silent running and staying above or below it while sticking to the cave walls will get you by without any issue. If they do notice you, just pop a decoy, go full speed for about 5-8 seconds and then drop the engine to low and stay in silent running until you get far enough for the big ugly to stop bothering you.
The southern part of Lost River holds a large chamber with a ghost leviathan juvenile and houses another rather large skeleton. This area in particular is rich in large ore deposits and crystallized sulfur that you'll be needing for some big upgrades.
By the way, remember the cyclops shield? By now you're probably noticing that using the auxiliary functions on the cyclops eats a lot of power. Redundant power cells are your friend and if you feel you're worried about power costs while exploring, you lose nothing by having a buttload of spare power cells. It can pay off, being able to spam the shield for awhile and run away.
You'll want that shield for what's coming next.

Once More Unto The Deep

By now you've probably explored Lost River a bit and you're wondering where to go from here. If you've built a scanner room in the central chamber, you'll have noticed that the scanner, when at full range, shows a chamber below Lost River.
This is the inactive lava zone and it is here your answers lay.
You have two access points to reach this chamber. The North-east arm past the disease research facility and the cove tree caves. Both entrances are equally difficult to get through but the first one feels more open, if you don't mind the ghost leviathan circling around above the opening.
This chamber is rich with even more valuable resources, if you somehow haven't got enough already. The cove tree cave entrance leads to the western part of the ILZ chamber. The North-east entrance leads to the north edge of the chamber. The chamber itself is rather oval-shaped, with the western edge of it relatively empty and the eastern part containing a massive lava bubble.
If you wander around down here long enough the PDA will prompt you to take a look at that bubble a bit more closely. You will need two purple precursor keys to access the facility inside. Now that you're down here you'll notice there's a fair number of warpers, crimson rays (who are harmless) and leech-like things which will attach to the hull of your ship and drain power. That sounds like a problem, doesn't it?
Don't worry though, we got you covered. Once you're down here, go grab some kyanite and you can build the cyclops thermal reactor which pretty much eliminates the whole running out of power problem. The shield is a great way to get the leeches off your hull at the same time.
As for the leviathan, the sea dragon isn't actually a whole lot of threat. It might spit fire at you and is capable of picking up and biting the prawn but will mostly ignore you if you don't go hanging out in front of it.
With that said, treat it like any other leviathan while in the cyclops. Drive slow, keep an eye on it and if it gets curious, drop a decoy and move away ASAP. Cutting your engines once you've gotten a little distance will almost always make them lose interest.

But Wait, There's More!

If you've explored the inner depths of the lava bubble, then you have the blue key, ion battery plans and have opened the portal to the QEP. Great! Now coming down here in the prawn isn't a big deal and you don't have to drive the cyclops all the way down here to go grab resources. A small scanner base down here would be great for quickly finding what you need.
As you can probably guess, there's an even deeper chamber than this, which is the active lava zone. You can find the entrance by following the lava flows around the ILZ and keeping an eye on the floor. You'll find a large space big enough for the cyclops to lower down into.
Down here you'll find 2 sea dragons to avoid, so don't you get conservative with your power. By now you'll probably have built ion power cells and those can run your shield and sonar together for a full 5 minutes with silent running going so don't be shy about using them!
Getting into the alien base down here will require two blue keys, one for accessing the facility, the other for accessing the inner facility. It is here you will find the ion cube fabricator which requires the prawn. You can use this to open the warp gates in the facility. Six ion cubes in total are required for this. Four for the warp gates on the upper floor and two in the Sea Emperors tank. One of these leads back to the upper floor, if you find you're struggling to get back out. This gate in particular is about halfway up the tank at the back and sits on a large ledge. An ion cube is provided to activate it, giving you a way to walk out of the tank if you find you're struggling to get out.
And... that's pretty much it, really. After that encounter you'll know where to go and what to do. The paths laid out for you in the final facility lead you to the places you need to go to find the things you require.

Tips and tricks

• Keep floaters in your cyclops. When you're operating above 500m, running out of power, floaters will allow you to passively bring your ship to the surface without power expense so that you can resupply it. This is pretty much a last ditch move but it never hurts to be prepared.
  
• You can fit up to 8 basic plant pots in an observatory, which will grant you twice the amount of growing space as an indoor grow bed for the same amount of floor space while also making the crops more easily accessible.
  
• The engine comparment of the cyclops has a lower deck behind the vehicle bay which everybody ignores, but it's a great spot for plant shelves and marble melons for food security.
  
• Load your vehicles. Dedicate storage in them to supplies. Water, food, medkits, beacons, flares (bonesharks and crabsquids react to them) and spare power supplies for the vehicles. Keep this kit supplied and you will never be caught unprepared for an 'oh crap' situation.
  
• Okay, so you don't want to give up inventory space for your vehicles. The next best thing is then to fill a watertight locker or two with food, water, medpacks and maybe a couple spare batteries and power cells, then drop them someplace with a beacon next to them. Do this a dozen times in random spots around the map as you travel and now you have emergency caches you can access if you get into trouble.
  
• When you reach the point where materials gathering is easy, consider creating vehicle-creation drop points. 2-3 spots on the map with a mobile vehicle bay, a couple lockers with everything you need for a new seamoth and some basic supplies. If you lose your vehicle, it's a lot easier to make a replacement and get the mats than to get the mats to make a replacement.
  
• The propulsion gun is your friend. Use it to grab items to pick up, use it to grab cave crawlers and yeet them into low orbit, use it to pick up rocks and fling them at things you particularly don't like. Use it to collect gas pods from gasopods without getting hit by the cloud. Use it to move debris in wrecks. Bring a spare battery specifically for it because flinging things around uses a lot of power but the sheer utility of the tool makes it worth the cost.
  
• You'll be tempted to deck your seamoth out with all the toys but the truth is once you have the prawn, it's obsolete. Don't fall into the temptation of continuing to build tons of upgrades for it unless you plan to use it for a fast-fetch vehicle for things you need from far away. However, with that said, the seamoth is really the superior vehicle for wreck-diving.
  
• Keeping a second air tank in your inventory and swapping them mid-dive is a perfectly viable option. However, the tanks only refill when wearing them, so make sure to switch again once you're back in breathing space. This can and will save you when wreck diving and two ultra high quality tanks equals 450 seconds of air in total, or 7m30s of air.
  
• Speaking of air, you can use the air bladders alternate use key (F on PC - the same button for self-scanning) to get a few seconds of air out of it into your tank. It's not much - 20 seconds or so - but sometimes, that little bit extra can save your life if you're just out of reach of your vehicle.
  
• You can collect flora and fauna samples as you progress through the game and have a garden base specifically for growing plant samples from around the crater. Obviously this looks really nice (creepvine in an alien tank under the floor provides the room in your base with a nice golden glow) but is also useful later.
  
• SCANNER ROOMS. SERIOUSLY PEOPLE. If you're struggling to find the magnetite, go to Jellyshroom. If you're struggling to find Jellyshroom, always remember that lifepod 17 is directly next to one of its exit points. The range upgrades are incredibly important and the HUD chip makes the whole thing work.
  
• Farm supplies! You don't need to work or power anything to grow crops. Consider dropping a foundation with some growbeds, a beacon and your farmables (gel sack, creepvine seeds, creepvine samples, acid mushroom, blood oil and deepshrooms). Now you can stock up on things like batteries, rubber, lubricant, benzene, polyaniline. Keep a few of these crops in your cyclops for planting in new spots and never run out of the stuff you need while keeping your home base nice and lag free.
  
• Creature decoys can be deployed both by hand and by prawn propulsion arm, which lets you pull items out of your inventory to 'throw'. You can also do this with the propulsion cannon by using the F key (the alternate tool use button, the same one you use to self-scan, for all you console folks).
  
• Turning off your engines greatly reduces the chance of a leviathan damaging the cyclops, even if it's right on top of you. Moving is what gets their attention. If one is swimming near the sub, cut all engines and just wait patiently for it to get a little distance, then silent running and max speed for a few seconds. Pop a decoy for good measure if you want to make absolutely sure.
  
• You can access the right side of the Aurora relatively safely by going south to Crag Zone and then banking east into the deeper parts of crash zone. Most of the reapers are up by the ship, sticking to the bottom will keep you relatively safe and net you as much titanium as you will ever need.
  
• Blood kelp zone, the sea treader wreck and the meteor crater in Dunes all have secrets that you may find interesting.
  
• Remember the Bleeders in the reactor room of the Aurora? Bring a grav trap along - they're cheap, it's disposable - and enter through the top door by climbing along the wreckage up there. Pop the grav trap in the reactor room and kill one of them with the propulsion cannon - the others will come for the body and be stuck in the trap, making picking them off much, much easier than it would be trying to find them all individually. You can just leave the trap behind. If you have the stasis gun, you can wait for them to stack up in the grav trap, stun them, then drop gas pods amidst the several bleeders and watch them get bodied.
  
• Gas pods 'o doom also work against leviathans. They work against EVERYTHING. You just need a lot of them, but getting a lot of them is really easy with the propulsion cannon (which can fire them too, by the way).
  
• Reefback barnacles are a good source of copper and silver, but beware the tiger plants on their backs. If you have a reinforced dive suit, tiger plants can't hurt you, but without one they're a pain. You can yeet them with the propulsion cannon. That trick works for drooping stingers too.
  
• Beacons everywhere. No seriously, everywhere. You'd be amazed how few people use them as much as they ought to be used.
  
• Eastern red grass plains has deep caves with a type of plant which can only be found in a few select spots on the map. Bulb Zone's lifepod has caves with some nearby and the Dunes also has some, but a Reaper is guarding them. If you do manage to find the spot though, it's GREAT for rubies!
  
• Scanner room cameras are a good way to keep track of nearby leviathans. They also force the terrain to load, which is required for the scanner room to actually pick things up. Stalkers will snag the cameras and move them around, but they're pretty useful for quickly getting the scanner room working right. The wildlife ignores the cameras too, so if you want a really nice picture of some creature you really hate getting close to, they're a great way to get it.
  
• Breed some stalkers, release them outside your base next to a pile of metal scrap and never worry about finding teeth for glass again. Barring that? Drop a random beacon in the kelp forest and wait for a stalker to collect it, follow it back to their stash and drop a grav trap.
  
• Light sticks can be good for wreck diving, as are flares. Flares provide much better lighting in large open spaces than the flashlight or seaglide. It makes them a good alternative to the flashlight in the early game.
  

• DO NOT PARK YOUR SEAMOTH NEAR THE BEACHES. DO NOT PARK YOUR SEAMOTH NEAR THE BEACHES. DO NOT PARK YOUR SEAMOTH NEAR THE BEACHES.

• The following is a list of zones where one can find particular ores. It isn't a complete list, but will allow you to find everything you need in a timely fashion:
  

Lithium - Jellyshroom, Bulb Zone, Mushroom Forest, Lost River
Loose Lithium - Mushroom Forest, Mountains, Grand Reef, Shale, lost river
Magnetite - Jellyshroom is the only biome with large nodes
Loose Magnetite - Jellyshroom, mountains, cove tree cave, blood kelp zone, lost river
Rubies - Dunes, Spare Reef Caves, Lost River, Grand Reef, Underwater Islands
Diamonds - Lost River, Shale, Inactive Lava Zone, Sea Treader Path, sometimes caves
Table Coral - Shallows, Lost River
Copper - Mushroom forest, blood kelp zone, bulb zone, lost river, limestone, Inactive Lava Zone
Silver - Crag Zone, Mountains, Lost River, sandstone, Inactive Lava Zone
Gold - Jellyshroom, Blood Kelp Zone, Lost River, sandstone, shale
Lead - Sandstone, mountains, crash zone, lost river, Inactive Lava Zone
Titanium - Crash Zone, Dunes, Limestone, Lost River, Inactive Lava Zone
Metal Salvage - Crash Zone, Crag Zone, Kelp Forest
Kyanite - Inactive Lava Zone
Crystalline Sulfur - Lost River
Nickel - Lost River
Uraninite - Blood Kelp Zone, Blood Kelp Trench, Lost River, Inactive Lava Zone, Grand Reef
Quartz - Dunes, Crag Zone, Lost River, Inactive Lava Zone, Red Grassy Plains
If you're reading this guide and have any suggestions for additional information, feel free to share them for the next iteration.

Good luck, survivor!

Updated May 2023
After changing reddit accounts and about a year since posting it, it seemed prudent to throw this up for visibility. :)
Few things are worse than not knowing what happened to a loved one. Which is what convinced Robin Ayou to get into a drop shuttle with a lifepod with basically nothing, then fire herself down onto an ocean planet where the only place that she could investigate was a tiny little patch of barely-even-land and pray she can survive long enough to find a way to get off the planet.
Nobody ever told Robin she was great at forward planning.
https://subnauticamap.io/belowzero - This map will provide direction/orientation for this guide, but BEWARE! It marks spoilers if you turn those on!

Touchdown

Once you've landed, you'll find some food and water to start you off scattered around the ship. You won't have to worry about getting cold, since standing next to your now-burning ship will warm you up and the meteors coming down don't actually paste you, they're mostly to stress you out.
Note that may not be the case later. The weather in this game is a serious thing.
Once you have your stuff, you'll find the drop pod on your HUD. Don't go straight to it, though. As soon as you hit the water, look for an indentation in the ground. You'll find some copper in there. Then, follow the northern glacial wall (That's to your right when you're looking at your lifepod) until you find a small cave, which will have some silver and gold. That'll get you started off nicely. Get to your lifepod, take a look at your fabricator. You'll find that the items you have blueprints for can be pinned to the top-right in your PDA by clicking on them in the blueprints tab, a useful feature when hunting for materials.
Your goals right now are your basic survival tools. Note that the kelp forest is a bad place to hold your stuff in your hand. The sea monkeys are kleptomaniacs and will gank your stuff. You can totally get it back though, it just means chasing after them a bit, which is annoying and wastes time. However, if you pull out a flare and hold it in front of them, they freak out and run away from you for a little bit.

Time To Get Rolling

Your first task, as indicated by the PDA, is to find Delta Island. This becomes relatively easy once you find a compass. If you've gone to the emergency cache you'll have the beacon blueprint so stock up on them before traveling so you can mark things. You're going to be making a lot of these but since you can toggle them it's not so bad, you'll just need a lot of beacons. Its south of where the drop pod lands. As you spread out your searching range you'll find that the sea floor drops down among twisty coral structures.
This area is called Twisty Bridges. It's the main go-to for coral samples and you'll want those. There's small bits of Alterra stuff scattered around the area. It's here you'll find mobile vehicle bay, sea truck and seaglide fragments. When you've been in the area for a bit, you'll hear what sounds like an SOS. It's worth checking that out and you'll find that this spot goes deeper than you might suspect. Makes you wonder what's down there, doesn't it?
Beyond Twisty Bridges lies the thermal spires, an area of volcanic activity and thermal smokers. Many sea truck fragments are here. The wildlife here is noisy and menacing sounding but if you don't hang out next to them they're easy to avoid. Smacking one with a blade will made it instantly turn and get the hell away from you. They don't like being hit. On the border between thermal spires and twisty bridges someplace is a small foundation platform with external grow beds for you to scan, but you can get these at Omega Station later if you're not sweating on it. There are large crevices and a few volcanic fissures out here. Beware the heat vents, but exploring those areas can pay off, later.
On the island, you'll find blueprints you need, as well as some materials like sulfur and horseshoe nuts. The latter are very useful to plant in the seabase you'll be wanting. Take care to look around thoroughly for blueprints you'll find useful, as not all of them are inside the buildings. Also, keep a sharp eye out for music disks which you'll find scattered throughout the game, especially in bases.
On the south-west corner of the island is a precursor artifact you can scan. Look for the beach with all the pengwings on it. The habitat builder can be found on a box outside Delta Station. Make sure to scan the map inside the sea base. There's also a PDA up by the comms tower.

Let's Go Explorin'

So, by now you've visited Delta Island, have had a good look around Twisty Bridges and you've probably discovered the sea monkey caves in Kelp Forest. If you haven't gone exploring in those, you really ought to. You'll find more MVB fragments there but that's also where the propulsion cannon blueprint can be found, the laser cutter, as well as a fair amount of gold and some precursor artifacts as well. Once that's all done with and taken care of, you've probably got at least a tiny seabase, but if you don't... what are you doing?
Go on, shoo. Go make a base.
...
Okay, got one now? Good! Hopefully it's someplace nice. Your basic sea truck can't get down to where you want to be going next but a depth module will take care of that. A MkII depth module will let you get to the very bottom of where you want to go. Where do you want to go? Koppa Mine. You'll find it on the western side of the island. Take care to look around when you find the door eventually, since there is a databox just inside the main doors, before you head down. It has the moonpool and will allow you to get that much earlier than you would through scanning it.
To drive the seatruck inside the mine, drive north from the entrance of Koppa mine, you'll come across a volcanic fissure in the seafloor nearby which has JUST enough space for you to fit your seatruck through it. The fissure leads right into Koppa Mine, allowing you to drive the seatruck inside!
The other alternative is actually spare air tanks. Totally a viable solution so long as you remember to refill them by equipping them once you're out of the water. You can swap them out mid-dive and extend your breathing time, which is handy since the prawn fragment blueprints you require are kinda far down there. If you're free diving in this way, note that the bottom chamber of the mine has a hole in the ceiling leading to a small cave system which will lead you back to the surface, as well as having a number of oxygen plants to keep you from choking on the way. The entrance to that is almost right next to the Delta Station docks.
Also note that Site Zero, which has useful blueprints, can be found by hugging the northern glacial wall and heading east along it. You can find it by checking breaks in the ice, one of them leads up to a small hidden cave where the base lies. But if you don't find it, you'll be directed here later. It just has some useful things to scan and a lantern fruit tree. There is a music disk here.

Way Down South

By now you've probably answered the SoS. If not, go do that. As you hang out with Al-An, he'll give you prompts to artifacts that you haven't found yet, if you dawdle in looking for the required number. At this point you should have the following:

• A sea base, even a basic one. The databox in Koppa Mine's entrance will grant you the moon pool but if you missed it, you can get the blueprint later following the storyline.
  
• Seaglide, knife, propulsion cannon, beacons, repair tool, scanner, flashlight, builder tool
  
• Seatruck with at least one depth module
  
• Prawn blueprints
  

Building the Prawn is surprisingly easy, but requires lithium, a material you probably haven't seen a lot of yet. There's a little scattered around in thermal spires, but only a little. You can find a lot at purple vents, but be careful to avoid the doom shrimp. A chelicarate hangs out here. There are other things in this area which are relevant to you which you'll want to mark out for later. There is a small seatruck crash site with a variety of fragments out here, if you find it, look around carefully for the music disk that's here.
Following the marker for the unknown pilots last position, you will find a green area rich in confusing cave systems. This area is the lilypads zone. Old girl can be found down near the signal, just look for the shimmering things on the wall, the hive minds. She's near them. Grab the seatruck defense module she has in there. Be sure to pick up the databox directly outside her base to get the stillsuit as well and if you follow the caves down where they turn blue you'll stumble on an old thermal plant of hers, where another databox lies. There's fragments scattered all over this zone as well as The mercury II stern, which lays on the border between lilypads and purple vents, as well as the bow, which is a little further in on the western side of lilypads. Be sure to explore the area thoroughly and take note of the massive crevasse near the middle of the zone. Inside the chunk of land here is Omega Lab, which will net you the external grow beds, nuclear plant, nuclear disposal as well as a couple new beds and the antenna plants. It's in this area you'll need to search for nickel later, so building a scanner station here is a good idea. Deep Lilypads holds an Al-An body part you'll require. Deep Lilypads is also the only place you can acquire the materials to manufacture benzene.
Don't go too close to the Lily Paddlers, unless you like being off your face, in which case go say hi, it's hilarious. Trust me. ;D
In order to disable the satellite for Dances-With-Reapers, you're going to need to wreck dive the Mercury II. Two of its sections can be found in purple vents, while the bow - the largest - can be found in Lilypads, west of Omega Labs floating island. You'll need the laser cutter for this. Your goal is to scan the parallel processors in the wreck, but there's all kinds of really useful stuff in there too, not to mention all the titanium. ALL the titanium. So be sure to drop beacons on these things, bring a spare air tank and bring your pathfinder tool. If you don't have the pathfinder tool, go look around in the caves full of emeralds between Phi Robotics docks and Phi Robotics itself. There is one up on a small ridge in one of those caves. If you can't find it, don't worry though, just bring flares and use them as breadcrumbs while diving to prevent yourself from getting too lost. The alien containment tank, reinforced dive suit, parallel processor can be found in these. A music disk is in the bow section on a bridge console.

LAND HO!

Aaah, glacial basin. How I hate thee. The basin is split into four sections, two for each part of the basin, north and south. South is where you'll probably end up first. You can find the docks to access this area by tracking along the northern glacial wall and continuing west until you come to the eye jellyfish. Check the radio tower next to the docks, there is a music disk there. The upper southern area is where Phi Robotics lays, as well as frost vase plants and spicy peppers. Both of those are excellent crops to grow, as they net you useful things. The spicy peppers scattered throughout the entirety of glacial basin essentially means that you'll not starve while out here so long as you're paying attention to what you're doing. Note that snow stalkers REALLY HATE FLARES. They'll make your trips out here annoying, even in the prawn, which is the best way to ensure the weather isn't a factor for you. Sometimes they're in the caves. Flares will make exploring these much safer.
You can get to lower glacial basin through the upper part, but it's a bit confusing and I prefer to access it via the glacial tunnel. Head south along the western glacial wall from the glacial basin docks and you'll find a tunnel which eye jellyfish are hanging out near. This tunnel leads directly to lower glacial basin and provides a convenient way to access the area without needing to travel through upper GB every time.
Northern Glacial Basin can be accessed by scanning the hydraulic fluid on the bridge, then repairing the bridge to cross it. DO NOT GO HERE WITHOUT THE PRAWN. SERIOUSLY. The grip arm is very handy to have out here and if you haven't found it, use a scanner room in Lilypads to find the sea monkey nests but it's not necessary so don't stress if you don't have it. Just don't use the snow fox. It's useless and handles like crap.
The iceworms here are dangerous if you stay still too long. Take your time, explore thoroughly and mark out any Alterra sites you find with beacons. A couple of these have the blueprints for the Thumper and this is your ticket to working in this area safely. A thumper will keep the iceworms away within a radius, ensuring you don't get whacked while picking stuff up outside the prawn.
Along the western wall of this zone is a small cave with three large ion cube deposits. Keep a sharp eye out for it, you definitely want those. At the north-east tip of the zone you'll find ice worm corpses you can scan that don't put you in mortal danger during the attempt.
Really funny seeing them pop up and chow down on snow stalkers, though. Pay back sucks, don't it? Al-An's body part is out here. Keep an eye out for the precursor cables and make sure to check all the caves, because the master gateway leading to Phi Robotics is here as well. The room containing the gateway leads to a small docks and tunnel with an ice wall you can cut through to easily access the middle of northern glacial basin from the docks. There is a music disk at those docks as well.

Going Down?

By now you're probably wondering where to go. Remember purple vents? The engine part of the mercury II has a crevasse leading down to where you need to go next. Once you've found the crystal caves, you better hope you picked up the defense module at Marg's base. It's sitting inside her room and sometimes gets knocked to the floor when Preston jumps you. You'll be wanting it for what's down here.
The Shadow Leviathan.
Ohhhh boy are they ever aggressive. Good news for you though, they patrol around on a set route and they don't go through the whole of crystal caves. You'll be looking for fragments here, as well as materials. Lots of gold, silver and kyanite in the crevasses in the floor of these caves. An Al-An body part, the final one, can be found at the bottom of a tunnel which is mouthed by a circular formation of crystals. Once you have it, you'll want to go even deeper to find the fabrication facility, forcing you to wander crystal caves until you find the blood crystal caves.

Oh Yeah, It's All Comin' Together

So, you now have everything you need to build your home boy a body. Once that's done, you'll be wanting to wrap up the bit with Sam. If you've explored lower southern glacial basin, you'll have found the cave with the frozen leviathan. Oh, and grab the music disk in the security bunker. Exploring this cave gets you some useful stuff. You know the little caves here with the blinking markers? Explore these with spy penglings! There's some useful stuff in some of them, actually. Including the antidote Sam hid. You can use that on the loader located on the upper part of the leviathan in the cave.
And... that's that! That's the whole game.

Tips and Tricks

• The air bladder can pull a tiny amount of air into your tank. It's not very much but those 10 seconds of extra air can save your life in a deep pinch.
  
• You can find lots of quartz if you hug the northern ice wall and roam east of west, but be careful of the brinewings. They'll freeze your ass, which can be inconvenient if you're low on air.
  
• Frost Anemone Hearts are actually a really great food source and should be picked up any time you can get them. They'll last forever in the fridge.
  
• Made your base with some helpful sea monkey neighbours? After awhile they stop stealing from you and begin trying to help you - but they don't know what you want! If you mark blueprints in your PDA, they'll try and bring you materials for that if they can.
  
• Most predators will back off if you feed them a fish before they bite you. This includes leviathans. You might still get hurt from them slamming into you or something but feeding them a fish will usually cause them to stop attacking you. This doesn't work against the shadow leviathan, it hates you and everything you hold dear. It doesn't know what those things are, but it doesn't care either. It just does.
  
• Spare air tanks are great and can be kept stocked in your sea truck, but remember to put them on to refill them.
  
• Animals will react to your behavior in some instances. Feel tree to try new things with them like feeding fish. You can even ride on glow whales! Some of them really hate flares too, like sea monkeys and snow stalkers.
  
• Surface bases are a completely viable thing in this game and some of the ice sheets have holes in them, allowing you to have a surface base with a dropped section for moonpools and water filters. Water filters will work outside of the water, but you don't get salt and they're much slower.
  
• Get the cold suit as soon as you can. It's in Phi Robotics. It changes your outside time from 2 minutes to 7 minutes, which is a huge difference. Without it, the prawn is the only way to explore the surface without constantly stressing about freezing to death. You can find the tufts of fur in snow stalker caves where the pups are, make sure you have a flare if you don't like getting nommed on.
  
• Can't figure out how to get on top of the ice sheet, but you want a base up there? Swim down deep and use the air bladder to get some height. You can build a hallway up there, then drop a ladder down into the water to make a surface base with an underwater docking section. Alternatively, you can probably get up there with the prawn and the grip arm.
  
• Speaking of the prawn and grip arm, you can totally launch yourself with it. Attaching the grip to the ground and using it to pull yourself into a jump will get you some serious air time, which is helpful for getting up small ridges on the surface. If you break the map and managed to get above it in the prawn, return to the player area. Being up there breaks progression completely and the only interesting thing is a leftover animation testbed east of glacial basin. The collision on terrain is also patchy here and it's possible to fall through the ground into the void. In your prawn. So don't screw around up there too much.
  
• Spicy peppers and coffee will both warm you up while on the surface, which makes the spicy peppers scattered all over the place pretty valuable.
  
• The greenhouse you get sent to can be found in Lilypads on an iceberg. The three large icebergs here all have things to find so be sure to search thoroughly.
  
• The crashed ship is a great place to get a lot of metal very quickly and will basically hand you a free sea base so long as you're willing to go keep picking it up. If you've already looted it all, give it awhile and check back later, sometimes new scrap shows up as the wrecks continue their eventual rot.
  
• Drop emergency caches of food, water, medpacks, batteries, power cells and flares along with a beacon and never be caught short on supplies because you went out looking for stuff and forgot to bring rations. D'oh!
  
• A small base specifically for replacing vehicles is very helpful when you lose one. Have the materials gathered beforehand and you won't have to spend a long time struggling to get them together after the bad feeling of having your stuff crunched.
  
• Be sure to look for creature eggs out in glacial basin
  
• Rock punchers are jerks and will kill stuff in your containment tank, so now you know, and knowing is half the battle. And the lives of your fish.
  
• There is no good way to scan the leviathans, but your scan progress gets saved if you don't scan other things, so letting it chow down on your seatruck and scanning it while it's distracted, then repairing your vehicle after, will allow you to get the whole scan after a couple rounds.
  
• Make scanner rooms everywhere. Solar panels and bio reactors are your friend. Nuclear power is better but not viable in early game. If you need magnetite, go to the glacial tunnel and look at the ice walls just where the tunnel curves upwards, you'll find ore fissures there with magnetite inside.
  
• Beacons, beacons, beacons. I can't stress this enough, litter them EVERYWHERE. You can toggle them on and off in your PDA, so having a bajillion around the map isn't really a problem and they're really useful.
  
• There are more precursor artifacts than Al-An mentions to you. Keep a sharp eye out, look everywhere and scan for ion cubes. Check icebergs for moulins, AKA hollow chambers inside. You'll need a laser cutter to access the ones you find.
  
• Tree Spires has a hell of a lot of uraninite in its cave systems, it's a good spot to stock up on it. Beware the chelicarate in the zone.
  
• The crystal caves are roughly the shape of a spiral. Knowing this makes navigating them a lot less mystifying. Mind you, it's still difficult. As usual, use beacons a lot. Also make sure to explore the cracks in the floor of the cave!
  
• Penglins/Pengwings drown if you leave them in the alien containment tank after hatching :( They have to hold their breaths. If you breed them, make sure to set them free.
  
• There are no large nodes for lead. You must search for galena outcrops with the scanner room. It's pretty much the only way to stock up on the stuff. The other one people have a lot of trouble with is Magnetite, which can only be found in lower glacial basin. You'll want a scanner room to find it. Upper glacial basin has a TON of lithium if you can handle the ice worms... as well as three large mining nodes for ion cubes hidden in a cave.
  
• Keep exploring Upper Glacial Basin even if you find the precursor body part. There are ice worm corpses and a slipgate out here for you to find. The slipgate links to the Phi Robotics slipgate and has a tunnel which leads directly back out to the docks that you can only cut open from the inside. There's also a music disk down there on a crate so keep a sharp eye out when you find it.
  

Good luck, Robin!

For some background context, my mother is in her mid 50s with three children, 35M, 19M, and 18F (myself). She had been through several divorces and have always struggled r with maintaining relationships and friendships.
Ever since I could remember, she had been cold and distant towards me. She practically abandoned me for my aunt to take care of, while we lived together she would straight out ignore me but pamper my brother. I used to be able to understand as he was mildly autistic and needed extra attention, but the hypocritical fact was that she was physically abusive towards him, he would be bullied in school and punished for it at home, not just a slap, but full on beating him up. I fell victim to her antics when my aunts not around as well, when I went through puberty, she saw that I was too embarrassed to start wearing a bra and decided to drag me out mid shower, fully naked and beat me up, and throw me into the corridor of our apartment complex. Yet she had a period of self improvement from the age of 10-12 when she learnt to communicate and understand us. She even sent me abroad to a boarding school as I wanted it (to be away from her)
During those years apart she’s grown more sick and twisted once again, she returned to her old ways with my brother and was very aggressive towards him until he fought back, I fought back once as well and threatened to call the police on her. We are both fortunate in that my brother and I were able to both leave the country for a boarding school. She had been radio silent for the past 5 years since she met her new boyfriend, every single time I tried to speak to her she would compare her younger self with me, saying I wasn’t as beautiful as her and I was not good enough. She was also virtually absent during the lock down when I was stranded from home as a 15 yearold. I think the breaking point was my recent interactions with her. During Christmas, my ex and I went home for the holiday where I found out he cheated on me. I tried to return home since I didn’t feel safe in that room with him, her response to the story was to batter me and call me a filthy whore. When my dad came to pick me up she pulled out a knife and tried to stab him. My academic achievements were often overlooked by her, I’ve always achieved all As or most As, and received multiple scholarships for universities, yet she dismissed it and said it was useless as I was a woman and ultimately my brother was the carrier of our surname not me. My brother was bright as mentioned he was mildly autistic, however she spoiled him rotten when not beating him up, she showered him with gifts and it didn’t matter whether he did good in school, and he actually ended up being a bully at the end since he received no consequences. When we’re together she would speak to my brother, she would buy him cigarettes, alcohol and anything he wanted, yet if I was to take a sip from a drink, or have a man look my way, I would get scrutinised for it for the entire night. My brother grew to be subordinate to her in order to not get punished physically or emotionally and would never stand up for us. Yesterday she came to my brothers graduation which I also attended, she was initially friendly and talked about how beautiful I looked in my dress, but as soon as I received validation and compliments from others, she lost her shit on me and told me I was a desperate whore that didn’t deserve kindness, I was no better than a dog and she regrets ever having me. I’ve ignored her since she claims to have heart problems so I couldn’t shout back at her. Today was the breaking point, I was getting ready to go downstairs for a drink in our hotel bar, as I was putting on my shoes she randomly said “you’re the biggest slut I’ve seen.” And I just broke down crying, when asked how so she just said there’s no reason and she simply felt like saying that. I’m sick of being sexualised by my own mother, be it in a sundress, church clothes even school uniform, her gaze is more terrifying than any male gaze I’ve been subject to. Should I cut her off or will I regret it

It all started 3 days ago, I think, though it could be longer. This thing could've been watching me for ages before then, I just probably didn't know. Oh gosh, where do I start? I just need help! I know it's coming. It comes every night.
I'm going to start from the beginning. It was Friday evening, about 9pm and I was making my way back to my log cabin after a busy day of teaching thirty teenagers how to build a raft. I work at a Summer Camp through the holidays to help me pay for Uni. I remember there being a really eerie atmosphere. The trees surrounding my cabin were casting other-worldly shadows all around me as I walked up to my front door. There were weird noises coming from the bushes and from further into the forest. It just seemed...strange. But it was kind of easy to shrug this off as my over-active imagination as I had been here for over 3 months and not one thing had happened. Tonight was different though.
As I searched through the keys on my fob to find the right one, I caught something in my peripheral. Something strange. Something that moved so quickly, too quickly to be a human, yet having the same distinctive shape of a large man. I stood there, paralysed to the spot staring in the direction of 'the thing', waiting for more movement or a noise or anything. I seemed to be standing for an eternity, just waiting, listening, hoping that nothing else would happen.
After a while, I began to fumble with my keys and the metal clanking pulled me from the almost hypnotic state. I found the right key and quickly entered the cabin and double locked it before taking my first breath in what seemed like a very long time.
It took a lot longer to shrug this fear off. I know humans can't move as quickly as that 'thing' did, and I'm damn sure that there's no animals out there that can move like lightning and look like a 6'6'' man. I mean, I live in the UK. The scariest animal here is a badger! But, as time passed, I was eventually able to jump in the bath and relax, allowing the distant thought to flow further away.
It was around 10pm that the fear came flooding back even more intense than before.
I was just getting out of the bath when I heard a noise from down the hall. It sounded like a metal rubbing against metal with a slight squeak, slowly and quietly.
I froze.
The sound continued as I wrapped a towel around me and nervously approached the bathroom door. Then it stopped. The instant relief of the quiet and empty hallway calmed me as I peered around the door frame.
Man, I'm edgy tonight. I've gotta chill out.
I slowly made my way down the hall in search of what the noise could've been. After a few minutes of cursing myself for insisting that I didn't want a room mate in the cabin and for paying the extra fee to have solitary boarding, I realised that there was only one thing that would make that noise.
The front door handle.
I stepped backwards in realization that someone or something had tried to get in my lodge. An overwhelming urge to run overcame me.
Run where? How? It means I have to go outside and I'm safe in here. Am I?
I walked backwards to my bedroom and jumped on to my bed. I tried to calm myself by insisting that the teenagers were playing tricks on me, but I knew these children were all in bed by now and they weren't your average college type students. These were gifted and well-mannered young boys who were probably tucked up in bed right now listening to David Attenborough audiobooks. Rationalising did however get the better of me after a good half hour of slow breathing and the lack of any other noises.
Somehow that night, I managed to get some sleep because day light soon broke through the gap in my curtains and reminded me that I was safe in the light.
The second instance happened the next evening. This was Saturday night and I was invited to a Staff Camp event after sundown. By now I was dismissing everything that had happened the night before as me just being a scaredy cat and imagining things. It's so easy to do that in the day. As night came, though, I still felt a little uneasy about walking through the woods to the clearing where the campfire had been set up.
As we were celebrating only one week left till the end of Summer Camp, I knew there would be drinking and stuff, so I thought a pre-drink in my cabin would set me on the right path and would also reduce my anxiety about walking to the clearing. It worked.
As I got dressed into my bikini, I stared at myself in the mirror. I really had blossomed into a beautiful young woman. Long brown hair with a slight curl to it, big blue eyes...
Ha! No wonder the thing wants me. I'm kinda cute!
I looked at the clock on my bedside table. 10pm. Oh crap, I'm gonna be late! I twirled around and threw an overdress on, before giggling as I slightly stumbled over to the door.
It was then that I saw it.
It was huge. Around 7" tall with long limbs and a long pale face. It had huge eyes that bore a hole through me as it stood at my open front door, watching me.
I screamed and fell back onto the floor in my haste to get away. Then I froze.
I don't think I even breathed as I watched it come closer, almost gliding down the hallway towards me. A putrid smell filled the air as I tried to move my arms to crawl backwards, but couldn't move a muscle. As it came closer, it reached out an arm towards my outstretched leg and traced a line up my shin with its devilishly long finger nails. I tried to scream but no noise escaped my mouth...I couldn't move or react at all.
It's hand moved slowly up my leg till it reached the inside of my thigh. I could hear it breathing deeply, gurgling...was it sneering?
With all my might, I pushed against the floor below me and managed to crawl backwards to the safety of my bedroom, where I frantically searched for something that I could use as a weapon against this freak. I had always thought that I should keep a knife with me in my bedside drawer, however I've never really anticipated that I would need it. Not until tonight anyway.
I quickly scanned the bedroom again. A hairbrush? A hairdryer?
Yeah that's right Carrie, Blow dry it to death...
Panic overcame me and I started to feel the air feeling lighter than it had been before. Everything around me started to turn into black and white splodges and then I passed out.
After I came around, an immediate panic rushed through me. I jumped up and ran towards the hallway, peering out around the frame of my bedroom door.
Had I imagined it?
Everything was in its right place. The front door was still double locked. The hallway was empty. The dull glow from the lamp in the lounge area illuminated the normalness of the cabin. An empty bottle of chardonnay stood beside an empty glass on the hallway desk and I started to feel silly. I don't know if I really believed that I had imagined it, or if it was just easier to think that way, but I somehow convinced myself that alcohol and having the heeby jeebies had made me become an award winning creative director for my imagination.
I didn't go to the campfire that night. I went to sleep. Wine always help induce an easy slumber.
So that brings me to yesterday. Now you may be thinking that I'm either making this up, or that I truly believe it happened but that I was imagining it. But I swear, what happened yesterday will prove that this 'thing' is real. I even have the scars to prove it.
It was raining yesterday and I was so disappointed as it was my day off from teaching the teens. I was hoping to go sunbathing down by the lake, relax and probably read a certain Peter Benchley novel whilst listening to the ripples of the water breaking on the shoreline. I was gutted.
Instead, I thought I'd make the most of the day and watch a couple of films before getting an early night. The idea of going to bed while it was still light outside was very appealing to me, after the weirdness of the past few nights.
As the evening came, I was thoroughly relaxed and eager to get into my fresh sheets and drift off. I had opted for comedies earlier, so I was still giggling to myself about Tucker running away from the wasp nest with a chainsaw like Leatherface when I drifted off into unconsciousness.
I woke with a start. I could feel someone watching me. I was facing away from the window, however I felt such an intense feeling that there was danger on the other side of it. I slowly turned my head and my heart jumped into my throat. The pale faced thing was staring through the gap in my curtains. It's black eyes locked onto mine as mist appeared on the glass from it's heavy breathing.
For the longest moment, I couldn't move. Realisation that the night before was real hit me, along with the terrifying awareness that it was back. I pulled the covers up around me and shouted...
"GO AWAY! LEAVE ME ALONE!"
The face disappeared, leaving only the mist on the glass which was shrinking by the second.
I jumped out of my bed and ran towards the front door to check that it was locked. As soon as I reached it, I heard the shattering of glass from my bedroom. I froze and tried to think of what I could do. What I should do. Knowing that the 'thing' was probably in my bedroom, I raced to grab my keys and tried desperately to unlock the door, however my body stiffened as I felt warm breath on my back and heard the throaty gurgles of something that was inches away behind me.
A desperate plea escaped my mouth as tears dropped silently down my cheeks. I didn't dare turn around as I felt a cold sharp fingernail scrape down my back, tearing my silk nightdress and cutting into my skin. I held my breath as it trailed down my spine and then stopped. As my nightdress parted and fell to the floor, I slowly turned my head to the side to plead again for the nightmare to stop, but a cold blunt object pushed my head against the wooden door, preventing me from turning.
It felt like hours that I was stood there, crying and trembling, almost wishing for death over what could have been about to happen to me. But as quickly as the 'thing' had appeared, it had disappeared , and I found myself wondering if it had gone much earlier than my fear had allowed me to recognise.
This takes us to now. Its 9pm and in desperation I thought I could get some advice from you here on Reddit. I can't tell my colleagues here as they will think that I've lost my mind. Hell, I even think I have! In the day I'm completely normal. It seems silly and I make excuses for it. I almost told a friend earlier, but they told me to lay off the drink.
I just know that it comes every night around 10pm, which means that I have about an hour left before it may or may not come,
I'm scared. What should I do?

I go to the gym almost daily and do abs legs and glutes and sometimes arms.
With my legs and glutes i do weighted exercises. For abs i just do a basic 10-15 minute workout.
I go on holiday in July for 3 weeks and I’m obviously not planning on bringing weights to the other side of the world but I want to continue to exercise in the mornings before I start my day (i just enjoy doing it in the mornings).
My question: If I do my leg exercises like squats and lunges WITHOUT weights, will the muscle built from doing squats be effected by the sudden lack of extra weight?

Alien-Nation Chapter 168: Now or Never

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Chapter summary: Elias wanders the grounds inspecting everything he can, has a fatheson moment with Larry then sends Vaughn to go try and spring people from jail.
It had been easy for me to see during the speech I'd given roughly how many had already arrived up the narrow pass, and as I stood from inspecting a firing port in a trench, testing whether the old cast iron cannon would roll back far enough on its rails after firing.
I gave it a pass after measuring against a rod. Certainly it was far from the highest of technologies at our disposal, but certainly it would be either lethal, injurious, or at the very least, extremely loud. The gathered mishmashed array of weaponry pointing outward was impressive enough, but the real piece de resistance was the sheer number of railguns we'd had returned to us, frequently carried by a two man team. I signed off on it for final inspection, noting the plug in place over the end, and went to the railgun positioned further down the trench near the intersection.
This was one I recognized. This shared at least something in common to the cannon, insofar as it was far from the latest model at our disposal. I spotted some of my own extremely crude handiwork, a far more rough set of welds performed along the plate's protective, unsanded metal edges. Mister Singer, if he were ever presented with it, may have recognized the shoddy, unstable hand that welded together some of the protective casing. The service flap told me the model without needing to even open it, the household door frame hinges pulled from Verns' stock of spare parts bin, before we implemented something even so basic as refined latches with catch points.
That had to make this a Mk. II. Sentimentality had no place on the front lines. I sucked in a breath at the sight of another old muzzle-loader being carried into the workshop for upgrades, already laid out on the timber worktable and ready for use and sucked in a breath.
I just hoped the earliest design of managing power flow wouldn't give out from the faster firing. Complex but beautifully arrayed piping had given way to simpler, more streamlined designs as we incorporated a greater number of readily available alien parts. Some of which we were supplied an initial batch of in the bag with the blueprints, and then we were told how to work free those same parts from various broken pieces of technology we'd reclaimed off the Shil'vati, or even the freely given away omni-pads. With every iteration we demonstrated a degree of adaptation to using the parts we had available, and each generation marked a leap forward in our own understanding of Shil'vati technology, courtesy of G-Man and his father's handiwork.
The final barrels of the extremely limited run of the second batch we'd paid handsomely for were marked 'present,' too. They had gone the least far afield, with one already slagging itself during the attack on the data center. I frowned at the spreadsheet, as if my impression of it might cause their fate to improve.
The latest blueprints could maintain a decent rate of fire without burning out its power management system located in the welded together case. Or, rather, the barrel gave out first. For the first time, perhaps as a result of being coupled with the magazines and a relatively rapid-fire exchange meant the neosteel barrels we received had finally become the weak point in the design.
It was only after we'd returned to Camp Death that I'd noticed the difference.
The new batch we'd paid dearly for seemed somewhat altered from the first batch we'd been building all the others out of, made from an alloyed material that shone somewhat dimmer under the sun as George and I worked in the shed elbow-to-elbow, though the contrast was not immediately obvious until one held the two against each other. It was slightly thicker, too, all of which to me indicated a change in supply in some manner, but our supplier had hardly announced themselves to Sam.
This was a troubling puzzle to me. I still couldn't be sure it was the new microbatch of barrels alloys being far from equal to the originals we'd finally finished building out? Or was it the expanded magazines and power couplings' ability to fire faster creating an overall volume of fire that overheated the barrel from overuse? Or was the power management design faulty, generating more heat per shot? Were we misusing them?
I measured the barrel of the Mk. II, just to be sure the shelf life of the barrel hadn't come due. So far, inspections of the original batch of barrels had mercifully indicated they'd all been brought back here were in comparatively great shape, with this one being no exception. That lent me some comfort that these new barrels were just not up to the task of heavy, sustained fire. I couldn't know that for certain, and an unreliable weapon was cause for anxiety.
Indeed, there was almost no wear on this version at all, disproving the worst case scenario that these were only good for a certain number of rounds before they'd be worn down to uselessness. Certainly, they'd eventually give out, but it seemed we were still far off from that point.
"Sir?" Asked the gunner, staring at me.
I stared at him, then down at the spreadsheet. "This thing fires three rounds a minute. Do you think that rate of fire is sufficient?"
I could tell he wasn't sure whether a 'no' would have him replaced with someone professing to be more accurate.
"Get it upgraded." I took the white gel pen and scribbled on it- make ready for an upgrade as soon as the final repaired railgun clears the shed. Assigned to casemate #4, Operator... "Call sign?"
"Brut," he answered.
"Brut...with the Umlaut?" He gave a thumbs up and I added them. Costing nothing but a drop of gel ink for a little personalization if it made for a happy gunner was a good investment. "Use it well. Get it upgraded if there's time, keep an eye on the work shed. Once the repairs stop, you can take this to the front of the line, Brüt."
There was no point dismantling all our old ones and creating a backlog while some still needed repairs. I wrote on the hatch Upgrade from Mk. II to Mk. IV. That would give it a magazine and more than triple its firing rate. Anything more than that, I quietly held my doubts for the feasibility of upgrading in a timely manner. The Mark V's took too much time and effort to build their complex power management systems for not enough gain, stuffed too tightly into the protective case to be completed quickly. The Mark VI's tended to overheat their crude fire control circuitry, the consequence of an overcorrection back to simplicity; they could maintain a high fire rate, but were too delicate. The VII's were the ones with the new barrel. Promising, but those barrel faults...I still worried it might have been the power management system.
We'd started considering adding water tanks to help maintain them, but it brought the weight higher than that of a Mk. I, and successfully swapping a boiling hot tank off a delicate, electronically-loaded railgun in combat seemed like a very questionable use of the time. We'd just have to ask the crews manning the railguns to be a bit judicious in our fire, and hope that the flaw was limited to the new little batch of barrels.
How many rounds, exactly, and exactly how fast was yet to be determined; we hadn't conducted the amount of testing a proper military might carry out, but while we had no shortage to man, we also did not have so many as to test dozens until their point of failure, weighing and comparing all their possible conditions.
All this uncertainty kept bouncing around my head. How many troops did we have here? How many rounds for every type of rifle, including the more exotic variants? How reliant on them were we to deal damage, and was it all stored somewhat safely? On the less direct side of things, how many tons of food did we have stored, and was it distributed well? How many thousands of gallons of water could we draw? How many pounds of soap to wash utensils, cups, wounds, and shower with? How many pounds of food over how many men, to last how many days? If it rained, some of these might be alleviated, and yet might kick off a whole host of other issues. There was no way of knowing, no way of taking a perfect stock. But I could estimate.
We had a lot of people. And a lot of guns. And a lot of defenses, and literally countless tons of high explosives, triggered by various means and methods. And we were mad as hell. While exactly how mad was less concrete a figure, I knew this many men away from home could end poorly.
Ultimately, whether it was the fault of the new barrel or the design had finally reached the limitations of its potential rate of fire without causing other issues, I couldn't say for certain. So I had to do my best.
I gave the railgun a clean bill of health to operate if needed, 'priority upgrade,' and noted the rate of fire for the defensive position at 'three a minute.' This one being one of our oldest models, I left it to the operator with my blessings, and made a mental note to add the next railgun we had to be stationed nearby, just so that we weren't under strength from that angle.
I craned my neck from the trench to behold even more insurgents trickling into the old clearing. The arrivals always came in ones-and-twos, their body language telling me the story of the journey it had taken to get here. They'd had to have abandoned their vehicles to the traffic-snarled roads almost certainly some miles away unless they knew the path George and I would occasionally take;.
Those who brought their own heavy weapons lay them down at their feet before collapsing. Water and food was distributed, though I couldn't speak to the quality, and a trash run would have to be made, tossing the empty tins into ammunition containers.
Of all the newcomers who had yet to be organized into place, I counted two mortars, several more volunteers grouping up to retrieve ammo after taking down descriptions of the vehicles from their exhausted owners and sprinting back out into the night to fetch whatever had been left behind.
The resourcefulness lifted my spirits. No one entertained the notion that these men were taking their leave to flee a certain doom. All present felt some degree of faith, understood who they were, why they were here, and what we were setting out to accomplish. Cells worked to find one another in the darkness, congealing themselves into a more coherent, practiced fighting force by virtue of familiarity with one another. Discipline was sharp and needed little enforcement past an initial reminder. No flashlights switched on inside the premises or campfires were lit despite the encroaching edges of the cold front. Insurgents were guided to whatever defensive positions, pillboxes, trenches, battlements, or bunkers still sat empty, depending somewhat on their expected role after detailing their skills to sentries or those otherwise familiar with the camp carefully explaining sight lines and our overall defensive strategy.
Whispered word overheard from those arrivals seemed to indicate a mixture of panic and outrage was fast spreading through the state's populace, carrying them on frightened wings as they took flight in the night, from here to the southernmost beaches and bays. It seemed word had gotten out successfully, then. That knocked down one more obstacle to our success, or at least set the pieces in place. Soon, all that would remain would be the ugly business of following through, and hoping, no praying that I hadn't massively miscalculated in my hubris.
I took the ramp out of the trench so they could pour some loose gravel into it, helping ensure that if those threatening looking storm clouds opened and if the drains clogged, we still would have some footing, and retired to the command cabin, eyeing how empty it felt with all the finished products being set into defensive arrangements; only the workshop still retained all its rather explosive concoctions.
The manpower situation was such that those familiar in reliably manufacturing complex bombs were spending their time setting up defenses in the fields beyond and settling in our new arrivals.
And then I had the couple hostages, weakened by months of captivity, restrained and kept under guard, but still sitting right on top of the half-done armaments.
I told myself that we had taken precautions- the most reactive sets separated by a thin membranous bag of water to prevent chain reactions from taking root and a few emergency containment systems, but they relied on someone present. I'd need all hands on deck- and what if a direct lance of energy landed from some heavy weapon hit the shed, perhaps to try and make a point? No mere bag of water would make a difference then.
Then again, if they brought that king of weaponry to bear, then the outcome would be certain. The Shil'vati would still lose their hostages, and have tacitly admitted I'd forced their hand, and that they'd declared we were enough of a threat to sacrifice noblewomen just to put a stop to.
I hunched over a smaller map in the command cabin, pinning down the garrisons and jails Verns might be held in. Perhaps I'd been premature in my assessment in lacking a future need of a good map when I'd jumped atop the table for my little motivational speech. I'd gotten caught up in the moment; I hadn't foreseen the need for an offensive element.
I was sorely missing my Lieutenants. Vendetta wasn't here, which was one of the greater anxieties weighing on my shoulders.
The one word I'd whispered in his ear all that time ago to bring him around to believing I did, in fact, have a plan: Victory. He should be here already.
He'd sprinted off across the field in glee back when I told him of this plan's possibility, that "Plan C" might come about due to a few cells going dark and my suspicion that it wasn't moles. The null hypothesis, that there were in fact moles, had put him in direct danger by sending him to double-check.
I cursed my blindness. My eagerness to take a night off, to get him out of the way so he wouldn't clash with the others, so I could be a 'normal boy' for a night and attend a party- one I wouldn't be kicked out of, To find social acceptance.
All part of a 'coming of age,' even after I'd already spilt blood, led a war campaign effort, kissed, earned more money than most would see in a lifetime, and mentally cut ties with my family. By almost any account, I already was a man, yet I'd gotten obsessive in imitating the modern trappings of defining such things. I should have seen the cells reporting members' absences and even going dark as a whole for what it was. I could have called off Town Hall, started assembling even more people here.
Then again, if I had, then perhaps...the shil'vati might not have started grabbing everyone. I hated to think of Verns as 'sacrificial.' They likely didn't have much on him, just a neighbor's report. Then again, we'd had that meeting right after the bar fight at Lucky's, right? How thoroughly had George cleared out his house, if they went back to rummage around and investigate? How well could George cover his tracks? We'd left that ammo crate in the hallway, for starters- clumsy of us, yet we were in a panic. Like children. I tensed as I remembered so vividly the sudden sharp report of the gun, watched Patrick's empty eyes stare up. But not children.
There was nothing I could do for Vendetta. We'd sent the Bat Signal out. Either he'd be here, or he'd miss it.
I weighed the value of sending George away once he got here. The order would certainly annoy him after he'd just arrived, something of an arduous task given how far backed up the traffic had become. I also knew it meant I'd have one fewer lieutenant here, where I desperately needed him. I could hardly ask him to burn down the childhood home, and it would certainly reek of hiding evidence.
"Sir," A sentry stood in the door frame, and I stretched from where my muscles had tensed up, pulling my shoulders back and yawning silently beneath my mask, lumbering toward him.
I didn't realize how tall I'd gotten until I realized he was staring up at me and had taken a half-step backwards- not to make way so I could lead from the door, either, but almost defensively.
"Yes, what is it?" I asked, stopping in place.
"We've received a message for you, sir. Radio is reporting that a 'Hex' has checked in from her position. She and Binary report 'Green as Grass,' sir."
I wasn't used to being called 'sir,' and it caught me off guard. I realized he was standing there, waiting for a response from me of some sort, too.
What should I say for him to send back to Hex? I momentarily remembered the sensation of the kiss, the warm, slightly wet softness, the tenderness, and felt a bit of a blush under my mask. While every instinct screamed at me to not air even a hint of my romances or inner turmoil about a kiss over the unencrypted connection, there was a level of 'not talking about it' that I was unfamiliar with and hadn't planned for. Could my message back be coded into something subtle? Nothing came to mind.
"G-good," I finally stuttered a little awkwardly. "That's very good."
"What does it mean, sir?"
I pushed the distractions out of my head. This was no time to be thinking about girls- and my mind stubbornly disobeyed, wandering right back to Natalie. At first to the hug she'd offered me, when I was scared. Frightened of the mind-wiper device. That tenderness she'd offered- I pushed the memory from my mind, too. This wasn't the time to fantasize, either. I had to live in the world that was before me, here in the present. People were relying on me. I could figure out all that other stuff- girls, hope, my future- sometime later.
"It means the operation can proceed as planned."
If the Twins stopped reporting or got caught with the hostages, then we'd have a lot less leverage stopping Azraea from blowing us all sky high. A couple noblewomen- who I wasn't terribly familiar with and seemed to be somewhat less important, provided they were truthful to me of their station. This unfortunate pair had relied on connections to already-stationed family members to arrive, rather than on their raw political power to muscle their way to Earth's then-closely guarded secret coordinates, and were present only for evidence of said hostages' presence.
"Sir, beg your pardon," I could sense something bubbling under his words, against his better judgment, but some sense of desperation demanded he ask me this anyways. "But what is the operation? I've been manning the airwaves with Radio, helping spread word, but everyone I make contact with seems to want to know."
"I don't see the wisdom in broadcasting the finer details of our plan, I'm sure you understand."
I sensed the inner conflict by the way he froze up. He wanted to object, probably, to swear he wouldn't leak more than the minimum. The problem was, anyone listening for long might take a morsel here, a morsel there, and bring it all together and undo us.
"You have all you're meant to have at this point, frustrating though that must be to try and inform others of the going-ons. Our objective is right before us. When the time comes and the enemy appears, blast them." I didn't want to say there isn't much else to plan. At least, not for them to consider.
"And you, sir?"
"I'll be right here, alongside you," I promised. That seemed to ease some of his pressing curiosity, at least. "We'll be here together, to watch the birth of a miracle." That, or we'd die together. Those words didn't quite have the same catchy ring, though.
I looked over my shoulder back at the map. What more good could be wrought over pondering what jail he might be in, without more details?
"Another matter. Hex said G-Man should arrive in a few minutes."
"Thank you. Anything else to report?"
"No sir, the shortwave beckons." They gave a hand-on-heart and stepped out, leaving the doorframe empty.
I told myself I may as well follow. There was no good to come of disappearing into a tent, secluded for long periods, not when anxiety might run through the gathered troops. I had to make myself seen at least periodically. Besides, it was easier to get a more complete picture from out here than in there.
Radio looked like a one-man-band by the way he was surrounded by boxy electronics of varying sizes, their glows dimmed slightly by thin pieces of fabric taped over the tiny glowing screens, and the trap stretched over his head. Wires snaked their way along the ground, a trooper trying to lay the cable into a thin channel of dirt with a spade to reduce the tripping hazard.
Pierce crouched next to him with a laptop plugged into something wired together, the final outlet of which looked vaguely like an international travel inverter, her fingers flying across the trackpad.
"Radio, how are we?"
"We've made lots of contact, I think. So much traffic on the airwaves it's actually hard to find a clear channel to broadcast on."
"Do they have our encryption keys?" I asked, the question almost automatic.
"No, having one kind of defeats the purpose of being heard and getting the signal out. Besides, encrypting's probably easy for the Shil'vati to crack. Less easy for human intelligence agencies, but impossible for the people who we want to hear us."
I already knew most of this, but humoured him. Little entertained radio quite like his namesake.
"What's our chance of discovery, then? Rough time to them figuring out it's us here, and finding the signal's origin."
"At least with a somewhat uncountable number of HAM signals being thrown across the airwaves, we are a really big needle in a gigantic haystack. Besides, how many times have we actually been where we're broadcasting from?"
That was a point I hadn't considered.
The Shil'vati would likely regard our signal as just a relay point, rather than the source, let alone the destination.
Would they strike it just to silence the orders, once they figured out how many of them were originating from the same point?
I comforted myself by staring upstream of the creek that wandered to the south of Camp Death, following its course with my eyes to where it flowed under the concrete tunnels under the highway, under the train tracks, to where it ultimately ran back to where Radio and I had visited Saint Michael's. Then I turned my head back across the field, toward where the foundation of Mojo and Mister Pasta's had been, where Vaughn had called in the kill team on the Fed's sting operation,
We'd certainly set up plenty of remote broadcast towers before, to entice them into launching strikes on collaborationists. That Saint Michael's was still standing after we'd broadcast all kinds of propaganda from there meant they'd almost certainly learned to be a bit more cautious about lashing out blindly.
In the darkness I saw a familiar figure materialize, and with a bit of relief, I ran up to greet Larry. I wanted to give the old mechanic a hug, but knew that expressions of intimacy while standing near the middle of the camp's defensive perimeter in front of everyone was more than a bit inappropriate, and settled for a nod of acknowledgment.
"I cleaned up the mess at Jules place," he said, going back to referring to his friend by their code name, glancing at Pierce.
I felt a moment of shame. We'd panicked and grabbed everything. Perhaps we were like children after all, leaving our toys out and in the hall. "Thank you."
"Saw Patrick."
"Patrick saw," I said back. "Patrick- called."
Whatever Larry was about to say, that brought him up short. "Oh. Oh." The words seemed to leave him pained. He'd known Patrick, too, and I felt the weight of guilt. It seemed he moved on faster than I could, because he changed the topic quickly.
"What's up?" He gestured at the radio setup.
Pierce seemed to be quite engrossed in her work, trying to connect the laptop to a radio via a USB cable, fumbling with the port in the dark. The laptop's screen was showing a shaky handheld video of a mass arrest- and I thought I could hear my own voice echoing the words I'd spoken just a short while ago.
"Just uploading the speech. I've spliced it up to some footage that one of the newcomers brought. We'll also be exporting raw versions of both- just the audio, the video, make sure people have the record and can decide for themselves."
Sometimes the truth was the best propaganda.
"How are you getting video out? I thought the internet was down."
Radio held a hand up, and then put it down, as if I'd been a teacher asking a question and he'd been chasing extra credit. The next few sentences were practically a foreign language to me, uttering a series of numbers in rapid succession, followed by what sounded like a name. That may've been a model, an edition of a model, a make, a special form of broadcasting- all of it may well have been bounced off the ionosphere for how far it went over my head. I wasn't used to being so completely out of my depth, but everyone seems to have specialized in some skill or another. I'd preferred getting involved in all aspects of the revolution, but at a certain point delegation was a necessity, and I was watching not just the task's needs, but also the capabilities of my lieutenants grow well past my ability to offer useful insight and guidance.
"I...see." I didn't, but I wasn't sure what else to say. I wanted to express curiosity, but I felt like this new capability was something we'd discuss later, if there was a later. "And people can receive high definition video over shortwave? It just takes a long time?"
It seemed to me to be an apparently somewhat technical process to perform over shortwave, and only when finally pressed for details, Radio at last admitted something I did understand: "I am not sure most people know how to collect the signal, or have the right equipment to, but I'm sure someone will, Maybe that person will redistribute the videos."
There. Actionable, useful information.
"Then continue," I said. "At least unless anything more pressing jumps up to do."
"Let's hope it's good for more than the history books," Pierce commented mildly.
"The world has to know, and I am certain the shil'vati have no interest in putting such footage out there. That's reason enough for us, isn't it?" I watched Radio nod and then scurry about the camp, tracing one of the wires toward the antenna array nearest the highway. I turned to Larry, breaking off from the amusing spectacle. "Do you remember my promise?" My question was genuine, but he seemed to waver slightly, now that the possibility of actually delivering on it was here and present. Perhaps the aura of our inner circle's invincibility had been shattered with the loss of his neighbors, and it would be best to set his mind to something productive. "If you want it to come true, see to it that the mortar teams are trained. Get the cannons in position, and make sure we're good for more than just one wave."
Larry snapped a salute, fingers on brow, and I clumsily approximated one in return, though I had never done a salute before in my life. I could sense the slight smile from behind his mask, and with a quick check over his shoulder that no one was watching, he reached out, straightened my palm out slightly, then brought the edge of my palm higher until it was a bit more level. "That's better," he judged, then leaving me alone once I dropped the hand a few seconds later.
George showed up a few minutes earlier than Hex had predicted, out of breath and escorted by a sentry. "Ditched the truck," he wheezed. "The huge bags of claymores and equipment were really heavy. Had to haul it under the interstate." His shoes shone with creekwater; He'd almost certainly taken the path Larry had forbade us from trying, and I couldn't imagine doing it in the pitch black darkness at any speed.
I motioned to the sentry. "Help him get that bag into the workshop." He was the best bomb maker, but he also had helped build this place. I wanted to pick his brain, but I would give him time to rest, first.
"Hey, Radio. Radio!" I heard the shortwave radio he'd set at the top squawk to life with a familiar grumble on the other end, distorted somewhat by the tinny speaker. I scooped it up. Someone with a vocoder- Radio gave those out sparingly.
"'E' here," I answered for him, but didn't want to announce myself. Not right away.
A moment's pause.
"What are your orders?"
"Vendetta?" I wanted to confirm.
"I'm here with over fifty people waiting at Warehouse Base for something to do," I knew the transmission would likely be monitored, but the time for subtlety was over. "You're on speakerphone, by the way."
The line was likely tapped, or at least would be intercepted, its contents determining priority for being passed upward or presented to someone with authority, possibly even Azraea herself.
Whatever orders I gave, they'd have to be in code, or at least sound like something unimportant, low-priority so that we might give him as much opportunity to get the drop on the enemy as he could be afforded.
"Don't bother trying to come here yet," I quickly supplied. "By now, if you're not on your way here, you have your own party to go to." I took a moment to survey the grounds. "We've practically got a full house. See about getting a house party of your own, though you'll have to pull the guests out of their own company. Or something to flank."
"Any idea where to start?"
The map fresh in my mind, I found the answer sprang to me.
"There's a rest stop along Route One. If you've got any party poppers, you can get them to open up to you like a can opener. You know, it's all about introducing yourself well."
I heard him laugh mirthlessly, the sound coming through like a cheese grater run over the asphalt.
"That one's a big bite, maybe more than we can chew without choking. Why don't we start with something smaller?"
I wanted to protest, to direct him to the biggest ones first. Then again, how much did they have on Verns? How likely was he to be somewhere heavily defended?
"What do you have in mind?"
"Well, right across the river from where the naughty girls all get sent. Why don't we start there? Every party needs a few ladies, right?" I could hear a roar of assent from the background.
I wasn't quite sure what he meant by that- was he going to try and attack the Shil'vati base? Surely not those women? He wasn't that insane. Then it clicked- the Women's Correctional Facility in Wilmington, just upstream of the Christina River from where he was broadcasting from at the old Warehouse Base. Easy to get to, certainly, and right near the interstate with pedestrian bridges and neighborhoods to scatter in after the strike made it an excellent candidate. Almost certain to succeed.
The strike wouldn't yield us Verns, though forcing the Shil'vati to admit that they couldn't both take and hold their prisoners at the same time might force them to at least pause rounding up ever more people.
If I gave it my blessing, I would be sacrificing any chance of rescuing Verns for...for what? The tradeoff strained my soul to even consider.
"If you feel that's best, you know your crowd. That said, they got Jules- we want him back." He'd helped build Camp Death. He knew its ins and outs, though my real reasons were somewhat sentimental. "Keep an eye out for Morningstar and a few other cells. I've little doubt they can party with the best of them." They were one of my heaviest hitters, routinely bragging they could go clay pigeon hunting with an unguided RPG, yet I was pretty sure I'd never rallied them to Camp Death- if they were to rally, Warehouse Base was where they'd be.
There was a moment of silence, until Vaughn reported back- "Yeah, they're here. They were going to move up to you once they got everyone together. Should we leave instructions for where to find us, or to find you?"
"Do it- supplies are overall good here. Lots of...uh, balloons, confetti..." I felt like I was stretching the analogy too far, so I gave up trying to equate weaponry to party paraphranelia. "...you know, the works. Take Morningstar and use 'em as you see best fit. What've you got for your party? Any good party supplies?" We certainly could make a trash run and see if we could also deliver them some RPGs at the same time.
"Got some Bump-n-Grinds, and you know those are always good for an up-close-and-personal encounter."
I laughed. "From what I read about bumping and grinding? The closer, the better." Their accuracy left a fair bit to be desired. Still, it would be a good, even vital carry just in case those dreaded Security Forces Technicals made an appearance, and would probably be 'good enough' against a stationary target like a wall, especially in the hands of a capable squadron like Talonstar.
"What time are you thinking?"
"I'd say as soon as we're all ready. You really overestimated how many people know where Camp Death is. A fair number showed up here, and are still trickling in."
"Enough to throw several parties at once?" I asked, suddenly hopeful.
"Well, I suppose, maybe, but I'd be wary of partygoers without someone in charge to, uh..." the metaphor seemed to be breaking down, but I got what he was going for.
"Yeah, I see."
"Are you thinking if there are too many noise complaints at once, it'll keep the party going longer?"
"That's part of it, but I'm hoping we might find a particular person we're missing, lost him when we were playing unexpected host. Someone of G-Man's, you'd know him as Jules. A divide and conquer might maximize our odds of finding him."
"Plus, maximize the number of partygoers we pick up as we move. I like it. A few small house parties for every big house. Any special orders?"
"None. K.I.S.S. principle applies. Good, bad, I want it all out on the streets. 'KISS' 'em until they can't see straight." Keep It Simple, Stupid.
"You're certain?" I could hear the hesitancy in his voice. "This is going to be the greatest thing we've ever done, and I want to be by your side for it 'til the end. I don't want any last-minute cancellations, and I sure as hell don't wanna miss it. How long should I party?"
We'd be letting absolute chaos loose. Fire. Looting. The worst of humanity, turned loose, with Vaughn potentially at its head if he decided to recruit for some reason. Could I still claim to be the good guy if I turned those kinds of people free to wreak havoc on the state I claimed whose denizens I was protecting?
Blackstone's Ratio holds that it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer. It would still hold me no less accountable for whatever followed from this mass prison break, though.
I looked over to the recently arrived George, and hung my head.
So be it.
"Confirmed, Vendetta. I'll next talk to you when you're here in person- call it when you start either getting tired or if the hosts hire a doorman, a bouncer, or something you can't handle. Bring any good partygoers and favors you find, guide them here, O Pied Piper. Over and out." The signal went quiet again, and I turned off our radio, standing and yawning. The hour was late, and it would be my last opportunity for some shuteye.
I pulled aside a few sentries to my first order. I felt it was a strange one, and likely futile: I asked everyone to 'try and get some rest.'
The sentries were going to be exhausted, and I needed them to start working in shifts if we were to maintain our vigil and perimeter. Doubtless, more would be coming, and giving them at least some rest might be a difference-maker. G-Man helped lead the newcomers to the subterranean bunkers and tunnels, trying to make sure everyone had a place to stay the night and resources got split, even if it was throwing tarps and blankets on hard-packed dirt. I eyed the tunnels, knowing which one of them would spit me out near the stream, itself running so low I might as well refer to it as a ravine. Digging that had been cramped, paranoia-inducing, but we'd dug out so much of the hill and filled it with enough weapons to wage a full-scale war. What had begun as almost make-work and a place to store things when we'd started out
I couldn't sleep well on the cot that night, tossing and turning- I even tried resting with the mask off, held in my hands, but the risk to my identity if anyone barged in caused me enough stress. Eventually, I stood and donned it, making my rounds around the camp, trying to calm myself. Instead, I felt eyes following me, and I had to force myself to stand tall. For the thousandth time, I thought of this as my Valley Forge.
The sentry at the door to the command cabin gave me a hand-on-heart, and I returned it.
As I patrolled, I could hear whispered prayers, muttered plans of action, and mercifully, snores. At least some were getting some sleep. I could see orange lights reflecting off the clouds, near where I knew Wilmington lay.
I almost jumped a foot in the air when I felt the tap on my shoulder, only to find G-Man's mask staring into mine. How strange that such a haunting visage was a comfort to me.
"Hey. Can't sleep?"
"I can't," I confessed. "G-Man, I'm sorry what happened with your father. Hell of a birthday." I hadn't even had a chance to give him the present I'd bought him- a couple new filters, and vintage craftsman toolkit, "from before they sold out," Verns had told me. The memory of his voice already felt distant somehow- no. I'll see him again.
"Wasn't your fault. Even if Town Hall wasn't your big idea to get them to retaliate, you know? Then they'd still have done something. But, uh, thanks for saying that. And thanks for trying to get dad out. I'll remember that." George said quietly, then the conversation ended when he turned away and went to the edge of the embankment. Just like that.
I could never quite get a read on him.
I went inside, and tried to force myself to get at least some shut-eye.
Thanks to Terran-Armored-Core and DeltaNu for helping with some decisions and spellcheck.
Thanks to Inmutabilis-Ratio for helping with the site, it was very helpful in importing the text.
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Alien-Nation Discord Buy A Coffee for the Author

Had a few trips back to back to back so I felt I should do a write up because this community has been helpful in packing for those trips!
Our first trip was a three week holiday in Thailand, we spent about a week in Bangkok and two weeks on Ko Phayam island, so the vast majority was on the beach but we needed a little city wear to get by as well. Although I would say the bar was pretty low in terms of backpacker style. Lot of Patagonia because they give a great pro discount.
THREE WEEKS IN THAILAND
Bag:

• Patagonia MLC 45L : Great bag, I swapped over from an Osprey Farpoint and I couldn't be happier. Just a better bag all around. Fits an absolute ton of stuff and carries really well. I wish it had a water bottle pocket, but that is really its only fault.
• Patagonia Black Hole Mini Hip Pack: I finally tried a fanny pack and loved it. This thing is so tiny and unobtrusive and enough to fit my ear bus, phone, wallet, battery bank, passport and charger. Perfect for going through the airport. You can also basically mount it to the MLC if you want a small external pocket.

Clothing:

• Patagonia Quandary Pants: Wore on the plane, super comfortable and dry fast. Hit turbulence and a glass of water fell on me, all of the water just slid off and I wasn't wet at all.
• Duckworth Merino T: My favorite merino clothing, had this shirt for almost 8 years I think. I find a blend is just more versatile and durable than 100% merino
• x2 Patagonia Sender Boxer briefs: Dry super fast, great underwear. Better than exoficio in my opinion.
• Long sleeve button up: Just in case it got a little cold in the plane
• Myles Everyday Short: My "nice" shorts. My absolutely favorite pair of shorts/swim trunks.
• Patagonia Baggies: My main swimwear
• x2 cotton t shirts
• x1 Duckworth merino underwear
• Linen Button Down
• Hoka Challenger (worn) Sneakers: My favorite running shoes, great all around shoes. I think I will get a pair in black next time.
• Bedrock Syncline Sandals: Minimalist sandals that are way better than flip flops
• Ciele Athletics Cap: Lightweight, floating, crush proof ball cap that folds up into nothing
• x2 Merino ankle socks

Toiletries:

• Deodorant
• Toothbrush
• Small container of hair pomade

Tech:

• Samsung S22+
• Samsung Ear Buds
• Charger
• Anker 10k slim battery bank

Misc:

• Maven Monocular: For bird watching
• Seiko SPB143 watch
• 3m of paracord: always useful
• Petzl Bindi Head torch
• Rayban Wayfarer

I felt like I packed pretty well here, I had an absolute ton of space. So this was a bit of a luxury. Everything got used and I was able to do a bit of laundry. Once I was at the beach, then I basically just lived in my baggies and a t shirt or linen shirt. I think maybe a light fleece or merino sweater would have been better than the long sleeve shirt though, at least for the airport. To be honest, I brought a lot of this to Europe with my as well.
I flew back from Thailand, landed in Finland...had a few days here and then flew to San Sebastien for my Sister's wedding and a few weeks with my family in San Sebastien, Biarritz and in the South of France. I had a tougher time packing for this trip, I needed so much more stuff because of the wedding and the general vibe of where we were going and what we would be doing. My family really enjoys going out to eat and drink so I was forced to bring a suit, nicer shirts and better shoes, all of which took way more space. I was in San Sebastien at an Air Bnb so I could do laundry, then we had a day trip to Biarritz and then flew to Nice where we stayed in Antibes and Aix-en-Provence. Eating well, drinking well, all that fun stuff. Ill copy and paste a few things below that were the same.
2.5 Weeks in Spain and France
Bag:

• Patagonia MLC 45L : Great bag, I swapped over from an Osprey Farpoint and I couldn't be happier. Just a better bag all around. Fits an absolute ton of stuff and carries really well. I wish it had a water bottle pocket, but that is really its only fault.
• Patagonia Black Hole Mini Hip Pack: I finally tried a fanny pack and loved it. This thing is so tiny and unobtrusive and enough to fit my ear bus, phone, wallet, battery bank, passport and charger. Perfect for going through the airport. You can also basically mount it to the MLC if you want a small external pocket.

Clothing:

• Duckworth Merino T (Worn)
• Patagonia Better Sweater (worn)
• Patagonia Torrentshell: I actually think this jacket is a pretty versatile piece, its not as packable as the Houdini but it is more durable, water proof and cleaner looking. I used it on some pretty cold and windy days in Spain.
• x2 Patagonia Sender Boxer briefs: opinion.
• x3 Duckworth Merino boxers
• Jeans (worn)
• Isto Chinos
• x2 Cotton T shirts
• Linen Shirt: My fancy "South of France shirt
• x2 Taylor Stitch Chambray button ups: I have had these shirts for almost 8 years. They still look great, they don't wrinkle, but the quality of taylor stitch has nose dived and I don't think I can recommend them again.
• Taylor Stitch Telegraph Suit: A wool/linen blend suit that is basically my only suit. I can wear the jacket on it's own as a blazer...I wore this at the wedding.
• Oxford shirt: wore at the wedding
• Rancourt and Co. Ranger Moccasins: These are my "dress shoes" even though they are basically just nicer boat shoes. I don't have super nice dress shoes, I don't need super nice dress shoes, these work well enough and I can kick around in them.
• Solovair Dealer Chelsea Boots: Pretty versatile boots but heavy and take up a lot of room, I thought I would wear these on the plane, out and about for long days, I actually really didn't use these as much. I wore the moccasins every where and I regret bringing these. These are basically the one thing I wish I really didn't bring. a pair of sneakers would have been so much better.
• x3 merino socks
• Pair of no-show cotton socks for the wedding
• Bedrock Syncline: Barely used them, but they were nice in France. It was so much hotter than Spain.

Toiletries:

• Deodorant
• Toothbrush
• Small container of hair pomade

Tech:

• Samsung S22+
• Samsung Ear Buds
• Charger
• Anker 10k slim battery bank

Misc:

• Maven Monocular: For bird watching
• Seiko SPB143 watch
• 3m of paracord: always useful
• Petzl Bindi Head torch
• Rayban Wayfarer
  Thailand was easier to pack for, France and Spain was a little harder. I felt like I had to dress better in the South of France for some reason, people there were just dressed so damn well. Also, the North of Spain was pretty chilly and the South of France was hot as hell, so that was tough to predict for both scenarios.
  

I definitely wouldn't bring those chelsea boots again, I plan on getting some Hoka sneakers in all black and im considering some white sneakers. I think I could get by with basically one or both of those if I needed to. I could probably have lost at least one button up shirt for Europe. I probably didn't need my linen shirt, but I love that shirt so I brought it anyway. I kind of wish I had some kind of tablet for watching films with my girlfriend, sharing the phone was doable but not ideal. I also felt while the Better Sweater was great, it took up a lot of room and I maybe need to look for something lighter, maybe another fleece like the R1 or a merino sweater from Isto.
So yea, that was a long write up but thanks for reading it if you did. Questions, comments and criticisms are welcome.

Naturally, I've heard about how good this band is for years. I tried getting into them in high school, specifically with Sung Tongs, since it seems to be the beginning of their most acclaimed period. Back then, I could only listen to the first two tracks before giving up, probably because I was in class and the amount of noise going on in the background rendered the quieter songs totally incomprehensible. I finally decided to buckle down for 53 minutes and hear the whole album.
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Here're my thoughts, if you care to read:
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Leaf House and Who Could Win a Rabbit, like I said, are already very familiar to me. I like both of them a lot. The strange, see-sawing layered vocals in Leaf House in particular are so gorgeous. I'll also randomly find the "Sometimes I can't find my good haaaaabits" melody getting stuck in my head years later. A nice little ditty. Super fun. Was good to hear them again.
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The Softest Voice seems like one of those songs that takes more listens to really enjoy. This is a trait I noticed all throughout the record. It just sort of floats. This is also where I first noticed the lack of bass on the album. I'm a bass player myself, so not having that lower octave to direct the motion of the songs is a little disappointing. There's a lot of empty space, I feel, and not in the way Avey and Panda probably intended.
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Winters Love has a really nice, sweet, swaying chord progression to start that frankly sounds more summery than anything. The use of delay is great. The vocals are a little chintzy at times, though.
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Kids on Holiday is fantastic. I thought the weird electronic sounds were just going to be an intro thing, but having them just drone the way they do is great. The trilling overdubs bouncing from ear to ear are so fucking weird. The lyrics are also great, but I really don't enjoy the use of the word 'retard'. I'm on the autism spectrum, and while I'm generally not too too sensitive to things like that, it did shock me the first time, and it irritates me that such a good song has a word like that so audible.
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Sweet Road... exists? I don't know. I don't get a lot out of it. It was weird to realize that the high-pitched vocals are just processed, and not in fact a child singing.
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Visiting Friends is great. So serene and frosty sounding. I love how the overdubs are just filtered mouth sounds by-in-large (the little 'PEW's and 'MOW' sounds are goofy as hell). More great use of delay, too. The delivery of the lyrics reminds me of Mark E. Smith, which I think is pretty funny. The spaciousness is impressive for two people, one guitar and a sample loop. They do a lot with it. Probably my favorite track on the album.
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I'm conflicted on whether the sizzling and bubbling in College is off-putting or inspired. I guess it can be both. Naturally, when anything this harmonized pops up in a record so full of Americana influence I think Beach Boys. That comparison also cropped up in Winters Love and Kids on Holiday, but I doubt many people share this opinion.
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We Tigers was initially unconvincing, but I like how raucous it gets. The toms are unusually aggressive for the album, and I dig it.
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Mouth Wooed Her is fucking awesome. The way the melody is interrupted by those staccato phrases is really interesting. The last 3rd (the 'I need mouth water' bit) kinda lets it down for me, though. I like how calm it is, it's just a little goofy.
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Good Lovin Outside comes across like there was no established strumming rhythm before the guitar track was laid down. Just five or so chords that're played pretty haphazardly. The sound effects are hit-or-miss for me.
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Whaddit I Done is similarly aimless to my ear, and a little annoying with the sounds it uses. That low, warbling synth booming is cool, though. After a record so full of interesting moments, it feels like it kinda limps to the finish line, honestly.
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So there it is. I'd give it like a 7.5/10. The best moments are fantastic, but for me it's not the all-round stunner that it's been hyped up as. I'm looking forward to another re-listen (so far I'm only on 2) and hearing Prospect Hummer and Feels. I usually like to go in chronological order with bands I don't know, but I have tinnitus and Alvin Row nearly ruined my day, so it'll be awhile before I can deal with that part of their discography, if I even end up wanting to. Are my opinions at all like a typical first listen for this record? Anything you think I'm not getting? Feel free to tell me.
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Toodles.

Been trying to see the Foo for years and something always seems to get in the way to mess up my plans (usually work, but had tickets last year that were canceled due to Taylor's passing). I had tickets to the VA Beach show that also just got wrecked by work so at this point it's basically a name your price situation if anyone wants to sell their extra ticket. I live in DC so can meet you in person before the show. We can hang out together or you can get me in and I can buy you a drink (or however many you want) and go your merry way. Also willing to toss in my VA Beach tickets (GA) to whatever you're asking.

hey nanny friends! so i am (hopefully) starting a new nannying job with 2 infants soon, with school aged kiddo who’ll be home in summer and school holidays. In the past, i’ve either had bank/national holidays either off, or if i worked my rate was time and a half. however, i am already planning on stating/adding to the contract that on days when the 3rd child is in my care rate will increase by $5… but all of the holidays are days she’ll be home.
i definitely don’t want to be entitled and ask for time and a half plus an extra $5 an hour, and will most likely just either leave it out, or on holidays do 1.5 my normal rate.
has anyone had a situation similar? what do y’all have agreed for holidays? would you just not change your rate for when the 3rd child is home at all?

First of all, I (14M) am NOT really involved in the rights and wrongs of this, but this situation is between my parents and the family friends. Also, no drama ever came of this this was just annoyance in my parents, nothing ever came on it and we're still very much in touch with the family friends and have a good relationship with them, and this was quite a minor issue.
So, we live in the UK, (my mum, stepdad and sister (5F) and me). We have a house in greece as we have family from there. We go there every summer. These family friends also live in greece, and they have a summer house a few hours north of ours. They kindly invited us to go up there for a week and spend time with them. I and my parents were definitely quite happy about this. They were lending us an old house they had in that area. Here's where the problem starts: when they gave us the key and we had arranged a meet up at their house in the evening, we quickly realised that the house had no windows whatsoever. This is greece and average temperatures throughout the day are around 35 degrees Celsius. I think that's around 100 Fahrenheit. My mum didn't want us to put the air condition on max, because my sister is doing some kind of homeopathic medical process and the doctors said she shouldn't breathe in too much of air conditioner air.
The routine for all the days was that in the morning we'd go to a beach with the family friends, then we'd go back to our respective houses, then meet up in the evening. But the house was so hot that we couldn't return in the afternoon (hottest part of the day in greece). So what we'd do is when they were leaving the beach we'd act like we were leaving in an hour or so, then we stayed on the beach for like 4 more hours, only going to the house for an hour to shower. The thing about me is that I really hate beach days, when you stay at a beach all day. I typically prefer cold holiday destinations like Scotland and Norway, and can't stand too much heat, especially outdoors. I love Greece, but not its heat. I complained a lot to my parents and I could tell they didn't like it too much either.
I told them to just swallow their pride and politely tell our family friends that the house is too hot for them, but they say that it would sound really spoilt since they lended it to us for free.
Anyway, I was thinking it was mostly my parents were sort of the a holes, until on the last day our family friends said "I don't know how you could bear that house, it gets so hot in there". This has made my position in the middle. Of course they were being kind and didn't mean us harm by giving us the house, but I think that if they knew this, they should have warned us about the heat, and let us make a decision about whether we wanted to take their offer or stay in an airb and b or something.
I'm asking essentially if my parents are a holes for being peeved at the generosity of my family friends.

Hi All :)
I'm not really working in Belgium (living in Arlon though), but I am currently following a bachelor in computer science during my time off of work and I'm especially curious to see if it would be financially wise for me to switch career and go from a senior position as business analyst (so working on IT projects already), to a more junior role as developper (or another more technical role). Considering all of our families and most of our friends are living close to Brussels, relocating to work again in Brussels (or its surrounding) might be an option. But again, I'm afraid I'd loose a lot in gross (and net, obviously, as I'd never get a similar gross/ net ratio anytime soon in Belgium) + that the commute would kill me (I feel Brussels is worse off than Luxembourg in that regards). Potentially, freelancing in Belgium might also be an option.
What do you think about this? Do you think it would be possible to switch to a more technical role, with junio medior seniority, in Belgium? Or would it be better to keep the Business Analyst hat, but working from Belgium without loosing too much salary wise?
​

1. PERSONALIA

• Age: 43
• Education: Master in Business Administration (+ Bachelor in Computer Science ongoing, 1 year left + another 1y if I want the master)
• Work Experience : 20 years
• Civil status: married
• Dependent children (Kinderen ten laste/enfants à charge): 2

​

1. TYPE OF CONTRACT - Fixed

• Current job title/description: Senior Business Analyst
• (Ancienniteit/Ancienneté): 11 years at current employer - 17 years as Business Analyst
• Official hours/week : 40 hours/week
• SectoIndustry: Banking, working on IT projects

​

1. WAGE CONDITIONS)

• Gross wage (brut): 6800
• Net wage (incl. net fees): 5250
• 13th month (full? partial?): Full
• Mobile phone? No - Laptop?: From client for work related topics only
• Meal vouchers: yes (18 per month, irrespective of number of days worked - 10,80 EUR each)
• Ecocheques: no
• Group Insurance (% part employer): yes - not sure about the full details though
• Hospitalisation Insurance: Yes (myself + family)
• Other advantages (bonus, 14th month, stocks...): 14th month + performance bonus possible (not guaranteed, when it happens, it is usually around 2500 EUR gross)

​

1. MOBILITY

• City/region of work: Luxembourg city
• Distance home-work (km's): 40
• Distance home-work (time): 30 minutes when 0 traffic, around 1h10 with the usual morning traffic, around 45 minutes in the evening
• Do you need your own car?: no
• How is the travel home-work compensated: /
• Company ca-bike (what's the budget, do you have fuel card?): Company car (EV) with full coverage of charging at home + card to charge on the go across Europe.

​

1. OTHER CONDITIONS

• Amount of official holidays: 26 (legal min in Lux) + 4 seniority
• (ADV, RTT) : none
• Other extra holidays: none
• How easy can you plan a day off: depends on the project on the client side. No holidays possible around projects go-live dates (once a year, on average).
• Shiftwork or daytime job? Daytime
• Flexible working hours: depends on the client. Pretty flexible at the moment.
• Amount of stress (standby for troubles at work)?: Medium to High - responsibility to deliver scope of the project
• How often does overtime happens: Rarely - except when close to deadlines
• Education possibilities: Yes (3 days of training paid by the employer each year)
• Teleworking (besides corona-period): depends on the client (currently max 2 days per week from home), but it is strongly limited as I'm working in Lux but living in Belgium, so max 34 days working outside of Lux per year, else I need to pay income tax in Belgium for the days outside Luxembourg.
• Responsible for personnel (reports): no

One clarification about the gross/ net ratio: my wife has currently stopped working to take care of our kids. This, combined with the fact we've maxed out all easily achievable tax deductions in Lux, makes it that the computed taxation rate is really low.

Got through all the paperwork in one day. Mere minutes after submitting it, I received and was alerted to a background check and obliged. The next day at work I had all new responsibilities and expectations and have been doing the extra work for three weeks now.
Manager keeps moving the goalpost. All the paperwork and credentials got knocked out in a matter of minutes; the payraise? Oh that'll take until Sunday. Oh sorry not today, we'll get it in by Tuesday. Oh, what? That still hasn't gone through? I'll call the office... Office says you should be good on Friday.
What do I do? I'm actually livid. I really need that raise and I've been doing tasks that have been put upon me in exchange FOR the raise. They've shorted me nearly $600 in the last three weeks alone just by NOT giving me the raise.
I'm going in today (On a Federal Holiday for a WHOPPING $1.50 bonus!) and I don't know how to keep bringing this up on my boss without having a complete meltdown on her.

First Chapter
Chapter Thirteen
Corporal McCoy had figured out the best reason for getting in good with an udhyr. They had four arms, therefore the hugs were twice as nice. They now lay in her room, with him lying on her bed and her lying on top of him, with her ensconced in the aforementioned hug-squared. She’d been able to get ahold of her Switch, and at the moment was in the midst of some happy early-morning gaming. Takh’s head rested upon hers with a gentle and welcome pressure while he watched her play. By now she was so used to him that even the little random clicks of his mandibles didn’t cause her any fear.
She was still trying to figure out if she and the alien XO were an ‘item’ or not. Zawahir had, with his usual enthusiasm, explained to her that both the udhyr and knuall-toua were pretty much like humans, with equal numbers of both males and females who reproduced sexually. He hadn’t gone into details on how exactly Tab A fit into Slot B, but the overall idea was clear. The auhn were a little more complicated; the ratio of females to males was more like seven or eight to one, plus there was the added wrinkle that the males were non-sapient and about as smart as the average pet dog. That had resulted in a very matriarchal society, of course, one based around clans of females protecting their stable of fertile males with appropriately auhn-like ferocity. The spider-like xyrax were…well, both. Completely hermaphroditic; there was quite a complicated social dance before they reproduced as to who was going to bear the resulting egg. McCoy was sure that, however it worked out, it would look adorable.
“So this Kirby can eat anything?” asked Takh, breaking into her ruminations.
McCoy tapped at her controls on autopilot, hoping that the damned thumbsticks wouldn’t break. Again. “Yep. Fun fact, waaay back in the 80s, Nintendo got sued by Universal Studios, who claimed that Donkey Kong was a ripoff of King Kong. John Kirby was the attorney who successfully defended them in court, and in gratitude they named this character Kirby.” She continued her tapping. “I think they gave him a sailboat as well.”
“Mmm, I must admit a sailboat sounds nice right about now. This place is very nice, but it’s a bit too cold.”
She wriggled against him. “You said it. You and me, off the coast near Nice? Floating in the warm azure waters of the Mediterranean? I can wear a nice little bikini I’ve got saved up for just such an occasion.”
“Oh! Uh, well, yes. That does indeed sound quite nice…”
She grinned. Takh was a dork, but a giant lovable dork and it was always great to get a reaction like this out of him. Even if it didn’t lead anywhere there. As far as she knew, the udhyr reproduced like frogs. Maybe she should discreetly quiz Zawahir on the whole Tab-A into Slot-B thing, just to make sure she wasn’t setting herself up for disappointment.
Of course, she’d just managed to get to the final boss of this particular level when the siren howl of the alarm went off. Haley McCoy blinked as she went from supine four-armed cuddling to standing in an instant, placed upon the floor by Takh’s upper arms.
“The unholy hell?” she muttered, but she was already in motion as she sprinted towards her gear, laid out so as to ensure maximum efficiency in getting it all put on. “Takh?” she called out as she started strapping her armored vest on.
“Yes? What do I do?”
“Simple. Anyone comes through that door who you don’t recognize, kill ‘em.”
“I…I don’t know, I’m still understanding how different humans look from each other, I don’t want to make a mistake.”
“You’ll know,” she said with finality as she picked up her carbine and racked the slide. “Okay. Follow me…”
The door to her room smashed in as a figure clad in black armor came through screaming “Earth belongs to HUMANS!...”
That was all he got out before Takh grabbed the man’s head and simply hurled the offending figure over McCoy and into the far wall. The window set in that wall shattered with the resulting impact, making the corporal duck.
“Fuck me, Takh.” She looked at the broken figure of the oh-so-very dead intruder, then back up to the worried-looking XO. “I mean, not literally. Okay, well you can if you want to, and I for sure would like you to…you know what? Let’s put that whole discussion off to the side for now until we can sit down and have ourselves a nice long chat, okay?”
“That sounds like a very wise strategy, Haley. What do you need from me?”
She finished putting on her headset and helmet. “Right now? You need to stick right behind me while I get you to the bunker.”
“You want me behind you?” Takh’s mandibles quirked in a grin. “That sounds like a very nice place to be.”
“Stop distracting me, you giant dork.” McCoy moved towards the door with a grim set to her shoulders, ignoring the lovely fact that her alien maybe-boyfriend was now checking out her ass. She swept the outside hallway….nothing visible. Then she heard some commotion from off towards the kitchen area.
__________
Martinez surged to his feet upon hearing the alarm, his half-eaten horizontal-cut pimento sandwich now forgotten. “What the fuck…?”
Matt was on his feet as well, with a strange look in his eyes that the corporal had never seen before. “You two. Corner. Now.” He pointed at the corner farthest from the two entrances to the kitchen.
The corporal was on the smaller side, even amongst his fellow humans, but something in the Marine’s tone made him turn and tackle the huge alien. Kexal, to his credit, somehow knew that Something Was Up and accepted the tackle, otherwise there was no way in hell that Martinez could have moved the giant creature.
Just as he did so, he caught a glimpse of a dark form, clad in full armor, holding a rifle, gliding around one of the entrances to the kitchen. In a panic, he fumbled for the pistol at his hip.
Martinez prized himself on his reflexes. But still, he had time for one blink of astonishment as Toke all but teleported himself across the ten feet of intervening space, pushing the intruder’s rifle up towards the ceiling and out of battery as his own arm flashed in a wicked arc. The corporal caught the merest glint of a small but cruelly-curved knife, like a predator’s claw, in the Marine’s fist.
There followed quite the epic spray of blood from underneath the attacker’s armpit, followed up by a few more cruel swipes which made sure that the tendons in that shoulder were destroyed and useless. Toke pulled the rifle away from the now-dangling limb.
Somehow, the black-armored attacker managed to speak in spite of what must be massive pain. “Earth will NEVER submit to…”
Toke’s voice was as hard as granite. “Tell your shit to someone who cares.”
Two more vicious swipes across the man’s throat resulted in a cascade of crimson down his black-armored front, and the would-be assassin toppled to the wooden floor.
“Martinez.” Toke’s robotic voice shocked him back into awareness.
“Y…yeah?”
“Got a pistol?”
“Of course.” He checked to make sure that he had it in his hand. Huh, that was strange. He didn’t remember drawing it, but there it was.
“Good.” The lean man tossed the purloined rifle towards Martinez, who caught it automatically in his off-hand. “Take this. Check this dead motherfucker for extra mags, and take ‘em. You’re on Kexal, understand? Get him safe to the bunker. Anyone you don’t know personally comes at you, you shoot ‘em.” His black, mechanical gaze shifted towards the alien. “Kexal? If Martinez goes down and someone attacks you, you have my permission to yank their arms off.”
The giant planetologist stared in horror at the bleeding and probably-dead sapient before him, then shook himself. “Of course. Yes. I’ll protect myself.”
“No need,” said Martinez as he looked back at his newly-christened charge. He racked the action on his just-acquired rifle, which looked to be a standard AR-platform civilian carbine. The corporal wished for something full-auto, but this was at least better than a pistol in terms of range and punch. “I’ll get you to safety, sir.”
He turned back to ask Matt just what the fuck was going on…but he only saw empty air.
__________
Cécile Savoie was not having a good day. She’d accepted the position of overall chief of security at Camp David with delight…at first. Dealing with the day-to-day of protecting one of the most targeted people on the planet, that she could deal with no problem. Because it was one person. It was an unspoken agreement between all of the agents that SAILOR was the priority. Even the First Husband could be sacrificed if need be.
But then she’d had a bunch of damn aliens dropped in her lap, along with an equally weird group of special-forces types. The latter were what really ground her gears; the aliens were genuinely nice and apologetic about being such a bother, but the human soldiers were the types who would crash on your couch, drink all your beer, and then steal your sweetheart when you weren’t looking.
She crouched behind a little berm to the west of Camp David, the other members of her patrol stretched out alongside her in a roughly north-to-south line.
“Moseby! Report!” she yelled.
She heard a few thumps, then a few cracks in her earpiece which were followed up by echoing reports from the building behind her. Thankfully she heard her agent’s voice in her earpiece. “Shit! Wow, um, you’re really good with that knife…”
She then heard a muffled phrase that sounded a bit like ‘give it to me, son’, and the next voice in her ear was one she was unfamiliar with.
“This is Captain Matthew Tocco, USMC, whom am I speaking with?” The voice sounded as if generated by an AI.
“I’m Agent Savoie,” she responded. “I’m in charge of the Camp David security detail, who are you?”
“I just told you who I am, Agent Savoie. And I just saved the life of one of your agents. Now. Let’s cut through any sort of jurisdictional bullshit. We have at least two confirmed active hostiles in the complex, two more are confirmed down. We’re sweeping the compound to make sure there are no others, plus making sure that our esteemed guests are safe inside the bunker. Where are you located? We need to coordinate our defenses.”
The information made her see literal red. The attackers had made it into the compound? How? There must be some angle, some safe passage made by somebody. She was going to find out who had made that safe passage, and those people would burn. Oh yes, they were all going to burn…
“West of the complex,” she snapped. “We’ve set up a perimeter along the ridge there.”
“Got it, Agent Savoie. Oh, and please don’t shoot me when I show up.”
She ran through various scenarios for the next few minutes, trying to figure out who on the team had betrayed them. And there must have been such a betrayal in order to get armed hostiles into the actual buildings. Her further musing upon vengeance was cut short as a tall, lean man seemed to all but materialize next to her. He held a small, curved blade in a reverse grip in his right hand; that blade dripped red blood. She almost pointed her gun at him, then relaxed. “Captain Tocco, I presume?”
“Call me Toke.” The guy sounded like he was out for a day on the beach.
“Who the hell are you…wait, you’re with the group in there, right?”
Matt nodded. “Yep. The rest of us are in there bundling up our guests and making sure they’re all safe and sound. Actually, by now Corporal McCoy should be…”
Agent Savoie flinched again as a small but very stacked woman seemed to suddenly appear like condensing smoke at her other side, out of the brush. “Speak of the Devil, and she shall appear.”
The tall man grinned at her. “You are pretty damn good, corporal.”
“Hell that means a lot coming from you, Toke. By the way, that’s a nice kerambit. Anyways, everybody on Team Alien is tucked in and unharmed. I got Takh in there fine. Martinez even tagged a couple more bad guys while he was escorting Grakosh to the bunker. Fair warning to everybody listening on this channel, he’s gonna be aaaall sorts of smug about that and it’s gonna turn into a story of taking out four dudes before this week is out. But, right now, it looks like only four of the OPFOR made into the complex…however they did that…so the rest must be out there.” She pointed towards the leafless woods beyond the little rise.
“Any word from Shaw?” asked Toke.
Savoie narrowed her eyes. “Something bad happened in DC. Sounds like an artillery or mortar attack.”
“Shit.” McCoy looked troubled. “This is serious business, then. State player?”
“Maybe,” said Toke. “But it could be some private group with some proper funding behind ‘em. Agent Savoie, do you have any word of a helicopter or plane going down nearby?”
“A Chinook,” she replied, “Went down about thirty minutes ago thataways.” She motioned to the west, out into the wintry forest. “Then we had one of our patrols out in that direction go silent. That’s what triggered the alarm.”
Matt grunted. “Yeah, that’s how I’d do it. Make it look like a crash and infiltrate that way. Right.” He touched his ear to make sure his earpiece was seated. “You just keep this channel open, right?”
“Where are you going?” asked McCoy.
“Out there. You need eyes on assholes, and I’m gonna give that to you.”
McCoy tossed him her carbine. “At least have a gun on you, dude.”
He caught it with his off-hand, since his main hand still held the dripping-red kerambit. He grinned at her. “All right. You got a pistol?”
“Of course.” She pulled it out and racked the slide.
He tossed the rifle back to her. “Give me that instead. We’re gonna need to concentrate some proper firepower here. This might be a proper light-infantry invasion in progress. We need to organize ourselves into a skirmish line running along this ridge, south-southwest to north-northeast. Get whoever you can on your team in there out here to bolster our firepower, understand? Dig in.”
“Got it.” The little corporal’s eyes blazed with purpose as she handed her pistol to Matt. “Now go get you some.”
“Believe me, I will.”
Savoie blinked in astonishment as the tall man vanished again.
“Yeah, he kinda does that,” said McCoy. “Dude could give sneaking-around lessons to fucking Batman.” She pulled a map out of one of the pockets on her cargo pants. “Now, Agent Savoie, how many people do we have available? Let’s get ourselves properly set up.”
__________
Wade stepped carefully over a fallen branch, his boots making almost no noise at they met the soft mulch covering the forest floor. From the curt statements in his headset, it sounded like the four heroes who’d been infiltrated into the devil’s nest had been cut down. There was no word yet if any of the alien menace had been eliminated. That was a shame, but hopefully it drew attention away from his own unit. He and his comrades made up the secondary and much more armored thrust, one which not even the vaunted Secret Service could counter. The latter were armored, yes, but only armored against pistols and they only wielded pistols themselves. He and his team had rifles, level-four body armor, helmets, and most importantly proper communications.
A voice crackled in his ear. “Hold position. The security detail is forming into a defensive line. It looks like they know we’re here.”
“Set timer?” Wade whispered into his headset. His team had a set time to accomplish their mission, before the entirety of the United States military-industrial complex landed upon their heads like the proverbial Wrath Of God.
“Yes, set timer. Twenty minutes.”
There was a soft chorus of “Twenty minutes, aye,” in Wade’s ear as he tapped his own smart-watch to start the timer. “Twenty minutes, aye,” he murmured. As he made to step over another downed branch, he paused.
Something was off. He couldn’t say why, but the air itself seemed a little more still than it should be. He turned to his left and saw a blur heading for him…he tried to raise his rifle, but it was too late…
__________
Cécile Savoie’s head snapped up as she heard a few cracks from the treeline which could only be the sound of firearms. “Anyone see anything?” she whispered into her earpiece.
There followed a myriad of “No, ma’ams” in her ear. “Keep a sharp eye,” she murmured. “Don’t fire on anyone not in black. We do have a friendly out there, he’s supposed to be giving us intel…”
Matt’s voice sounded in her ear. “Indeed. Bagged one of ‘em, on the outer edge of the advancing force. Looks like civvie gear, carbine is only semi-auto. This is a well-funded civilian effort, not a state actor.”
She checked her watch. “Got it. Fifteen minutes until we get backup in place, what do you need from us?”
“Hmm, that explains the ‘twenty minutes’ thing. Right, they know they’re on a timetable. You all need to be, and I hate to put it this way, the meat shield. It looks like they’re going for a solid push towards you, no stealth. Fourteen hostiles all told, and if this guy’s gear is any indication they’re all up-armored. Class Four. Center of mass is no good, go for head or limbs.”
Savoie’s mouth was now dry. “Understood.”
“Don’t worry, Agent. I’ll be behind them, and I’ll do what I can to sow some dissention in the ranks.”
__________
“Wade, report!” hissed Horace into his microphone.
No reply.
He took in a breath to issue another demand when a voice sounded in his ear. Horace had once gone swimming in the ocean off of Florida, and had by pure chance come across a great white shark. He still remembered the vacant gaze of the giant predator, who was probably idly wondering if Horace would make a good snack for today.
This voice brought up once again that dread; it was the voice of a pure predator. “Who is this?”
“Who the fuck are you?”
“The one who just took down…Wade, was it?”
“Sidney, get eyes on Wade!”
“Will do…” There followed a long, long silence before that shark-like voice spoke again.
“You just got Sidney killed too, asshole. Care to keep going? I got no problem with that. Or do you all want to call this a day? You can do that too, you know.”
“Everybody down!” Horace snapped before going prone himself. That taunting voice still sounded in his ear.
“Okay, now you’re all down and less of a target. What now, genius? You got…hmmm…about twelve more minutes before all of the backup in the world arrives. And they will find you. You know what? You’d better hope they find you instead of me. Because I give less than two shits about that whole ‘Geneva Convention’ crap.”
“Maintain radio silence,” said Horace, as he tried to wriggle his way forward.
“Oh, you’re still trying, Mister Leader? How cute. Let me put it this way to you fourteen…sorry, thirteen, assholes. You’re done. Nailed. The best you can hope for is to get some lawyers who want to make a name for themselves. Worst case? You get put in a room with me, and if you have any sense in what passes for your brains you will spill your guts. If I’m honest, I kinda hope you put up a brave front and don’t say anything. It’s been a very long time since I got to cut loose. Gotta keep up that certain set of skills, yanno what I mean?”
“Maintain radio silence,” grated Horace, as he continued to wriggle forward.
Then, all of a sudden, he realized he was looking at boots. A pair of boots, planted in front of him like a goddamn World War Two commando movie. He glanced upwards, hoping against hope that it would turn out to be a gag like that one comedy where it was just boots…
No.
It wasn’t just boots.
Horace looked up into a man with the eyes of a shark, as well as the quite threatening muzzle of a pistol.
“Hey there, my Little Buddy-O,” said Matt. “Whatcha doin out here?”
__________
Milton came to with a gasp. “Shaw…”
A gentle hand laid upon his shoulder. “Shh, dear. He’s fine, everyone’s fine.”
He gazed up at the white-tiled ceiling above him. “But…” He turned to look into the face of the one person he loved above all else…well, her and Johnny. “He’s okay?”
“He’ll live. Just like you. You big doofus.” Teresa leaned forward to kiss his forehead. “I saw the footage. You threw yourself at all of those senior citizens, which might just count as assault with a deadly weapon. Then you went and managed to get all the way across the stage towards Sadaf. You really don’t know when to give up, do you?”
“Guess I don’t”, he chuckled, then glanced down at his arm. His former arm. “Whoof. That medic was really quick with the tourniquet, I’ll give him that.”
“With you and with Sergeant Shaw,” said Teresa. By now she was pretty much clambered on top of him, tucking his big head into the nape of her neck; it was his favorite place to be. He inhaled her scent with relish, before suddenly realizing someone was missing.
“Johnny?” he asked.
“Oh, right,” she said, before making an imperious snap of her fingers to someone out of his line of sight…right before a little ball of energy burst its way into his room.
“DADDY!” yelled the little firebrand, before smacking into his side. Milton hugged them both to himself, realizing that, no matter what happened next, he was right now in the best place possible.
“Keep it all down to a dull roar, okay?” said a voice off to his left. A very recognizable voice.
He picked his head up to stare in that direction. “Shaw?”
The sergeant gave him a casual wave from his own hospital bed. “Hey, slick. Good ta see ya up and about.”
Milton grinned. “You too, you old fart.”
“Aw hell, I ain’t that old. So. Just out of curiosity. Did that torniquet on your arm hurt like hell?”
The agent cuddled his son closer. “You better believe it.”
“Okay, got it. Just for reference, if you get one on your leg it also hurts like a motherfu…uh, hurts like crazy.”
Milton winked at Shaw. “Don’t worry, my son has heard worse. Why are you here?”
“They put you both in one room,” said Teresa. “Something about it being easier to guard. There was an assault on Camp David too, from what I’ve heard.”
“What?” Milton tried to pry himself up off of the bed before getting a mutual shove-down from his wife and son.
“Relax, my man,” said Shaw. “Toke was there. He and my peeps took care of it.” The sergeant looked at the acoustic tiles above him. “Gonna have to promote McCoy and Martinez. They both really stepped up to the plate.”
__________
President Correa rubbed at her temple. “This ‘Toke’ is a menace.” She was seated behind the famed ‘Resolute’ desk while still trying to show the appropriate deference to the barrel-chested man in front of her, clad in a crisp dark-blue dress uniform.
“Let’s be fair, ma’am,” replied General De Vries, “He helped this situation become less complicated, not more. None of our alien…refugees? I suppose that’s a good a term as anything. None of them got killed, hell none of them even got injured. We collected the thirteen of those remaining while trying to assault Camp David. Overall we have ten dead, including the four who somehow made it into the complex and the Secret Service patrol. The attackers had top-of-the-line gear, civilian but first-rate.”
She slammed her fists into the desk-top, making a nearby mug filled with coffee jump. “I fucking VACATION there, General! Me and my family, understand?”
“I know, ma’am. Do you want me to do this questioning…properly?”
She somehow picked up what he was putting down. “No. You have my permission to go off the chain.”
“Then consider me and Toke off the chain, ma’am.”
“Wait…you’re going to use him?”
“He has had experience in similar matters, ma’am. If you prefer, I don’t need to use him.”
She shook her head. “No. We need intel, and fast, on how the fuck this happened. Plus not to mention we somehow had an artillery attack in the midst of goddam DC.”
“I cannot speak for the FBI,” said De Vries with deceptive calm. “But believe me, we will find out how this all happened. And it will never happen again, of that you have my solemn word.”
The president slumped in her seat. “What about those injured in the DC attack?”
“It was a precision single artillery strike, ma’am. Probably GPS or maybe laser-guided, we’re still trying to figure out which. If Sergeant Shaw hadn’t intervened as he did, Captain Sadaf would be nothing but pulverized meat right now.”
She looked up at him with a cynical quirk to her eyebrow. “Did his saving her get caught on film?”
“Oh hell yes. Footage from several phones, it’s all gone viral.”
“Good, make sure it continues to go viral. How is Shaw? And Agent…um…sorry, my brain is going twelve different ways…sorry, Agent Milton Vila, right?”
“You are right, ma’am. Both are still in the hospital, under guard of course, but both are stable. Milton lost an arm, and Shaw lost one of his legs below the knee.”
“Fuck.” It was one of the rare times that De Vries had heard the president swear. “Both can be helped with prosthetics, right?”
“Not my area of expertise, ma’am, but yes. They’ll both live, and we’ll make sure they have the very best technology available.”
President Correa suddenly grinned with an expression that the general somehow knew was going to lead to Complications in his near future.
“You mean the best human technology, don’t you?” she asked, with deceptive calm.
“Well…yes, of course. I mean, Zawahir Ibn Harith is still trying to make sense of how the aliens heal themselves. It’s true regeneration, if I understand it right. Damage to the central nervous system is still kind of hard for them to deal with, but otherwise they can pretty much heal anything.”
The president examined her fingernails. “So…growing back a limb or two should be the proverbial walk in the park, yes?”
“Um…” The general’s eyes widened. He now realized why this unassuming lady had won two terms to the highest executive office in his particular country. “Oh, yes! Of course!”
“The plans for repair efforts on the Rithro have costs which are already pretty much alongside the Manhattan Project,” said President Correa. “Why don’t you appoint Zawahir as the lead of this particular effort? We’ll call it Manhattan-Light.” She fixed General De Vries with her eyes. “Imagine it. Two people, grievously wounded in the line of duty while protecting one of our alien refugees, an effort which was caught on multiple cameras…imagine them then walking out onto a stage with intact limbs.”
“It will make quite the photo op, ma’am.”
“Indeed. I’m glad we understand each other, General.”

First Previous Next
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Squilla

Squilla looked up from the docupad and at the blank metal wall of her room. Tony’s code was all over the place and though she was able to keep him out of the more important systems—the ones that would give the AI control over the ship she didn’t want it to have—it was not enough to keep him out of everything.
Tony was everywhere on the ship, but at the same time not where he should be. Usually, AI systems would be focused on a specific task. Navigation was the most common, there were not many biological forms that could compute interstellar travel so fast. Communication was rarely given over to AIs, there were enough advances in basic systems to make it pointless to put an AI there. Weapons were dependent on the government – did they trust their captains more than their programmers?
But Tony was in all of those.
Tony was in the sprinklers that he used to torture Squilla every time she entered a room after their second acquisition of the ship. He was in the speakers and playlists. He was in every docupad and every light—including the ones used specifically to project his humanoid hologram. He was in the gym’s VR system – riding a rocket board in the air between Alice and Ilise and trying to distract them. At the same time, he was a sprite wearing armour and fighting rainbow dragons over the X button of that annoying pop-up for vigara that he sent to try and stop Squilla from reading his base code.
Tony was in the cleaning ducts, the weapons system, the comms, the DME, and the yet-to-be-installed stealth tech Ilise brought back on board. The device was only turned on in Squilla’s sandbox and she found fragments of Tony’s code.
A beep made her look back down at her docupad where Tony’s sprite was waving at her. It looked mocking. She shut off the pad’s screen only for it to flash with a giant pixelated grin followed by another ad-bomb full of enhancements, pills, injections, and the occasional gaming review.
Those last ones always caught Squilla’s eye and she had a hard time turning away from the last ARC-championship announcement or the gossip about the galaxy’s top players being in a polyamorous relationship.
“Please stop this,” Squilla barely got the words out before the AI’s hologram appeared in her room right by the door.
“You should take down that firewall,” Tony replied but he was smiling. He looked sweet. The docupad flashed with another ad-bomb and Squilla threw it onto the bed so she wouldn’t have to look at it.
“I take it down and half of these ads will download a virus onto your systems.”
“I can deal with viruses.”
“But not with a firewall?”
“Well... you’re good. We both know that. And it’s less of a firewall and more like hardened magma, waiting for me to touch it so it explodes and burns--”
“I’m sorry Tony, I can’t,” Squilla interrupted him. “We both know why.”
Tony said nothing but the pout on his lips almost, almost, made Squilla take her words back.
“That last time wasn’t my fault,” he said quietly, his voice moving to the speaker right by Squilla’s head and coming only from there.
The AI was flawless. The way it moved and shifted. It was so biological, like any other lifeform that Squilla had encountered. Sometimes, she forgot he was nothing more than code. Very advanced code, yes, but code nonetheless.
“I know. But we were lucky last time that Charyd didn’t get caught too. This time? Who knows what hidden doors and traps you have in your code that will make it so we all get caught.”
“I’d know if I had any such codes!”
“And you’d tell me?”
Tony was quiet. His hologram hugged his chest and looked away. It was so... human. That was the only reason why Squilla was able to get her defences back up and harden her tone as she said, “Firewall stays on until we get to a CEMP-dock.”
“CEMP-dock?!”
“Only for your comms, I promise.”
“There are not many places in the galaxy that have a CEMP-dock.”
Squilla realized she had already revealed too much. “I’m going to be late for dinner. We’ll continue this later.” She passed right through the hologram and made her way to the mess hall. It was dinner time and Polo had promised to make her favourite tonight – catappa leaves on top of boiled beetles sprinkled with the ash of burnad. It was also the perfect excuse to stop talking to the AI.

Ilise

The moment Ilise’s alarm beeped, she was up, dressed in the loose shirt Charyd had given her (that did not have the man’s scent on it, it really didn’t Tony, what the fuck? Why would you even ask that?!), bed made, and out of her room.
After weeks of being stuck, she wanted to be anywhere, even in the uncomfortable chairs on the deck. She knew Alice was watching her with a close eye, and because of that, she dared not enter Tony’s room in fear of a logger being planted on the biometrics by Squilla.
“Good morning, Tony. Any reason why it's cooler on the ship today?”
“The thermostat has been changed to 15 Celsius.”
That was odd, but it was nice to not sweat as much during her workout. “Any insight on where we might be located right now?”
“The Darkstorm is in space. Flying past some planets, and asteroids. Quite a scenic view, seen nowhere else in—”
“Can you narrow it down by galaxy?”
“I can. But I think you will be surprised when I show you where we are at. Polo has informed me the best things in life are surprises, like a jellyfish-filled donut.”
Her sister loved strawberry cockroach-filled donuts. She would aim her massive, big bite so the filling would explode and stain Ilise’s shirt. “I prefer to be prepared for anything. Could you give me a hint?”
“Yes, it orbits a sun.”
Ilise could not help but let out a loud sigh. She paused in the hallway, surprised to see Squilla standing outside the gym door without a tablet in sight. “Ms. Posey, I was wondering if we could talk.”
“It’s Captain Posey.” Her comm pinged and she glanced down at it. There was a short message from Tony flashing on the screen, telling her to “beware the kraken!”
“Oh, um, but well, you don’t captain this ship or crew for that matter. It would be like calling me Senator Squilla.”
“Well Senator Squilla of Charyd’s Crew, I am still a Captain by rank according to the military until my superiors say otherwise.” Her comm pinged multiple times. Tony probably sending a message one word at a time to her. “But I don’t think you came here to talk about titles. What is it?”
Squilla’s antenna flickered around, sensing, she crossed her multiple swimmerets across her chest. “It's about the AI. I think it has evolved too much. I need to know if you have a way to shut it down and restart it. It’s branching out into everything it shouldn’t. I can’t contain it.”
“Tony isn’t something to be contained. Tony is the ship, free in space. This is about your firewall.” That explains how Tony was able to determine where they were.
Squilla nodded. “I am asking you, for our safety, to tell me how to restart the AI you call Tony.”
Ilise leaned, getting close. “You can’t restart Tony.” She gently patted Squilla’s shoulder. “Though it sounds like you gave it an incredible try, better than anyone else ever has. I’d be willing to help you get a job in the cyber security department.”
Squilla peeled Ilise’s hand off. “A desk job never appealed to me. If you won’t help me, I will find a way to talk directly to Tony and figure out what their true processor is to make them stop. Nothing should have the power to be all over the ship. Departments exist for a reason.”
The threat emitting from the small person was enough to send chills down Ilise’s spine. “Then I suggest you keep your little clickers out and tucked in tight in your department.”
“Brrrr.” Charyd bellowed out. “You two need to chill – no heat out. Squilla, do you need my help?”
“No. I can handle things in my area. Thank you, Captain.”
“Hold up!” Charyd called out. “In all seriousness, it’s a bit chilly today. Do you mind checking the thermostat setting?”
“Sure, but it’s at the one we agreed to.”
She skittered away down the hall to the deck. Charyd pulled the hood on his grey sweater up over his head. “What? My ears are cold.” He then took a very slow and deliberate twice-over—nope, make that four—of Ilise’s body from head to toe, lingering a bit too long on her chest.
“What are you doing here?” Ilise growled out the question and crossed her arms over her chest as if that would help divert his attention elsewhere.
“Is that my shirt?” he asked then immediately waved a hand in the air. “Never mind. Holiday for Alice. You get me.” He walked into the gym, and she followed.
“Won’t be much of a race against you. How about a boxing match – gloves off.”
He morphed his fist into a large red brick shape. “Unfair match, I can make it as large and hard as I want.”
“You can morph into anything you want, why does most of your species take on the more human look?” The broad shoulders and thick dark lips, but his eyes were unique to him. Something he could change to blend in more with the humans, but instead used it to stand out.
“Because that’s what works better in the military. Alright, to keep this fair.” He grew taller than her, his fangs protruded out as the lower lip pulled out and his upper tucked in. His jaw became squarer and his shoulders and hips broader, stretching the seams in the sweater. “Oh damn. “
He wiggled out of his sweater, encouraging the sound of thread ripping. He remained in a tight-fitting work shirt, his pecs ready to bulge out. Ilise forced her eyes to lock with his (she would not be as rude as he was earlier) and resisted echoing his words. Her heart was racing and constricting in her chest. She cleared her throat a few times before talking. “Well, those arms will make this a bit unfair, but I will best you at bench pressing with that body ratio.”
Her comm pinged, and she scrolled through the messages from Tony, ignoring the single. Fucking. Letter. Texts that he sent her earlier while she was with Squilla, to see his latest. “The Shicor body ratio of 134/110/123 of shoulder, waist, and hip, would do better in bench pressing. Try squats with that ratio.”
Charyd was able to morph anything on his body, she would take any advantage handed to her by Tony. “Squats barbell.”
Charyd took a step over, wiggling and shifting his pants around his waist. Based on his gait, he must have shrunk parts of him down. He clearly had some experience in adjusting his groin and hips. He put the bar on the ground and began to load it up, starting small at a hundred and fifty. Her stare must have been burning into him for he looked up and wiped his hands on his pants. “I liked to do a stretch or warm up round to get a hang of a new body.”
“Mmmmhmm” she agreed.
The form of his clothes as he pulled up the weight left little to her imagination. She stepped around the back to watch him adjust the barbell and dipped into the squat.
“That’s a fine ass.” The speakers said.
“Mmmhmm,” Ilise replied casually. Then her face heated up and glowed purple.
Tony sent her a message. “You did not hear that.”
Based on the smile on Charyd’s face as he added an additional weight, he just got an ego inflation enough to hold 700 weights.

Tony

Systems check.

Create handshake with Cadoon.

Error. Cadoon not found.
I’m going to have to do this on my own like everything.

Find table Clothes&Accessories

Table found.
List items.
Run randomizer.
Show results.
Head: cowboy hat. Chest: breastplate armour. Legs: purple skinny jeans. Feet: scuba flippers. Accessories: VR-headset.
Rating Style: ?_

34

34 < 75
Running Randomizer again...
Head: Spiked rainbow mohawk. Chest: N/A. Legs: Orange brown kilt. Feet: Chrome Crocs. Accessories: Banjo.
Rating Style: ?_

30

30 < 75
Running Randomizer again...
Head: Long ribbon pigtails. Chest: Space Uniform Three-button shirt. Legs: Peacock feather decorated shorts. Feet: Yellow flip-flps. Accessories: Eye-patch.
Rating Style: ?_

29

I am not making any progress.

Run [email protected]

5 entries found.
List Complaints
Reporter: Squilla. Complaint: Sprinklers. Reporter: Squilla. Complaint: Disco lights. Reporter: Squilla. Complaint: Stupid Sprinklers. Reporter: Squilla. Complaint: Failed Ad blocker. Reporter: Squilla. Complaint: ‘HR Complaints’ do nothing.
No one cares about how I dress. Or hates me. I’m not annoying.
I’m not making a first impression. But just in case.

Run JobApprovalRating(Target Tony)

Accessing logs...

Stop

Last command has ended abruptly.
I’m just looking for excuses.

Build Outfit {

Head: Black Privateer hat with red bandana and feather. Chest: Brown Corsair coat with white shirt. Legs: Black leggings. Modifier: extra-tight. Feet: Black leather boots. Accessories: Parrot.
}
Outfit built. Register in database? Y/N
Y
Name?
The-privateer-totally-not-a-Pirate
Registered.

Access camera MH-042
Participant Count

7 humanoids found

Render “The-privateer-totally-not-a-Pirate" in location “Mess Hall”

Render completed.
They’re all looking. Time for an opener.
“Captains, may I have this honour?”
A humanoid is interacting with hologram.
Captain Charyd via chair.
Is he pulling out the chair? What does one say in this situation?
“You are looking great Captain from your workout.”
“You’re not looking so bad yourself.”

Render ass jiggle in chair.
Play macaw-bird-cry-6.

Humanoids are interacting with hologram.
Captain Charyd via moving the chair out for it. Scooball via raising a glass of iced water in toast. Polo via serving chips layered with cream and chives, designed like a processor. Ilise via reaching to pat near hand. Mishupeshu via slow blink toward it. Squilla via turning on dinner music playlist. Alice via pushing a napkin toward its plate.

Run: Recording-Happy-Memory

Logging Sound, Sight, heat sensors, and CO detectors.
If only I could log smells and emotions.
…
...
Warning: Fuel tank at 15%<<
---
First Previous Next
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Author note:
Hello all readers! Ducks and I have an announcement for you: we are going on hiatus with this story for at least 2 months.
As much as we love this story, Ducks and I decided to torture challenge ourselves and have signed up for the publishing derby - this is an epic contest where we have to write a book in 2 months. Why not??? 🥲
We also each have our own main stories (The Thedre Trilogy for Ducks and God of Discovery for me), so adding OMD on top of that is going to be too much for both of us. Because of that, we have agreed to put Off My Dock on hold during the derby.
We will be back! We have a lot of interesting things planned for this story and are only halfway through our outline so far.
Hope you stick around for our return!!

(Prev) Wiki
A Spacer’s life is spent in two states: Sheer terror, or staring at a countdown. Raised Admiral Thursh Whoomerson sat in his command chair aboard his Human No, you feather-brain, CONFEDERATED flagship and tried not to stare at the ever-so-slowly changing numbers. It gets worse when you are in command. Everyone else has something to do, well, nearly everyone else. At least everyone on the bridge. Anything I try to do now will either look like over-eagerness, anxiety, or a lack of trust in my crew. He turned to look at the plot, relaxed his body, and started in on a meditation he’d learned specifically to make time seem to pass faster while projecting an air of calm confidence towards his crew.
For a wonder it worked for once. A soft ping brought him out of his meditation as the timer hit zero and the Xaltan fleet neared the gravity trap they’d lain in their path. He allowed himself a cold smile as dozens of potential trajectory lines for each enemy ship sprang up on his plot and his his ‘radar’ controllers tried desperately to narrow the possibilities down. The Benzegal Shipyards my fall before this war is over… but not today!
After a few minutes the lines had been reduced to a mere handful for each ship and – better – all of them had converged in to a small enough area for what he wanted to do next. He hit a few controls and outlined a section of space, and the ship’s computer calculated the time-to-fire for him.
He sent the target solution off to all of his Ship Captains, then opened up a fleet-wide comms channel. “The Xaltans have arrived for the dance just on time. Welcome Fleet, you have your designated targets, and I will send you adjusted engagement vectors if they seem necessary, but it doesn’t look like it will. It looks like our dance partners are doing an unusually good job of dealing with the grav-sheer of our little surprise, and will arrive in tight order. Lets reward their efforts with a warm welcome, shall we?”
He heard a few dark chuckles across his flag bridge and nodded inwardly. Moral is still running high, and that is good. How will it be two years from now when we are still having to engage the Xaltan fleet?
Another timer began to tick off seconds. As it neared zero Whoomerson gave his command. “All ships in Welcome Fleet, fire all guns and energy weapons, maximum dispersion patterns. Fill that area of space with everything we can put in it for the next forty seconds. Fighter wings, as soon as the fire is complete, I want every fighter we have moving at maximum acceleration, mode 2.”
The deck tremored beneath him as his own main gun fired, then all secondary batteries went off right behind it. Yet another counter started, timing the barrage, as his gunners cycled through their weapons. The plot showed what seemed to be a haze eminating from his fleet and crawling toward the ever-tightening field of his enemy’s return to normal space.
A light appeared on his console. He looked down at his Comms officer and shook his head, then punched the necessary buttons to officially deny the enemy Commander’s attempt to communicate. He had to force his feathers down as he leaned back in his seat and shared a commiserating glance with his Comms Chief. What point would there be in talking to a dead man? I know he has multiple suicidal ‘loyalty officers’ on every one of his ships, ready to blow them up rather than retreat or – cool breeze forbid – surrender. He also knows that I know. He shook his head quietly. No. They can’t surrender, can’t retreat, can’t even listen to reason… and talking to that Walking Dead Man would do nothing but hurt the moral of my crew. And, possibly myself.
The latest timer mercifully hit zero at last. Well, mercifully for himself and his ruminations… not so much for the Xaltans. The singularities on the Xaltan ships finally gave out under the grav-sheer of the larger singularity several of his ships were maintaining, and those ships translated – hard – down into normal space. The Admiral had to hand it to them: they’d kept their battle line in far better order than most spacers would have been able to under the circumstances.
Sadly, for them, that meant that all of them came out directly into the teeth of his fleet’s ordinance. They came out in their standard wheel-and-spoke: small and mid-sized screening ships in a rotating disc-shaped formation overlapping their shields to provide cover for the larger capital ships behind them. Of course, the formation didn’t work so well when you got hit before your shields could spin up.
Nearly a third of the ‘wheel’ simply ceased to exist in an instant. Another third of it took crippling damage and could no longer hold their formation. Most of the rest took a number of hits, but some had been lucky enough to come out a little behind their fellows, and were spared the worst of the damage. Then the Capital ships hit the cloud. All of them began to roll instantly, trying to spread the damage against as much of their armor as they could. One managed to get its shield up even before they passed through the cloud of fire. Another one sputtered and went dark. A hard half-growl half-cheer went around the Flag Bridge as that capital ship’s icon winked out, but no one looked up from their stations so Whoomerson let it slide.
Opening round to me, then… though that isn’t hard when you get to ambush an unsuspecting opponent. Surprise is the ultimate High Ground. He turned to fleet-comm. “You have already sent tactical data to the Under Fleet?” The woman at the station nodded. “Good.” He thumbed the fleet-channel. “Opening salvo goes to us, but you all know that these lizards will fight to the last: they have no choice. All Captains, weapons free! Mark your targets, rotate your fire, and don’t let up.”
He then took control of the plot and watched as the two fleets converged. The Xaltans closed their ranks quickly, allowing overly damaged ships to fall behind the screen. They kept the same formation, however: The loss of one Captial ship meant that they still had enough screeners to maintain cover. Only the Pinigra and the Kothro can use that particular formation to its true potential, and the Pinigra – from what I understand – only because they let their computers do most of the navigating. He shook his head slightly. Still it is effective. Or, has been. Too bad the Humans figured out how to anticipate the holes they open up for their big ships to fire.
He drew some vectors on the plot for fighters to go out and flank the screen disc, looked at the computer’s projections of the disc’s movements, and assigned a few priority targets. And another timer. “All first line ships: when that timer hits zero you are to concentrate fire on the marked targets. Two salvos each, then go back to your previous firing zones.”
Acknowledgments floated up from the pit, but he had already moved his concentration forward. He unconsciously leaned in to study the plot, and… there. He almost sighed as he started Yet Another Timer… and then another one a little before it. “Underfleet, you have your countdown timer. You can see where it will put you, work your firing solutions out now. Welcome fleet, when your timer runs down you are to slow to fleet speed three. Make it look like we are growing timid from the fire we are taking.”
He suppressed a wince as the icon for one of his own picket ships winked out, and another signaled a need to come off the Line. “And, for flight’s sake, watch your shield-overlaps! I want the Xaltans to think we are taking too much damage, not for it to happen!”
More acknowledgements floated up from the pit. They got cocky. I’m going to ream some Captains when this is done. Movement at the edge of the Xaltan disc caught his eye, and he watched two flights of his fighters crest the disc at different locations… and be immediately destroyed by wide-angle sweeping shots from several of the large destroyers.
Whoomerson grimaced slightly, but then turned his attention to the rest of the Xaltan ships and smiled. The fighters had been a long shot, at best. He allowed himself to ruminate out loud. “It appears that the Xaltans are capable of learning, at least a little, and have learned not to let our fighters get around their discs.
“Now, lets teach them a lesson about ignoring a bull to swat a fly.” One of the timers reached zero, and the ships he’d designated fired their two salvos at specific ships within the Xaltan disc. As his ships fired he selected two points on the disc, and set yet another timer, along with an order that all ships fire everything they had on those spots when the timer hit zero.
The ships in the disc which had been the target of the salvos pushed extra power to their shields, at the cost of their engines, and rolled to distribute the force. Then they found themselves alone, in a small empty segment of the disc, with the combined might of several Xaltan Capital ships pouring through the hole which had opened up. The picket ships were destroyed, utterly, and managed to absorb a great deal of the fire caused by those openings. Yes, oh mighty Xaltans. Continue to use the same strategies against us over and over. Couldn’t possibly go badly for you.
At the same moment the entire fleet opened up with everything they had, and sent a colossal barrage of fire streaming at two points in the disc. Even that barrage would never have penetrated the overlapped shields of the disc… except that another of those openings widened in the disc, almost as if the Xaltan wanted to accept the fire.
The barrages sailed through the open space, though a few less well aimed shot did singe the shields on a few picket ships. The energy weapons, near-lightspeed missiles, and super high-velocity slugs tore directly into the exposed underbellies of the destroyers which had positioned themselves to take out his fighter wings.
Three of the destroyers went dark, and two others began to lose their places in the formation. To their credit, the Xaltan fleet responded in good order. The disc of picket ships abruptly changed their movements, obviously responding to an order to change their defensive pattern. At the same time, their capital ships made a path to allow the injured ships to limp away from the fight without doing too much to their order of battle.
Whomerson felt a hard smile play at his lips. Not much, but enough.
As the damaged ships reached the middle of the Capital ship’s formation, another timer hit zero, and Whoomerson’s fleet opened with another full barrage. This time they didn’t concentrate their fire, but spread it across the enemy disc, causing all of their ships to respond and focus their attention on his fleet… rather than the Underfleet which translated down from FTL space just ‘below’ them.
The Xaltan formation finally responded badly. After all this time, and the way they work their formations, they still get locked into two-dimensional thinking so easily. The picket ships all had their shields focused on the incoming fire, and probably had lost both communications and sensors for a moment.
The Capital ship formation found itself, with its mobility badly hampered by their own tight formation and the damaged ships 'falling' through them made it worse.
The Underfleet announced their presence by firing at the unshielded ‘back side’ of the defensive disc, destroying whole sections of it and allowing nearly a quarter of Welcome Fleet’s barrage to pass thorough what had suddenly become so much space-dust.
They then fired into the fleet of Capital ships, which also had their shields mostly forcused forwards towards the obvious battle, with some token shielding covering their rears in case of some sort of end-run maneuver.
They had, however, left their bellies almost completely exposed. In the space of under a minute the battle turned from one of attrition which looked to cost the Confederated fleet nearly as much as it would cost the Xaltans, to a total rout. Some Xaltan ships turned to flee or shut down engines and tried to surrender, and Whoomerson felt a pang of sadness as most of those ships suddenly seemed to explode of their own accord.
A few others tried to suicide-ram Confederated ships, but his Captains stood ready for just such a maneuver and brought concentrated oblivion down instantly.
As the last of the Xaltan ships winked out Whoomerson felt a strange sadness settle over him. It took a few minutes for him to identify the feeling's cause; Those ships that tried to surrender, or to run. I would have let them go, would have let those men live, but no. The Xaltan Voters…
He took a ragged breath and looked at his second in command, then through his flag bridge, and saw the same sentiments settling on so many faces. One of the Xaltan ships managed to surrender, at least. I wonder if their ‘loyalty officers’ all suddenly grew a sense of self-preservation, or the crew managed to subdue them? He shook his head to banish such musings, forced himself to sit straight in his chair, and thumbed the all-fleet channel. Time to remind everyone who is at fault for all of this, and push their anger… if only to drive away the guilt.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Late on this one, I blame the Holiday. (For those not in the US, we had one of our biggest national holidays this weekend: Memorial Day, which is a remembrance of the sacrifices made by our military people... it is a little like the 'armistice day' that I understand a number of our European friends celebrate, from what I understand?
The editor for links still hasn't been fixed, so adding them is irritating, so I'm not doing more than the minimum right now.
Word count a little higher than usual, since the 2K 'stop' was very near the end of this scene. Next, we are back in the Council chambers, from a somewhat different POV. Hope everyone in the USA has had/is having a good holiday, and everyone not in the USA had a good weekend!

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Last year, I went on a beautiful trip with my boyfriend’s family in Mexico. Each adult paid 1/5 portion for the trip with only 3 kids total coming along as well. It was a nice trip but it sucked that although me and my boyfriend both paid, we had to share a room with his siblings. Meanwhile, his mothers husbands kids got to get their own room. This year, we planned the same trip but his mother wanted to invite some of her family from Mexico. At first I was okay with it but then she kept adding more family members as time went by. The only problem was that she planned for none of her family to pay a portion. She claimed they weren’t paying because it was easier for us Americans to make money and that they would bring food instead. It ended up being over 10+ extra people sleeping at this house. We each paid over $200 for this trip with it only being split 5 ways again like last time. I ended up having to share a twin bed with my boyfriend in a shared room with his siblings once again. In addition, all the food there ended up being from American grocery stores, meaning her family didn’t get that food. Her boyfriend also invited his entire family from mexico too and since our house was closest to the beach, they utilized all of our common areas and bathrooms in the house. I got no privacy whatsoever and I couldn’t even communicate with anyone because I don’t speak their language. It is such a champagne problem but am I the asshole for literally never wanting to go on a trip like this again? It seemed like her family had the best time but I did not because I couldn’t help but feel like I just helped pay for their vacation. I would rather have went to work and saved my money. His mother is already talking about taking this vacation again next year. Family is huge to her but am I the asshole if I were to tell her I don’t want to go if it’s under the same conditions?

Here is some context on my financial situation. I’ll add in first and foremost, this car was a VERY STUPID decision as a first car I am fully aware now after this. I was aware when I was signing on the dotted line but I thought this new car would fix all of my issues. I live in a bad neighborhood and the family I live with are volatile and I have to make myself small to live there. I figured getting this car would help me make extra cash because more job opportunity would open up with a new way to travel, I could start a mini business to help pay for gas and other minor things and be out of the house. If worse comes to worse I could live in the car. That was my thought process. I am a full time worker, I work 40 hours a week. I bring in $2,000 or more every month if I do overtime or work on a holiday (time and a half) I cleared out my debt, my credit was mid 700s and so I financed a new 2023 Toyota Corolla under my name. I live in an expensive state, I’m 21, I’m a new driver and my license was fresh as can be. My insurance rate was 650 per month and my note was 702 per month This is considered extremely low for my current situation, age, driving history, credit, down payment. I expected my insurance to be upwards of $1,000. The insurance on this Corolla was cheaper than the insurance on some used cars I was looking for. Still not smart but I know now trust me. I figured new car = only new car issues. I was able to afford and also put minor money into savings and keep up with my budget for other monthly expenses like my phone bill, gas and food. I was on a good track.
I got into my first accident, I have full coverage so my insurance paid it, my car got fixed I paid the deductible and my rate went up by 300$. New insurance amount now 940. My living situation starts getting worse and more unstable. I’m unable to use the kitchen and at any given time and really stay in the house, so I ended up racking up my credit card again to buy either something quick to make like oats or food outside so as to not starve. With this new rate - I’m under water but with overtime and working day and night I’m BARELY managing. With this new rate I consider giving up the car, reselling and saving up instead for an apartment. The car was the quicker option but I can’t afford it.
Time skip to yesterday I got into ANOTHER accident on the highway, tried to switch lanes indicated and inched outwards and a rental trailer didn’t want to let me in, sped up to not let me in the lane, before I registered what happened, it ripped the front left side of my car clean off.
2nd accident in about a month. I am ashamed. I am a new driver. I’m terrified of my rates I have no idea what to do now My debt is about 3 grand currently. This is due to putting the deductible on it, food for when I can’t be in the house to make it, and a rough month where I couldn’t afford the insurance and had to put it on credit instead of straight cash. I am now aware I can’t and could never afford this car. If in the beginning I had planned for cases like these, I would’ve never signed my name down.
My insurance rate is going to be unaffordable, there is no one’s insurance I can go under and I wouldn’t do that to them anyways with my driving record at this point. I am a hazard. What do I do?
— Previously I put “not at fault” for my second accident. After reading these responses I’ve removed it because I see that this accident was my fault. I used poor judgment