*( mood song: "Scorpions - The Zoo")
Everyone quieted down as Artalia towered over everyone around.
Artalia looked around with a warm smile at the thousands of octopoeple surrounding her. Then, at the elders, remembering their faces when they were just kids and not able to contain herself, she sighed in relief. Finally, at the aliens, the humans who had saved them all, she slightly bowed her head in the direction of Erik and Rose.
Artalia took off her translation collar, and perfectly spoke: "Once again, Erik, Rose, I can't thank you enough for saving me and our entire race... I- ...I'm sure the Matriarch would thank you too" choking slightly by the end as her emotions overwhelmed her, learning a few phrases on a new language wasn't that complicated for her, though talking on air still felt strange for her.
Erik nodded to Rose and smiled: "We are all a family now, let's all look out for each other"
Meanwhile, Crabina waited nervously near the main entrance, her claws clicking against the metal decking. But she wasn't alone – Anhuka, her crabwoman caretaker, stood beside her with a warm smile.
Anhuka's eyes lit up as she saw Erik: "Erik! Welcome back! Crabina has been counting the days until your return."
When Erik finally appeared, Crabina launched herself into his arms: "Dad! You were gone so long! Anhuka tried to keep me busy, but I missed you terribly!"
Erik spun her around carefully: "I missed you too, my little warrior. How have you and Anhuka been managing?"
"Anhuka's is great," Crabina admitted, glancing at her caretaker, seeing Anhuka nod pleased. "But the base has been absolute chaos! There were more and more people each month. And those horrible chickens in the pasture have been multiplying again, Daddy, there are... hundreds of chickens!"
Erik chuckled: "Too many chickens? Oh, do I have an easy solution for that~"
"They're unnatural!" Crabina shuddered. "All those feathers and that weird flapping. At least kelp and fish make sense – they swim, they're quiet, they don't randomly explode into motion!"
Erik: [Are there so many chickens?]
Rose: [...125]
Erik: [...I see, chicken is on the menu then~]
Erik: "Might be time to make a chicken coop"
Time passed, and everyone hugged as they all got emotional. They were all finally together and ready to advance. Inky brought her daughters to meet everyone, as Crabina hugged her new sisters.
Erik: "This is your older sister, Crabina"
Crabina proudly announced: "If anyone bullies you, tell me, I shall protect you!"
Inky: "Haha... if something like that ever happens, just tell me~ it won't happen again"
Rose chuckled: "No need to worry, nothing bad will happen under my sight kekeke~"
Beritkan observed from a corner, still not fully used to interacting with others, but he had contributed to stopping infections and acted as a doctor for the octopeople base and the spiral crab city, earning the right to roam around.
Beritkan then saw Sarah as well as the daughters, muttering to himself: "prime genetic samples..."
But a bot then grabbed his shoulder, as Rose always had him under watch regardless: *You can ask for samples from Erik and Sarah, but scare the little ones... and you will rot in that lab for eternity, never going to Earth, you have my promise*
Blood drained from Beritkan's face: "I shall heed your orders"
Bot (Rose): *good~*
He then walked up to Sarah to introduce himself, but Rose cut him off, introducing him to Sarah instead.
Rose: "Sarah, this is Beritkan, a surrendered useful enemy crabman that decided to work for us instead of dying, and has transformed his body to look like a human in hopes of going to Earth in the future"
Sarah: "Oh, is that so?"
Beritkan cleared his throat: "...yes, now with the pleasantries concluded... would you be so kind as to give me some genetic samples?"
Sarah smiled: "Sure, that can be arranged. I could use another apprentice, too"
Beritkan's face twitched: "No disrespect, but I've learned all the medical database completely, and I used to be the-"
Sarah cut him off: "That's great! cause i compiled that BASIC database, this way you will follow orders precisely~"
Beritkan grimaced, a bit offended, but at the same time, learning was always exciting: "I... I understand, glad to be of service..."
Erik laughed as Beritkan walked back to a corner: "Careful with him, he used to be a crazy egocentric shaman"
Sarah shook her head: "That just means he still has a lot to learn, don't worry, he aspires to be human, but I'm no longer a normal human with your DNA ~ I feel like I could bend steel with my bare hands now"
Erik smiled: "Oh, definitely, that's quite easy~"
After everyone calmed down, they all went down inside the mountain base, as dozens of bots controlled by Rose, Amanda, and AI2137 directed the octopeople from the base to their new houses inside the flagship.
Rose's bots had been busy during the journey, preparing specialized quarters for the returning personnel, back at the base as they dug deeper into the mountain. Erik's new suite and hallways were enormous – six meters high to accommodate visitors like Artalia, and with a bathroom large enough for a dozen people to use comfortably. And not only that, all floors had been expanded, even then, the extensions weren't enough to contain the booming octopeople population. The crab city, on the other hand, had experienced little growth, as most inhabitants were used to thermal waters, and they hadn't been given specialized accommodations and technology like the octopeople had.
The crab people had adapted by installing hot water pipes made with hammered, rolled bio-alloy plates, and installed them all over the city. Their blacksmiths were working overtime in transporting materials, but without a proper source of heat other than a forge room they had requested from Rose, the work was slow, and the heat quickly used up to heat the pipes full of water, distributing heat to the houses in the spiral city.
Maktar stood on the forge one day more, the water only covered up to his waist as forging on air was way more efficient, using his claws covered on a metal protection to move the metal around while his hands held a sledgehammer, constantly making more aqnd more pipes without rest, maybe if he made enough they could redirect heat from underground... he needed to work harder, his people were suffering on the cold city, and Rose ignored them for the most part, but he wouldn't forsake them, he would save his people.
But at that moment, a rumble reverberated in the city.
Maktar muttered to himself: "What was that..."
Thanya then came inside the forge room: "Maktar, come, Erik is back!"
Maktar nodded: "Hmm, maybe he will hear my plea, call Trebetuk too"
Thanya: "He went already with mother"
Maktar: "Lady Alhona? Hmm, she's quite convincing..., but no matter, I shall go too"
-- Inside the base --
Rose walked with them as they toured the quarters: "I designed these spaces with everyone's needs in mind. The ceiling height accommodates our tallest members, and the facilities can handle group gatherings."
As they settled in, a series of small crashes and panicked squeaks echoed from the ventilation system above.
"What was that?" Sarah asked, looking up at the ceiling.
Rose chuckled: "The Yaksha are trying to find their way to the nursery areas. They're... not the most graceful navigators, I've allowed them to follow us here, of course."
Moments later, Yhana dropped through a vent opening, landing in an undignified heap on the floor. Her meter-and-a-half frame picked itself up with wounded dignity as she brushed dust from her primitive clothing.
"Erik-protector! Small-daughters safe! We watch good!" Yhana announced proudly, just as two more Yaksha tumbled out of the same vent opening, landing on top of her in a comical pile.
Erik couldn't help but smile: "Thank you, Yhana. You and your people have done well protecting my daughters Zoey, Eirene, Ana, Elena, and Maria."
As they toured the rest of the base, though, the full extent of the crisis became apparent. In the incubation chambers, desperate workers tried to maintain proper conditions in pools designed for hundreds but now containing thousands of eggs.
A Scout Leader, exhausted from days of continuous sanitation duty, reported to Erik: "Sir, we've lost track of family lineages entirely. The communal fertilization pools are so overcrowded that traditional parenting structures have collapsed."
The bacterial infection crisis was evident everywhere – scouts with visible skin rashes worked alongside Rose's cleaning robots, but the sheer volume of waste from the hermaphroditic population's rapid reproduction cycles overwhelmed every system.
Dr. Yenna and Beritkan worked tirelessly in the overwhelmed medical bay: "Respiratory infections are becoming endemic. The air and water circulation systems can't handle this population density, and the bacterial load in the living areas is approaching dangerous levels."
Erik's enhanced senses could detect the chemical imbalance in the air, and the water in the communal pools was close to slime – elevated ammonia levels, bacterial concentrations, and stress pheromones that indicated a population under severe strain.
In the kelp farms, workers harvested frantically to feed the growing population. The dangerous hunting expeditions that Erik had hoped to minimize had instead intensified, with regular losses to leviathans and massive gulper fish.
A Hunter-Captain, missing all but one of her tentacles, a reminder of the risks, reported grimly: "We're losing too many experienced hunters. The youngsters aren't ready for deep-water predator hunts, but we need the protein."
Erik nodded grimly, there was no time to rest, he looked at Rose and Sarah: "Rose, Sarah and Megan, you three deal with disinfection, move everyone to the mainship for quarantine" he then stretched as his powerarmor deployed over his body, "Inky, Shana, Timberly and me will go outside to hunt something, we should also make a facility to easily harvest milk from Molly"
Shana: "Molly?"
Rose shrugged: "A huge Leviathan we tamed, we can harvest her milk, she's lying down on the sand plains outside with her kin"
Megan frowned: "Is that safe?"
Rose shrugged: "Should be... Erik insisted so... blame him"
Shana: "We can barely feed ourselves, how will we feed a leviathan..."
Erik: "Don't worry, her kin keep her fed, in fact, I was thinking of using them as hunting hounds" he waved his now robotic left hand "They are quite strong"
-- Sand Plains outside the octopeple base --
Molly lay there, still uncomfortable with open spaces, but feeling much better, finally free. Her kin came then with a huge gulper fish, some of her children were injured, but they healed fast. She munched on it, completely used to being fed by now, when from a side she saw Erik and other's approaching, Erik had released her from her prison, and somehow also cared for her descendants too, he would be a good breeding partner if only too small, she could only sigh, she had mutated too much on her own, from a carefree little thing to the behemot she was now.
Erik: "And this is Molly~"
Shana was taken aback seeing the huge behemoth: "How..."
Erik: "She needed to escape, and we helped her" walking up to her and scratching her side as the behemoth rolled on her side "See? she's a cutie"
A voice then reverberated in his head: [Y...ou.. cutie... too~]
Erik looked up, seeing Molly's huge eyes focused on him: "Molly, you can talk?"
Molly: [talk... not know... thoughts... transmitted... metallic being... installed on head...]
Erik: [Oh, must have been Rose then, nice talking to you, Molly]
Molly: [like... too... milk... want~?]
Erik could swear there was excitement in her voice, but he had to refuse for now: [yes, but not right now, we need to go hunting for food right now, I was wondering if you could lend me some of your kin]
Molly: [yes... can... they live... to serve]
Twelve of her kin then stood in front of Erik, all of different sizes.
Molly: [Guide to prey... help in hunt... they will]
Erik patted her: [Thank you, Molly, we will be back]
Molly: [Will be... waiting...]
The hounds quickly guided them to the precipice as they quickly circulated water through their guills, their senses sampling the waters, before launching in one direction. Erik jumped too as propulsors on the back of his power armor jetted water backwards. Inky soon took over with her nimbler power armor, while Shana and Timberly advanced at his sides, behind them a battalion of 300 warriors and hunters followed with transport vehicles, along, they had a lot of mouths to feed after all.
A couple of hours later, they arrived near the bottom of the ice sheet, far from the base, like an inverted mountain canyon. The rifts and valleys in the greenish ice held all kinds of life forms, from small shrimp that ate the algae to all kinds of monsters that ate them.
In a valley led by the hounds, they found a group of humongous gulper fish, each around forty meters long or more, while in the middle of the valley, there was one sixty meters long, quite probably the matriarch. The fish were gulping all kinds of creatures from the cracks in the ice, leaving everything bare of life.
Erik: "We must hunt at least 12 today, that will solve the food crisis"
Inky: "There are at least 80... this won't be easy"
Erik: "We will see about that~" his left arm transforming into a huge body-size railgun "all octopeople, take cover and get into firing positions, target their eyes!"
The octopeople got on the trenches in the ice and stuck metal bolts on it, safe from the suction of the gulper fish. Meanwhile, the transports and gunships hummed as they charged their shots.
Erik: "aim... FIRE!"
Hundreds of projectiles of different sizes travelled through the waters, leaving behind streams of bubbles as the projectiles found their targets. The heads of the gulper fish exploded as the bullets reached their brains through their eyes. At least six instantly died, and twenty were gravely wounded.
The school of fish seemed panicked, but then the one in the middle looked in the direction of Erik as clicking sounds and popping sounds echoed in the ice valley. The gulper fish quickly surrounded those injured, while those that were dead started to sink.
Erik: "Sorry, creatures, but we need your flesh, AIM! FIRE!"
Another volley hit the group of fish, making the matriarch finally panic as new orders were given, those still healthy quickly fled as they left their injured brethren behind.
Erik: "Move in and finish them off, recover all!"
The octopeople moved in, easily finishing the dying creatures and installing hooks on their spines. The transports, along with the octopeople, pulled on giant chains and ropes as they dragged their catch back. Even the hounds diligently pulled on the ropes, their intelligent eyes looking at the octopeople with a mix of admiration and fear.
Back at the base, the fish were laid on the sand plains as the octopeople worked tirelessly to butcher them, the meat would be stored in huge cold storages both on the main ship and the mountain base, while two were given to Molly to devour along with her children.
At that moment, Erik saw a group of crabmen approaching.
Trebetuk and his wife, Alhona, led the group.
Trebetuk: "Miss Erik-" his wife elbowed him "Mister Erik, we, the crab people, are really good at butchering. May we offer assistance?"
Erik: "Sure, you guys also deserve a share, of course, it will depend on your contribution, so if you offer to help, that's good, my troops need to rest after the hunting trip after all".
Alhona: "It will be our pleasure to help" she motioned forward, and a hundred crab men and women carrying each an assortment of sharp tools advanced to the carcasses, quickly dissecting the carcasses, from bone saws to sharp spear blades. Their claws separated the flesh while their hands carved the flesh away using the tools.
Erik: "This will be a huge help, but... is there anything you need besides the flesh?"
Trebetuk: "Yes, actually, we would like it if you could improve the conditions in the spiral city. It's too cold for most of us, and Maktar needs a better workshop"
Erik: "I see... crab people could survive out of water, right?"
Trebetuk: "Out of water... Ah, yes, like Maktar's workshop air right? We can survive as long as we don't dry out yes"
Erik: "In that case, it seems we will need to drain the spiral city, as water conducts heat way better than air, but first... we would need to design a way to keep so much air underwater, we will need to reinforce the city dome to resist the buoyancy pressure".
Maktar then came from behind Trebetuk: " Just tell me what you need"
Erik: "Sure, we will need gravel and stones, and lots of metal wire"
Maktar nodded: "We will get to it immediately" quickly walking away.
Erik: "...oh well, should discuss it with Rose later"
Rose: [I think it's fine, it's about time they helped more]
Erik: "Or right now... so, feasibility?"
Rose: [Hm,m it's a lot of air... we could create it decomposing the water for oxygen and other minerals for nitrogen and other gases, but building an air pump to the surface makes more sense. As for bouyancy... we will need a really huge weight, every cubic metre of air inside the dome displaces 1 m³ of water, which has a mass of about 1000 kg, a rough calculation would be an air volume of roughly 60,000 m³ that gives us a required mass of 60,000,000 kg or 60,000 metric tonnes of weight to exactly neutralize the buoyancy, the current dome is around half that mass, so to account for further development i would suggest an increase of at least 80,000 metric tonnes of weight]
Erik: [Alright, we have a plan then]
-- Flag Ship --
While Sarah and the others disinfected the base along with Rose, some of Rose's bots were leading Megan and Jennifer around the new educational area on the Flag Ship. The classrooms were marvels of adaptive technology, with holographic instructors capable of teaching everything from basic literacy to advanced quantum mechanics.
Shana, the most traditional of Timberly's sisters, tentatively interacted with a holographic display: "This is remarkable, but will our young ones lose connection to traditional knowledge? We already divide their time between your classes and those given by instructors back at the base"
Rose's nanobots formed a more substantial avatar in the center of the room, drawing material from the ship's hull: "The system preserves everything. Watch this demonstration."
The holographic instructor shifted, displaying traditional hunting techniques alongside modern tactical analysis: "Integration of cultural wisdom with technological advancement ensures nothing is lost while everything is improved. Now, let me guide you to the test class. I selected the most gifted of the young ones to attend."
Young octopeople in the demonstration class were rapidly absorbing complex concepts, their natural intelligence enhanced by the AI-assisted learning environment. Their excited screeches filled the room as they mastered engineering principles that would have taken months to learn under traditional methods. The ideas were transmitted directly into their minds, and any doubts were instantly explained in detail, ensuring they understood everything perfectly.
Timberly, who had joined the demonstration, watched with obvious pride: "Our youngsters are so bright! The future of our race is limitless."
Jennifer nodded by the side: "These systems could revolutionize our entire educational structure indeed."
Rose nodded, her avatar shifting size to better interact with the octopeople: "Adaptive learning algorithms adjust to each individual's optimal pace. Gifted students advance rapidly while those who need more time receive personalized attention and are guided on the path that most suits them, regardless of previous body size classes. I will measure their capabilities."
Rose then displayed a file of Yenna: "Yenna, a former warrior frontline soldier under the orders of Timberly, was discovered to be extremely gifted at learning medicine under Sarah, thus living proof that each individual is unique regardless of body size"
Shana nodded: "Caring for the wounded used to be the job of the scouts..."
Rose avatar shrugged: "Well, not anymore, it's time for each of them to choose their own paths in life"
Jennifer nodded: "Yes, we will follow your suggestion, the class system will be abolished"
Shana: "Will they just accept it?"
Rose: "No one is born discriminating, it's something you learn... we have control of what they learn thanks to this, they will all be octopeople, bigger or smaller, but all the same"
Shana: "Alright, I agree then"