The hatch in the maintenance area is pretty thick. This area is underground, so maybe it would start venting atmosphere the second the external armor was damaged.
That’s something every colony or station wants to avoid. That’s why they’re composed of blocks from the outer wall to the inside, separated by thick divisions and hatches. If they’re structured like an ant nest, air won’t completely escape.
Obviously these hatches were made to withstand pressure… so they’re not the kind of thing that you can easily just punch away.
“Be careful, Dwight.”
“What about you? Are you okay? Did you hit your head? You suddenly yelled about an octopus.”
“Didn’t you see that octopus tentacle?”
“What are you talking about?”
Is there a discrepancy in our perception? That’s not a good sign. I keep Dwight in my field of vision, as I hold up the laser pistol ready for the tentacle to come out from the right side.
Here it comes.
Purple skin and suction cups I’m used to seeing. That’s a thick tentacle. About twenty centimeters in diameter?
But it’s slow. It moves cautiously, and after a few laser pistol shots, the tentacle is torn off and falls.
The tentacle then writhes in the hall in zero gravity.
Then I hear the sticky sound of a tentacle around the corner. It can use its suction cups to cling to walls in zero gravity, so it moves more easily than us, since we have to hold on to pipes.
“It’s big… It seems edible, other than the color that looks poisonous…”
“Uoh!? What was that!? It came out all of a sudden!”
“Ah? Didn’t you see? There’s a tentacle around the corner!”
“That can’t be right! Ooh!? There’s a shadow, is that it!? Is that what made that weird noise!?”
Shadow? I guess the headlight on his helmet would cast a shadow… But can’t he see? I don’t know why I can… Ah, the artificial eyes.
If I turn off the magic energy vision, I stop seeing the tentacle and can only see a strange shadow squirming on the wall. I know some octopuses are capable of camouflage, but to this extent?
“It looks like this space being has stealth capabilities…”
“This is a problem… How did it get here?”
I can think of a few ways, but there’s only one thing we can do, so let’s do that.
“Stay close to me, if you scream before you die, I should make it in time.”
“I’m going to have to cry like a baby at this age… I will, and I already pissed myself.”
“That’s the spirit.”
It waiting for us behind a corner is a pain, but then I start hearing even more sticky noises from the right passage.
I think it’s coming this way, so I hold up the laser pistol, and a large mass suddenly appears.
I only caught a glimpse, but it looks like a giant Pacific octopus with the body to completely take over this wide hall. Its tentacles are clinging to both sides of the wall, and its goat-like rectangular eyes are glaring at me.
I feel intelligence.
But leaving that aside, the moment our eyes meet, I blast the laser gun with its output set to maximum.
The octopus trembles, its color changes from purple to white, and it stops moving. No, it’s blocking the passage.
“Uwaaaaa!!!!”
I turn around when I hear Dwight scream, but there’s nothing there. What attacked him!?
“M-monster!”
“Where!?”
“Right in front of you!!! Didn’t it jump out all of a sudden!? Shoot it more!!”
“Ah? Don’t confuse me! I already killed it!”
“What? Didn’t you just hit that big thing with one shot!?”
I think that’s fine since it was a headshot. Actually, there’s no guarantee space octopuses have their brains in the same place as Earth ones.
I shoot it in the tentacles, torso, and eyes, but the huge octopus doesn’t move again.
I’m glad I paid attention when an acquaintance talked about fishing back on Earth. I never thought the way to kill an octopus would come in handy like this.
If Dwight can see it, it must be dead. I fire again between its eyes to make sure, but being hit in the brain with a laser doesn’t change anything.
“I know it’s late, but space octopuses are pretty big.”
“Ah… I’ve never seen one before. You called it octopus? These things exist…”
“Hn? You don’t eat these here?”
“You do? I dunno, something so creepy…”
Maybe they were never seen… Although I feel like there would be more people with artificial eyes that could see magic energy.
We stay alert as we talk, but the tentacles get separated from the wall and float in zero gravity.
“Tch, what a pain… I don’t want to touch it, but which way is the emergency generator?”
“The hatch straight ahead. Can you touch that?”
“Hm, if only we had a sledgehammer or something…”
I want to get moving, but while I try to push it back with the laser pistol, it’s heavy and won’t budge. It’s all slimy too, so I don’t want to kick it away either.
I don’t know if it’s poisonous. Should I walk around with a simple appraisal magic item… There are ones the size of a ring…
Should I try pushing with the helmet? I call Dwight, we slowly move the octopus out of the way, and reach the hatch.
We’re still cautious, but slowly open it and advance while killing urchin. Sometimes we see dead ones that are hollow inside, but those were probably eaten by the octopus.
After five minutes, we reach a door painted red around it. There’s what looks like an emergency light on top of it, with a small fluorescent lamp. It feels like the resting area in a videogame.
“Wait, I’ll open it.”
“Got it. I’ll cover you, so open it slowly, and tell me when you’re doing it.”
“Yes, it wouldn’t be good if there was an octopus inside…”
Nothing really happens, and we finish clearing after opening the door.
There are large machines stuffed inside. Machines are stuck to the walls, and there isn’t any place to hide, and we can only move around an area of about two tatami mats.
We close the door, and check that we’re safe. Dwight moves in, and starts touching an information device, monitor, keyboard, and desktop PC.
“Will it work?”
“It’s obviously an independent puny power source… Okay, watch.”
Information appears on a monitor, but I don’t get it.
“I don’t know what that is just by looking.”
“This colony has eight large nuclear fusion reactors. They are all operational, but it looks like the electrical net was damaged. The gravity control devices and magic energy conversion reactors are down. There was an emergency stop due to not having enough power. It’s likely the magic energy conversion reactors were shut down first because of a problem with the electrical distribution and wiring around the nuclear fusion reactor. The emergency power and solar power tried to make up for it, but couldn’t keep up…”
So that’s why the lights didn’t go out at the same time as the gravity. When the supply of magic energy stopped, gravity magic was gone, and while emergency and solar power backups were working, they were overcapacity.
“If the electrical net was done in, that’s not something you can fix in a day or two.”
“Ah… Hm? That’s not true. It was just around the power source, the net around the colony is intact. It doesn’t have enough.”
So we could maybe do something with rolling blackouts?
“If we cut power to factories and send it elsewhere, we should be able to lift the blackout.”
“Can you change the gravity?”
“I’ll have to use the gravity control device directly, I can’t do it from here. But it will be fine if I don’t send power to the magic energy conversion reactors.”
“I see… Wait, aren’t the magic energy conversion reactors working? There was a barrier in a rip in the colony. Isn’t that magic?”
“Magic barriers are a different emergency system… But it’s strange. It’s also weird that the connections to the nuclear fusion reactors were cut at the same time. And the colony should operate with minimum life support with just the solar panels alone. Why aren’t the magic energy reactors rebooting? Is there not enough power generation?”
I wonder… Then Dwight starts looking into the solar power systems. Can you get the emergency power generator working soon?
“Solar power generation is down to twenty percent, strange… Look, you can see through images from the outside that the solar panels are working. There are no abnormalities. But the system shows it’s not operational…”
Wait, I see eight incredibly big octopuses clinging to each of the globe parts of the Lumomo Fourth colony.
Each is about as big as the globes, and they’re purposefully covering the solar panels. They’re all at the base of the colony.
One of them grabs space urchin with its tentacles, and shoves them into its mouth below.
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