Gaeron: Surviving the Rim/What Attacked Us, What We Could Find

## What Attacked Us, What We Could Find

"**What Attacked Us, What We Could Find**" is the third chapter of the *Gaeron: Surviving the Rim* web-novel series. This third chapter was published to the site on July 13, 2022.

This chapter covers our main cast's first encounter with Gaeronian opposition, and what they could find in the aftermath.

## Plot

### Entry - What Attacked Us

I’m typing this current entry a week after the previous one. It’s a good thing the tablet I use to record these logs runs both on runestone and solar power.

To briefly summarize the positive things that had happened throughout the week, I can safely say that we finished the general and basic construction of our small camp, at least to the extent of the initial plans that I managed to formulate. Alyssa and Selmara completed the wooden roof while Dalila managed to sow a majority of the rice seeds given to us by the travelers from the Walado republic. My leg also seems to be making some recovery, but I still need to rely on Alyssa’s makeshift crutches, for now.

We even encountered another friendly group of Gaeronian locals from the Gray Tree Tribes. They explained how they were a peaceful federation of tribal settlements situated throughout the continent. In exchange for our small remainder of rice seeds, the tribesmen gave us a tiny Automaton that operated on solar power. They told us that they salvaged the Automaton from a wreckage years ago, but had no use for it. We later found out that the Automaton was specifically made for establishing and deconstructing flooring with ease. An oddly particular purpose for an Automaton, but it certainly made applying the wooden floors to our base all the more easy.

But onto the more pressing news. We experienced our first attack from hostile native Gaeronians just yesterday.

It happened sometime during the late afternoon. While Dalila was out in the fields, she warned us about an armed man who was steadily approaching our encampment. He had hair reminiscent of a beast with sharp, deadly quills. He adorned himself with minimal clothing, with only a dark-colored rag tied around his waist, and equipped himself with a bow and arrow. We assumed him to be one of the Comba People that the Waladoans warned us about. He was alone.

Trust me when I say that we *did* try to reason with the man to the best of our abilities so as to dissuade him from hurting us. As much as we pushed for a peaceful resolution, the Comba man ignored all of our demands to back down, and continued to fire arrows at our small wooden walls. He was incredibly stubborn, despite hearing and understanding our words.

With no other choice, Selmara shot him down using one of the few firearms we had on hand after our crash. He died without us getting so much as a name from him. I assume he wanted to take whatever resources he could find at our camp for himself and for his tribe. But he was never given the opportunity to go beyond our farm, thanks to Selmara.

We buried the man in a provisional grave not too far from our base and retrieved the bow and arrows he tried to slaughter us with. None of us were injured during the attack, thankfully. But while the problem was dealt with, the attack on our camp disturbed me in a sense that the Comba man was willing to die rather than to flee from his failed attempts of stealing from us. It goes without saying that seeing anyone die is a dismal sight, regardless of the circumstance. With something like this happening in our first week of being here, I imagine that this will be a recurring obstacle for us on Gaeron. It was something that I knew I was going to have to force myself to get used to.

I know Alyssa was particularly stressed about the safety of our camp after the attack, and for good reason. As a temporary measure, we surrounded the perimeter of the camp in sturdy sandbags, so that we could easily take cover from future assailants. A bleak thought, I will say, but very much a possibility we would like to avoid being killed by. Our own safety takes top priority here on Gaeron, but I’d prefer if people did not lose their lives in hopes of sabotaging it. I suppose there’s only so much to ask of strangers in an unfamiliar world.

Flower was startled by the sound of Selmara’s firing. Dalila managed to calm her down, but for our entire camp’s sake, I hope that the next invasion won't happen anytime soon.

Or *at all*, preferably. But I know that isn’t realistic.

### Entry - What We Could Find

Selmara performed a sweep of the perimeter as the sun was beginning to set, just to be sure that the Comba man didn’t have any friends lurking around the forest surrounding our camp, waiting to strike us when we least expected it.

And she *did* end up finding some friends of his, after walking south of the base. They wore the same style of minimal clothing as the man from earlier, so we could surmise that they were also Comba People.

But every single one of them was dead. When Selmara led the rest of us to the scene, we were met with what appeared to be the bloody aftermath of a brutal firefight. There were bullet wounds riddled all over the bodies of these tribesmen, all Human. This happened far enough away from our camp for us not to have heard the struggle during the daytime. A silencer could’ve been involved. There were no firearms around the area, from what we could see. Whoever fought these Gaeronians fled the scene with their gun—or guns—in hand. What we *were* able to spot were the various weapons used by the tribesmen, all scattered on the grass and dirt. A few bow and arrows, a stone knife, and a spiked metal club. None of the weapons looked to be in good shape, but we collected them for our camp nonetheless. We thought it possible to make use of them as scrap.

When we thought our observations were over, Alyssa let out a gasp when she pointed out a thin trail of blood that went deeper into the Oulocol Forest. All five of us, Flower included, immediately went to investigate the source. We followed the trail that led us to some bushes and some limestone formations. But weakly perched against the side of the rocks was a Human woman.

A dying Human woman. Broad shouldered and wide, with the sides of her head shaved off and the rest of her brick red hair tied into a knot, now undoing itself from the mess. I didn’t recognize her, nor did the others. Her shirt and trousers were coated in splotches of red, and one or two arrows were deeply lodged in her stomach. A small sidearm was lying on the soil beside her.

I apologize for the descriptiveness of this scene, but I wish to paint an accurate picture and account of what I witnessed, no matter how grisly. And of course, it was difficult for me to bear witness to something like this, but I figured that recording my experiences in this manner may bring me some relief.

We all thought the woman was already deceased until we spotted her blinking once or twice. She managed to muster out some low, weak groans. Alyssa instinctively and hurriedly ran back in the direction of camp to get the medical supplies necessary to treat the woman. Whatever life she had left was running out, and fast.

Flower couldn’t help but lick the woman’s limp leg. Dalila tried to get her to stop, but she was more focused on giving the woman some water from her canteen than restraining her pet. This gave the dying woman a few more seconds of peace, but not much more than that.

We weren’t able to ask any questions of her before the life faded from her eyes. Dalila gently shut the woman’s eyelids and we carried the corpse back to our camp for burial. Ultimately, Alyssa’s medkits weren’t put to use.

But before we could turn the page entirely on all the death we had witnessed today, Flower brought to our attention one last passage. She must’ve sensed it somehow, probably through smell, but the terrier led us to another corpse not too far from the red-haired woman we found.

It was Captain Firia Lonhe, carpeted in arrow and bullet wounds. She piloted the UCR transport freighter we all flew on. And now she was dead.

We had too many questions. Suffice to say, it was tragic to find out about the death of our ship’s captain in this manner. We started to hypothesize what could’ve transpired. From the looks of it, she got into a fight with both the red-haired woman *and* the Comba People. And she lost. What could’ve sparked something as destructive and bloody as this? Was this a three-way fight, and for what reasons? Were there any additional parties that we knew nothing about, and would likely *never* know anything about?

I fear that we may never get the answers we want. But all the same, we took Captain Lonhe’s body back to our camp. A double burial was in session and there was no time to waste. The night was coming.

Dalila managed to find a holographic tablet on Lonhe’s person, containing the ship’s manifest. The information tables were complete with portraits alongside the names of the UCR freighter’s passengers.

I hadn’t paid attention to it before, but the manifest informed us that the ship’s name was the *Reunion Star*. A form of poetic cruelty that I would prefer to go without.

We found out that the red-haired woman we found was an ex-convict named Ginger Lima. No details on the crimes committed, but remember that this was a manifest we were looking at and not a criminal record. With the portrait and name listed side-by-side, Selmara told us how she actually remembered brief brushes with Lima back on the ship. Apparently she was quiet, bitter, and generally distasteful from what little she knew of her. (Selmara’s words, not mine.) Selmara brought to light some rumors about Lima’s origins. She and some of the other ex-convicts onboard believed that Lima was an enforcer for a major criminal syndicate, and that she was finally thrown in prison only after an incident with a rival organization involving *cannibalism* of all things. Selmara spared us on the grotesque details, but this was enough for us—for me, at least—to safely say that we were probably better off not having known this woman before she passed. Perhaps it was immoral of me to speak ill of the dead, but Lima didn’t sound like a desirable person by *any* means, from what Selmara spoke of.

Regardless, we did bury them *both.* Firia Lonhe and Ginger Lima, lost to the universe forever. Having been two of the many passengers we traveled with before our crash eight days ago, it felt right to give them some degree of honor—the captain moreso than Lima, in my opinion. We carved their names to the best of our ability on wooden planks leftover from our construction of the barracks.

We managed to reunite with two individuals from the *Reunion Star*, and both of them were now buried underneath the Gaeronian soil. I had *spoken* with one of the dead women just days before. I desperately hope that, should we reunite with more of the ship’s passengers, we find them alive.

I type this entry the morning following yesterday’s horrific series of events. I was too mentally exhausted to make an entry last night before bed. I could go into how the others felt about what all happened yesterday, but I’d exhaust myself even further by trying to find my words. Just know that we were all rather downcast by the end of last night, and still remain rather downcast—for perfectly acceptable reasons. Being an audience to such a level of death within a single day was bound to make us distraught to some degree. I know Alyssa’s taking it harder than anybody, right now.

Hopefully with the next entry I type up, there will be more good news than bad news. For your sake, dear reader, and for my own sake too.

## Appearances

### Dramatis Personae

* **September Bridges** - Gazetan. Our narrator and architect.
* **Alyssa Sanidine Orchard** - Human. Woman from a shining world. Under much stress.
* **Selmara Beltran** - Human. Woman paying her debts. A savior.
* **Dalila Vaascosa** - Human. Woman keeping things together. Staying strong.
* **Flower** - Skyor Terrier. Owned by Dalila.
* **Ginger Lima** - Human. Ex-convict and enforcer. Now deceased.
* **Firia Lonhe** - Jiridanian. Captain of the UCR transport freighter. Now deceased.

### Other Characters

* Gray Tree Tribesmen
* Comba People Raiders
	+ Quill-haired man

### Locations

* Cassiopeia Galaxy
	+ Central Expanse
		- Gaeronian System
			* Gaeron
				+ Oulocol Forest

### Organizations and Titles

* United Cassiopeian Republic
* Gray Tree Tribes
* Comba People
* Walado (Mentioned only)

### Sentient Species

* Gazetan
* Human
* Jiridanian