Preparations are nearly finished. I have done all I can to secure the module and ready it for what is coming. I have sealed all but the main airlock, and my last act before leaving will be to seal that as well. I have seeds with me in a secure container, as well as secured in the module itself. I've gone back and forth on how to ensure that it stays dry. I've decided to employ a positive pressure method, assuming my testing of that doesn't reveal that the module is utterly porous. I've currently got it pressurized to fifty times local atmospheric pressure. So far, no leaks, and no systems reporting issues.
I have also set up a set of relays that should work underwater. There is the module, then a buoyant one on a thousand meter cable anchored to the module. I then have another anchored to the top of the cliffs highest point with a thousand foot cable as well. Finally, I have a buoy with a winch and fifteen thousand meters of high strength cable. It should be able to keep itself at the surface, unless the water depth exceeds fifteen thousand meters. If so, we are also going to be in a lot of trouble on the top of the mountain, because it is only sixteen thousand meters high. My hope is that between the relays and the buoy, I should be able to maintain contact with the module. I've talked with Friday's uncle, as best I understand the relationship. They have stories of the first one, that first tide they experienced on the world. The stories are really only told to the young so they understand the need to flee the waters rise. That first tide came as a surprise, and to me, sounds like it hit them only a standard year or so after they crashed. I don't think they had any warning or idea it was coming. According to the story, a savior figure foretold of the coming flood and how needed to flee, and how they and their followers were exhiled. Yet some, the survivors that settled here, still made rafts that when the waters came, they were able to survive.
The story is a bit contrived, not all the facts line up, but it is an old story and clearly embellished. There are parts that do make sense though. The idea that someone who could read the sensors of the ship might have been able to see the conjunction happening, and who would likely have been shunned by the survivors, who were just trying to survive. Abandoning everything would be a huge thing to accept. That they lost many of their number clinging to whatever would float also makes a lot of sense. As well as the survivors finding themselves washed up here, where they have lived ever since. Retreating to the mountain top ahead of the next tide.
An interesting thing. There are other mountains, much more distant. My ranging says they are over a thousand kilometers away, which given the size of this world, is fully believable. With the telescope, I can see what appears to be fires on several of those distant peaks. I wonder if my friends are not the only survivors, either of their own species, or others. I have a drone that will be doing a fly-over in about a day.
Interestingly. This has been the darkest night I have yet seen on this world. There is no massive world looming at the horizon, or hanging impossibly overhead. You can see many of the other worlds in this system that orbit this world, but they are the more distant, shining in the night like brilliant gems in the sky. You can see them approaching conjunction. The nearest worlds are currently on the other side of this world, racing each other to get to this side. You can see the change in the water levels. The surf is now well beyond the barrier islands that protect our cove under normal circumstances.
I am nervous about this tide. I worry about the module. If it is damaged too much, I will lose technology, and unless Arl and Liss managed to clear the engine ports and make it here, I will be truly stranded. I think that is what scares me most. That I will become truly and irrevocably stranded here.
I wonder how Edix is doing, if they are alright. I have had a drone go as high as possible. It sits up there, transmitting a warning to him, telling him that the tide is coming in, and that he needs to be at the top of a mountain to escape the water that is coming. I do hope he hears the message and is safe.
Final preparations for me are making sure that I have a last few items printed from the 3D printers, move a few more items to the caves, etc... There isn't anything else I can do for my friends until we head out in late afternoon. I am printing a set of five collapsible boats, fishing gear, and some underwater drones.
My friends say that there are creatures in the water. I am going to try and fish, but what they describe sounds more like sea-monsters, so I want to see those too. I am hoping to get a view of the ocean life of this world, at least that which comes ashore with the tide. They also tell me that, after the water recedes, life will bloom on this world, and much as we need to retreat to the mountain top, we must then return to the safety of the cove, where we will be protected from the monsters that awaken after the tide.
This fascinates me as well. Dormant creatures, awoken by the waters. This world is truly dynamic. I've loaded up a crate with weapons and a set of chargers. If needed, I can crack it open and give my friends some quick lessons on how to shoot them.
To close out. I have given Frydai his own room, built him a set of stairs so he can get up to the bunk, the sink, etc... He is learning fast, and is soaking up my language very quickly. He has some basic systems access and spends several hours a day going through learning programs. His mind is like a sponge, hungry for information. He has already used some of what he has learned to help his people, taking charge, and using the slate I gave him to record and track what they are putting in the caves, what they are taking with us, and of that, what has and has not yet, made it to the staging area atop the cliff.
There is a lot happening. I try not to let Frydai see, or the rest of my friends, but I'm scared. It might be silly, considering what I have already been through, but I am scared. Having to abandon what has literally been my home, my world, for decades now. Even after everything else. After all the things I have been through, seen, done, and the people I have interacted with. This fear is worse than I remember feeling when I realized that I was hopelessly lost. Perhaps because, I still had the ship, the Viteză Furies, to lean on. Yet now I am having to walk away from it with no guarantee that it will be; this one small remaining piece of it; that it will still be here and intact, when I get back.