Daniel invited them in and Sophia was soon distracted by something, or better someone Almony, the woman in suspended animation found inside the biomechanoid ship
now that Sophia could examine her with spiritual energy she realized something and said "this woman it's a fourth stage cultivator, and you were right, she was put here for a reason, she is poisoned, it should be a paralytic neurotoxin, they must have put her in suspended animation to have the time to find a cure, and if they went through all these troubles she must be someone special to her people"
Daniel said "I don't really care who she is, once I find a way to save her, Almony can go free after giving me some info about the Biomech technology"
Sophia said "that's reasonable, a similar thing happens between cultivators, of course, instead of technology the savior gets methods, techniques, or even treasures, I don't have the necessary antidote pill with me right now, but when we are back home I can help you heal her and wake her up"
Daniel nodded and gave them a tour of the habitable parts of the train, basically the lab and the 4 livebox sections, but the only thing that left an impression on them was the livebox in which the hive eggs were contained
Phoebe very happily said " look, that's a hive princess egg, no wonder you got attacked"
Daniel didn't understand why she was so happy and thought it was for the same reason and said "these spidercrabs are delicious, so I took the eggs to farm them, like the rest of this seafood"
Sophia and Phoebe almost had an ictus, at the same time they said "you ate those?"
Daniel said "of course they are delicious, but I only kept the legs, the rest I turned into fish pellets, the fish too seem to love it, look at how big these little carps have grown in such a little time"
the carp eggs had hatched a week ago and were now growing steadily on a spidercrabs diet, while the squids were strangely still in the process of hatching, luckily Daniel kept the originals, he can always try again
Sophia and Phoebe were shocked, they had never met anyone who even thought about eating hive creatures, the hive creatures were usually the ones doing the eating, but their worry resided elsewhere and Phoebe asked "are you ok after eating them?" while Sophia was already checking on him
Daniel laughed at them and said "of course, I tested their flesh before giving it to the fishes, it's perfectly safe and that's also when I discovered that they were related to crabs, I thought of the crab's grandpa boiled for us, and decided to give it a try, they are really delicious, the stronger ones are even tastier, so I packed the fourth stage leader to share when we go home, the soldiers also ate them, and found them delicious"
Phoebe thought "luckily they had no idea about what they were eating" then said "well if you are fine then it's ok, it will take a month to go back, so I will prepare a cabin for you"
Daniel said "I'm ok on the train, I have everything I need here"
Phoebe said "ok then, use this cargo bay it was empty anyway, consider it yours for the next month but no explosions on my ship"
Daniel said "ok, but... can I ask something?"
Phoebe said "sure shoot"
Daniel smiled and said "how many planets will we encounter on our way home?"
while Phoebe was calculating how many were in her mind, Sophia said "14 if we go straight toward Verulus, why?"
Daniel said "would it be possible to leave one of these on each planet?" while showing them an itchy ball
Phoebe said "what is that?"
Daniel replied "an itchy explorer, so even if I'm home I can see interesting things on other planets and explore through it, like that S.L.B game we played but in real life, I threw 24 of them in the puddle and now they are a little bit everywhere, well minus 4 that have failed to send a signal back"
Phoebe "you did another outrageous thing, sure I'll leave them on the 14 planets, but in exchange when we go back we will first call in an expert for some family therapy, and then another to be your shadow and make sure you don't make new messes"
Daniel smiled and said "sure thanks mom" and gave her 14 itchy balls
soon later Sophia and Phoebe left feeling as tired as a normal person would feel after running a marathon, while Daniel started to think about what he could do that wouldn't cause an explosion to kill time this month
the no explosion rule meant that the battery project came to a forced stop, but at the same time he had already other projects he could work on to pass the time
Daniel suddenly thought of something and asked Tickles "put together a list of the project's go name, characteristic and possible development, let's see what we can do"
tickles said "affirmative" soon later a holographic screen appeared
multipurpose automatic robotic unit, aka M.A.R.U version 4.0, antigravity capability, high-third stage shield, low-fourth stage phaser cannon, high-third stage wall launcher, electrified spear, dead cloudy copper base, close combat power mid-third stage
limit reached, better energy storage required
floating and swimming safety armor, aka F.A.S.S.A version 4.0, antigravity capability, inertial shield, low-third stage energy bolt shooter, propellers, life support, remote summoning
left behind, many upgrades possible
Daniel commented "I should find another name, now that it's also a spacesuit"
project scout, scout version 4.0, antigravity capability, audio-video recording system, high-third stage scanners and sensors array, badge slot, inertial shield, low-third stage energy bolt shooter
left behind, many upgrades possible
Project cloud, cloudtrain version 2.0, antigravity capability, docking system, high-third stage shield, low-fourth stage phaser cannon, dead cloudy copper base
limit reached, better energy source required
Daniel asked "v2? well it's ok we changed the weapon and the base material, let's say that it's v2"
livebox version 2.0, water filtering, temperature control, depth pressure system, auto feeder, season system, amphibian and mammal setting
direction required to evaluate possible upgrades, further research necessary
pellet machine version 2.0, processes monster carcasses in lentil-sized pellets for animal feeding
direction required to evaluate possible upgrades further research required
geneticists' toybox version 2.0, all in one genetics lab
left behind, many upgrades possible
itchy version 1.0, long-distance messaging, assisted video call, basic Tickles abilities, private mode, 6 option style
direction required to evaluate possible upgrades further research required
itchy satellite version 1.0, to be determined
left behind, many upgrades possible
ulterior miscellaneous ideas are still in the inspiration stage
the moment he completely read the list, Daniel said "I appreciate the fact that you left the battery out" then started to think about the satellites the itchy explorers will have to build in the future
Daniel had already analyzed several satellites parts in the past, from the one used by gregosh and brought back by Phoebe, to the several blueprints for parts that can be used in a satellite he found in Sophia's tablet, that's why Tickles said that many upgrades were possible
but in reality, Daniel was very picky, and in his opinion, he was still missing some key components
first, the satellite must be able to launch on its own so flight capabilities are a must and his only method right now it's completely dependent on the antigravity mesh and consequently on the anchor sand and racer bronze that aren't easily found
second, he needed a shield with some basic cloaking capabilities, it was impossible to make something as good as the badge he found, but at least this technology had to be invisible to long-range scanners as that would be a good start, foreign cultures would probably not see kindly to a foreign satellite in their territory
the third was the transmission range, it's true that the itchy network could support communication at extremely long distances, but Daniel wouldn't need to build satellites to call, he wanted to build a network one day, and as a safety measure if someone decided to use the satellites to hack Tickles, he could simply detonate the satellite, and itchy would be safely hidden on the planet
until Daniel and his technology were powerful enough it was better to avoid attention from powerful foreign civilization
the fourth would be some fight capabilities for the same reasons, but Daniel wasn't sure about this one, if the satellite was innocuous, an eventual curious interloper might leave it alone even if they found it, but if there were weapons the mere presence of the satellite might be seen as an act of aggression or people might try to steal them and use them to do bad things
all in all, Daniel was trying to figure out what was his priority in such a long-term project and decided to lean toward the one that could be used to improve most of his current projects, a buy one get 2 situation or better 5
Daniel decided to work on the cloaking shield technology that could be used for maru, fassa, scout, cloudtrain, and the satellites for which the idea was born
in that fashion, Daniel started working on it, and all he had to help were a few theories written in the books and what he understood from the scanners and sensors, or better how to hide from them and the usage of the badge
it wasn't too scarce as a base and his knowledge was much richer than it was in the past, but at the same time he didn't have an example to follow, like the first time he worked on the maru torso
10 days later, the life on the Quilin v was still completely unknown to Daniel who was happily working away in the lab
Tickles ability was already 70% charged, apparently 500 grams became more or less 50 days, but Daniel still wasn't sure if it was based on how much Tickles grew, or on how much informations he extracted
Daniel's ability had been charged for a long time but using it on a moving ship wasn't a good idea and he had enough itchy explorers, for now, it was better to keep it, after all, he was sure that as soon as he got back they would ask to demonstrate it
if it wasn't for Sophia and Phoebe who visited every day, Daniel would have probably gone back to those days of toiling away with Tickles on the unnamed desert planet, but thanks to them dropping by he was having contact with people around mealtimes
of course, Phoebe and Sophia refused to eat the 'delicious spidercrabs' and instead brought food from the Quilin v public cafeteria, most of Phoebe's subordinates didn't need to eat, but some still did, and in any case, eating was not only entertaining for the crew but also a social lubricant for those long trips in space
but this was not important, today Daniel was bored and as he got used to in these ten days he was watching the video feed he received from the itchy around Phoebe's neck that was in necklace form
Phoebe seldom used the private mode because she wanted to show Daniel how cool she was while managing the Quilin v but with scarce results as nothing interesting had happened yet
but today changed everything 3 meteor-shaped spaceships much bigger than the one who attacked Daniel seemed to have appeared out of nowhere in front of the Quilin v