Chapter 277: No Signal

Having the stations in orbit, but not transmitting anything, seemed like a strange strategy to most of the people in the room. If they were survivors, they should at least be looking for others, or scanning for danger.

But Marimgar wasn’t getting any signal from them, even though they were getting signals back from nearby satellites.

If they had sent anything at all, Kalli should have noticed it, but there wasn’t anything she had access to in orbit that would allow her to check them for energy signatures that would indicate that they were still occupied.

The number of human settlements that were left on the planet, or over it, were of great concern to Kalli.

Marimgar was Marimgar, but this was their planet, no matter what it looked like now. The monsters could claim territory, but once they had things settled, they were definitely going to be taking this planet back.

It was a big and ridiculous dream, she knew that. Especially given that there might be only a few million humans left.

But it was a dream.

However, the System was determined not to make it easy on them.

They were almost ready to wrap up the meeting, as nobody was coming forward with anything but small-scale ideas that could be implemented immediately, when an alert from the computer warned Kalli that something was wrong.

She brought out a tablet, and opened the city’s security software, the linked feeds from all the laser turrets around the city.

And what she found was not good.

The real "Survive and Improve" part of the trial four challenges had finally hit them, and the alerts that she was getting from all over the city at the same time were for solar irradiance.

The turrets thought that someone was shining a laser pointer at them.

"What’s the alert?" Sanchez asked as the alarms continued to blare, with more of them going every few seconds.

"Solar irradiance. We’re in the middle of a massive solar storm, and I suspect that we’re about to be hit with an EMP. I’m shutting down everything that’s not hardened now. Shut down your phones, and any other portable devices.

If you leave them on, they’ll be fried the moment that you step outside."

That got everyone moving, and the alert went out over the app, while Kalli sent a force shutdown to all of the storage battery systems in the city.

In seconds, the city of Marimgar went dark, with all the electrical systems isolated against a surge in electromagnetic radiation. But sitting inside a thick stone building wasn’t nearly as interesting as going to see what was going on.

Nobody in the city had a pacemaker, as far as Kalli knew, so they should be fine.

All the safety shutters on the buildings began to slam shut, as the upgraded technology that she had introduced detected that it was under attack, and the solar sensitive glass on the greenhouses went nearly opaque, protecting the crops against the scorching sun.

The Arks couldn’t be shut down, but they were so far beneath the ground that it wouldn’t matter. In fact, they hadn’t even shut off power to the hive city.

The radiation could be blocked by Plascrete, synthetic building material, that buildings like the Hall of Heroes, and everything else designed like the buildings from Kalli’s world used.

The synthetic concrete had a lot of metallic minerals in it, and acted much like a metal wall when hit with radiation.

That was by design, as the material was used on all sorts of planets in her time, and not all of them had a strong magnetic field, or a particularly friendly environment. Using one standard building material everywhere made it cheap and easy to obtain, so it became the standard for all things human built.

That meant that most of the personal belongings that were not near a window had a chance of survival, even if they were powered on. But the power grid was down, so that the transformers and backup batteries didn’t take damage.

Then, a crackling hum spread through the city, and Kalli sighed in relief.

"There it is," she announced.

"There what is?" Yara asked, as they still hadn’t gotten up from their chairs to go see what was going on outside without the cameras.

"That noise is the radiation crackling on the outside of the building. I wouldn’t go outside until it passes. You’ll burn your hand on the door handle. If there is enough to make the walls crackle, it’s definitely in the {Dangerous to biological life} range.

I don’t know how the monsters are going to deal with it, but Marimgar should be good as soon as the alarms stop.

The laser turrets are all shielded against EMP attacks, so they’ll be fine."

Vinnie looked impressed. "You shielded the building defence lasers against EMP attacks?"

"They come that way by default. But it’s a good thing, or we would be sitting ducks. I just hope that the wall guards had the good sense to go inside, or they’re going to have a major sunburn, and the healers are going to kick their ass," Kalli agreed.

She saw Yara instinctively look for Reggie, to make sure that her idiot wasn’t outside staring at the sun, but he was over by the coffee maker, giving the carafe a loving look for protecting such a precious beverage.

However, the alarms continued to blare, and then new alarms began to go off.

"What is that one?" Vinnie asked, confused at all the tones that Kalli had personalized so she could keep track of them without looking up.

"That one is an air quality warning. Give me a few minutes and I’ll get some cameras back online. I don’t see any fire or other warnings inside the city, so it’s likely coming from outside."

Which was probably worse than a building fire, which would be dealt with by the building’s fire suppression system. If it was bad air from outside the city walls, you never knew what it could be.