With some static, the communicator from his wrist panel had finally managed to connect to the ship's main communications system. "This is Commander Ridge. Are you hearing me clearly, H.C. Heart?"
After waiting for a minute or so, there was finally a reply back: "Sorry for the wait, Commander. This is Yayha. We are hearing you loud and clear."
"Understood. Have some of our men load up the platform with building materials. We are gonna begin setting up camp beneath the ship. Most of the plants were tested to be safe, including the ground fauna and the trees. The air itself is safe to breathe, but in case of disease, have anyone leaving the ship wear helmets," Ridge said while holding the communicator closely.
After some waiting, the reply came through again, "Yes, sir, we are readying the remaining minerals and alloys that can be used for the initial construction of the base. Once the scaffolding is prepped and the building takes shape, we can scan the planet some more for mineral reserves to further expand down the line."
Hearing Yayha's analysis, Ridge agreed, and once he received confirmation, Yayha immediately got to work within the ship to organize the materials needed to create a small base to hold around a hundred people in total. Although the crew wasn't large, the supplies themselves would take some space.
Ridge, having settled that, then refocused his attention on the others within the group down on the ground. "Let's clear an open space large enough for a base to begin construction. We should be fine to relax, but just in case, I want two soldiers on guard duty."
The group got to work quickly, and the ones with swords cleared up what they could from the ground while also moving the dead fauna to the side. The scientists themselves were only helping here and there, but for the most part, they were focused on studying the crystal.
Ridge didn't mind their curious nature since they were scientists after all, but that didn't stop him from becoming slightly irritated with them. To distract himself, Ridge had also worked hard with the other soldiers to clear an open space.
The sun on this planet wasn't able to beat down on them since they were under the ship's shadow, but Ridge did take notice after working for some time that it was beginning to set and get darker.
While he was working, the platform had raised and brought down some more crew members, who had brought down some machinery which had helped to begin construction quicker. Unknowingly, Ridge and the others had been working for hours. Luckily, the suits were equipped with heat regulators, and as such, they weren't sweating within their suits.
Cleaning his gloves off that had been caked with dirt and dust, Ridge got up and took a look around. The surroundings underneath the ship resembled a construction site, and the machinery had helped to move hills of dirt now residing outside the outlined area they envisioned for the building. The dirt was relatively normal and a much more common sight to Ridge, who was used to brown dirt within the federation. While they were digging down into the earth, there also didn't seem to be animals underground where they dug, so Ridge wasn't afraid of disturbing the environment too much.
Using his wrist panel, he communicated with the ship again.
"This Ridge once again, come in H.C. Heart." After some static, the reply came in, "This is Yayha. orders?"
"We have around twenty people down here, so the required digging has been done. Send down the engineers with blueprints in hand so we can begin building."
"Sending them now," Yayha replied quickly.
Following this process, the work continued, and after the entire crew laid down the steel scaffolding and frames for the building, they waited and watched as the sent engineers began to weld and bolt down the titanium sheets and a few of the other metals, creating one wall after the other. Of course, some other crew members also helped with the carrying and positioning of pieces.
Repeating this, the entire building's frame was filled in and built. Deciding against anything too fancy, Ridge also just had them create the roof from slightly thicker metal sheets, leading to the entire building, when finished, to look like a giant metal rectangle.
On the inside, the dirt was covered with metal flooring using newly manufactured tiles from some of the minerals left within the ship's cargo holds. The rooms had also been constructed, and within the titanium walls, a gap was created for multilayer insulation blankets and then covered with yet another titanium wall.
The sun had set now, and the surroundings were getting dark, so Ridge just had the men rest within the metal rectangle for now. Contacting Yahya within the ship, he also told them that they would continue work tomorrow.
Work and rest while building led to a couple of days passing. The only things that Ridge had done within this time were helping with the electrical work and guarding. He had also further scouted out the surroundings a little further from camp with the others, and this time without the scientists, so they could move slightly faster. He had also begun to map the area.
To the north of the camp, past the massive trees where the mountains he saw were, there were only endless trees and the same fauna on the ground as below the ship. To the east, he did end up finding a couple of wild animals, but after getting video footage with one of the drones, he decided against provoking them.
They closely resembled some deer species he was used to, so he figured a video would be sufficient. Other than a bigger opening that led to a plains-like biome, he still found more and more trees. To the south, there was the same scenery as up north, though he did find some more rocky terrain.
He had made sure to mark this particular territory since it could be mineable materials. Finally, in the west, he found a lake that also seemed to have some sort of fish-like creatures, but they didn't possess any more intelligence than the fish he was used to seeing within the federation. Nonetheless, he also got some video footage of them for the scientists.
Overall, there was simply an endless forest of greenish blue pinop like trees, and the only interesting finds were in the south as well as the water, which Ridge wanted to test before he decided to do anything with it, and naturally, to test it. He, of course, got a small container that could hold it to bring back to the scientists alongside the videos.
In the meantime, while he had been scouting, the ship had begun to slowly unload more and more people as well as supplies. The extra people had helped finish the electrical systems within the new base as well as set up a communication array on the top of the roof, which would help strengthen signals for communication as described within its own name.
The engineers also directed the others to manufacture the sliding doors seen on the ship as well as some of the other building necessities, like building a power battery to power all these systems. Extra furniture was moved down from the ship with the extra people and slowly brought into the different rooms as designated by the blueprint that was created and approved with Ridge.
Luckily, they had found some advanced solar panels that could be used to store the power from this planet's sun. Through research over the years solar panels had gotten better and better at gathering and storing power, a great example of this was that although most ships and some important buildings used nuclear and other powerful power sources, most everyone agreed that the power of the sun couldn't be underestimated and using it they powered most of the electrical grids in the federation. As such, they brought down the solar panels and used them to charge up the makeshift batteries they managed to make for the base.