They arrived at Storm Blue, a planet just above Spawn World, in a half-hour.
Storm Blue's ground was made of shiny ice, laid into neat swirls. There were already three other factions whose bases were situated on Storm Blue, but they were pacifist factions and embraced the new addition with open arms. They even had some space that was leftover that they let the Engineers have.
Overseer 2 disembarked their five-person ship and deleted it quickly. There was no way he'd let it be stolen.
"Right," said Jane. "What're we building?"
"I was thinking of, y'know, a sort of shield," said Overseer 2.
"Good idea, sir," said Jane.
"How many blocks do we need to surround the area?" asked Overseer 2 to Yagi. Yagi extended his arm and brought it in a circle around him.
"We only need four," he said after he'd finished. "But they'll be stretched out."
"Okay, let's get to work," said Overseer 2.
They set out. They had obtained building tools from a shop on Spawn World, and now they set about using them to create four tall poles around their plot of land. Since the faction's bricks were locked to all but the faction itself, nobody could just go in and delete the poles. Then they strung four translucent blue bricks between the poles, and stretched them so they filled all the intervening space. Lastly, Overseer 2 made a door in part of the shield.
"This door is practically invisible," he explained. "It's the same color as the shielding, and most of the time enemies won't really bother looking for openings."
"Good to know, sir," said Jane. "Shouldn't we put in a roof, sir?"
"... Good idea, Jane," said Overseer 2, and stretched another shield block over the roof opening.
"Now we should make a main base," he continued. "We need two stories, about fifty by forty blox in length and width. Get cracking!"
As the Engineers worked on getting the base ready, Overseer 2 looked up. A ship sat in the air far above, hanging in the atmosphere like just another moon. As he watched, a few figures dropped out of a side panel. They were carrying laser rifles, not the measly pistols that had been so common before. Their uniforms gave them away as Assassins. The troops stole across the icy ground, towards the land of the neighboring faction. The faction leader poked his head out of the ground, and the Assassins opened fire. The leader was killed. The base, in contact with laser bolts, began to fall apart. The members screamed and ran out of the base, but most were hit with lasers and killed. The Assassins moved in, and one of them planted a flag in the ruined base. Then they began building.
Overseer 2 turned away. He'd seen this kind of behavior before, but never this quickly executed.
The Engineer's base was complete. It was basically a cubical building with a door at the front and several windows. Lights lit up the path to the front, and several lights blazed also from the interior. He entered the house, and was greeted with Gary assembling a table. The member turned when Overseer 2 entered.
"Oh, hi," he said.
"Assassins have moved in," said Overseer 2. "They've taken the base next door."
"Okay?" said Gary.
"I want you to belay that table and stand guard outside with Perry, you hear?"
"Yes sir," said Gary. "I'll call him." He cupped his hands over his mouth. "GARY, YOU SONOVABITCH, GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE!"
There were hurried footsteps, and then Perry arrived breathless down a set of stairs. "What!?" he yelled.
"We're on guard duty!" said Gary.
"Aw, come on," groaned Perry, and trapsed out behind his brother.
That left Overseer 2 in the downstairs. Upstairs, Jane was working on something. Curious, Overseer 2 walked up the stairs and into a half-built room. Jane was working on some sort of frame, on the inside of which was a mass of 1x1 blocks. They were white at first, but Jane started to paint them all different colors with the paint tool. From what it looked like, she was painting an ocean. It was a turquoise color , with a top layer of deep blue fading out into the sky, which smoothly blended from yellow at the bottom to deep orange at the top; there was a red sun hanging motionless in the middle of it all. To the right was set a jagged gray rock, which became darker the farther it got from the sun.
"Y'know, that is a nice lookin' painting," Overseer 2 remarked.
Jane spun around.
"Oh, hi," she said nervously.
"It's the ocean, isn't it?" asked Overseer 2.
"Yeah," said Jane, running a hand through her short brown hair. "Where I was born."
"Only one system near here's got a red sun," said Overseer 2. "Admin system. Are you... a refugee? From the war?"
Jane bit her lip.
"Yes," she said.
"Aw, I'm sorry," Overseer 2 said comfortingly, putting his hand on her shoulder. He studied the painting closer. "Looks like the ocean on Jalagen Ceta."
"It is," was Jane's reply.
"I was there once," said Overseer 2, "before the whole war began. It was when I was younger. I'd just gotten off Minecraftia, and was lookin' for a place to stay. I landed on Jalagen Ceta, looked around, and in the distance I saw all these lights in different colors and everything. I followed them, and arrived in this system."
Jane looked at him.
"How old are you?" she asked.
"Born in Mid-Grand Year 2012," said Overseer 2. "Of course, that hardly matters. When Robloxians get to about thirty or thirty-five they stop aging unless they want to keep going."
"I was born in Late Grand Year 2012," Jane confessed. "The war started a month later... so I was shipped out of the planet by my parents and landed on Spawn..."
"Are you homesick?"
"From time to time." She laughed. "But I've still got a life here. And there's so much I don't know about Builder's System!"
"I could show you around, if you want, sometime, maybe," offered Overseer 2.
"I'll think about it," Jane said. She smiled.
Perry ran in, one pants leg on fire.
"They're trying to enter!" he yelled.
"What? That's stupid!" said Overseer 2, jumping to his feet. "Shields keep people out, they must at least know that!"
He and Jane hurried out with Perry. Yagi and Gary were standing five blox away from the edge of the shield, as the attacking Assassins pounded on it with electric batons. Further back, Overseer 2 could see another five-man squad attacking another group's base and burning it to the ground.
"Run," he said.
"We can't," said Yagi. "If we leave in a ship, if we drop our shield for even a moment, they'll attack."
"Damn. Well, now what?"
"Wait," said Jane. She peered at the shield. "If we create an explosion of a suitable blast radius, we can kill the attackers. It's bound to work."
"Through a shield?" asked Yagi. "Really? Won't it just bounce back and burn us all to crisps?"
Jane looked again at the shield, and then back at the base.
"Not if we remotely detonate it from inside," she said. "The fire's gonna come back, yeah, but not before killing the attackers. And if we're inside the base, then we're good."
"Brilliant," said Overseer 2, "brilliant. Let's get something explosive and then wrap it up nice and tight."
"Light-producing bricks can explode," said Yagi.
"Good. Put some down near the edge of the shield," said Overseer 2.
They obliged. Eventually, they had a glowing pile of white bricks, about 3x5x2 blox in total size. Yagi entered the base and returned with a length of black cable, which he hooked up in the crack between two of the bricks. Then they build a rudimentary lever and placed it at the other end of the cable, just inside two blox away from the doorframe. Then they all clustered to that spot.
"Alright," said Jane. "We'll do it in three. One..."
Overseer 2 pressed his back against the wall.
"... two..."
He fervently hoped the wall would hold.
"... and three."
Jane pulled the lever. There was a flash from outside and a sudden burst of lag which reared and died in an instant. From a bird's eye view, the explosion looked like a large red rose which was rapidly growing and on fire at the same time. It whisked through the shield. The Assassins crowded around that area suddenly wished they had camped out on the east wall instead. Incidentally, it was their last wish. The remaining fire spurted backwards and splashed against the base's wall. The metal surface began to corrode slightly. A tongue of fire stabbed through the wall beside Overseer 2's head, then ceased. At the same time, a gust of it slammed inside through the door and created a horizontal column that flickered out in an instant. Several bits of furniture caught fire.
When it ceased, Overseer 2 peeked around the doorframe. The edges of the door were charred and badly melted in places, and there was a crater at the shield's edge. The remaining Assassins were fleeing into their hovering battleship.
"Shee-it," he muttered.