Chapter 24(OB)
Jen was highly educated by Imperium civilian standards, but she was no tech priest. She knew a lot of chemistry, biochemistry, biomedicine, and biology. But she knew very little about mechanical engineering, just as pretty much everyone in the Imperium besides tech priests knew very little about mechanical engineering.
Wsuioo might be damn capable chemical engineers, and second only to the Adeptus Mechanicus in the sophistication of their genetic engineering, but their mechanical technology knowledge was barely equivalent to that of 1990's Terra. Like most authoritarian communist dictatorships, their technology was woeful, and what little locally produced advanced technology existed was inevitably either military or biomedical in nature.
It was inevitable really that Wsuioo would have stagnant innovation. Technology advancement requires the freedom to innovate, the freedom to think outside the box, and on Wsuioo this was never going to happen.
Chemistry and biology were much easier to control than mechanical engineering. Chemical and biological sciences required controlled laboratories, could be carefully controlled, could not be used to overthrow the regime the way that technology could.
Wsuioo liked chemistry, it followed rules, it made money, but could not lead to revolution. Genetic engineering was even better, as each advance simply made the new generations more obedient than the last. These were both solid and reliable sciences, and did not step on the toes of the Adeptus Mechanicus the way that mechanical innovation would.
Mechanical engineering was the enemy of oppression, new technology innovation was a historically proven way that authoritative regimes met their doom. New technologies unlocked new possibilities, and new possibilities gave people the power to overthrow evil regimes. On Wsuioo, all mechanical technology innovation had ceased, nothing mechanically new was ever done.
Wsuioo imported all their more advanced technology from forge worlds, any technology that 1990's Terra could produce, Wsuioo could produce, nothing more advanced than this, though that's not counting biotechnology of course. All other technology was imported, or at least the advanced components were.
Electricity generation on Wsuioo was particularly unimaginative, had not changed in over 10000 years. The planet Wsuioo was covered all over by evenly spaced wind turbines, both on land, and on floating platforms on the ocean, every square mile of Wsuioo had at least one wind turbine inside it. This was crude but effective technology, covering such vast amounts of the planet that it had the energy output equivalent of much more high tech power grids.
Wsuioo also had dirty and unstable nuclear fission power plants, hydroelectric dams, and similar very antiquated methods of power production. They used chemical reactions rather than technology to strip away the oxygen from their own atmosphere, importing huge amounts of very cheap iron filings and simply dumping it in the seas to rust, drawing in huge amounts of oxygen to form the iron oxide of the rust.
These technology innovation hating people had educated Jen, and had not even taught her everything they knew, as a lot of it was military technology and therefore not necessary for a Wsuian wife to know.
Jen was intended to be a gentle housewife, taught mostly "feminine" sciences like chemistry, medicine and biology. She might need chemistry to make detergent to clean her husbands clothes, might need medicine to nurse her husband when he got sick, might need knowledge of biology to better cook certain exotic living things for her husband. But no chauvinist wife would ever DREAM of fixing the CAR! She of course didn't need to know much about THAT sort of stuff! That was "man" territory after all!
Jen had been taught the basic theory of Wsuian machines, so that she wouldn't embarrass her husband by saying foolish things about machines in front of his business associates at fancy work parties, but had not had any practical classes about mechanics or engineering. She had been taught the software side of using imported computers, as this might help her in the feminine role of being a secretary for her husband's business, could do wonders in fact with a pre made computer, but had not been taught how to make or repair firmware.
Jen was now in the unenviable position of trying to generate a lot of electricity with only practical chemistry knowledge. She had not even been trained to make batteries, but simply knew so much chemistry that she had figured out how to make batteries from her firm foundation of chemistry theory and a few anecdotes about batteries the classes had mentioned.
Jen knew for a fact that it should be possible to get the electric motor out of one of the desk fans, hook it up to one of the windmill water pumps, with gears to spin it very fast in reverse at high gearing, and create a makeshift wind powered generator to give them some extra power. Jen also knew for a fact that she had no idea how to actually do this in practice!
She had all these tantalising snippets of theory to hint at ways to ease this power crisis, but lacked the important missing pieces of the puzzle to actually do these things! It was so frustrating!
She was instead working nonstop making endless chemical batteries, just to keep the hydrolysis unit refilling air bottles, just to keep everyone breathing. She was never able to sleep for a full 8 hours, not even close. She was forced to make do with short naps whenever she could spare the time, little 20 or 30 minute naps.
Jen alone was able to make the batteries well enough to not waste anything, Jen alone could get those few precious extra watts to add extra minutes of output to each battery.
Seth had begged other people to take some of the refugees, but he was not the only one who had taken on refugees. Everyone with the capacity to make oxygen had already taken in all the people they could possibly support. The flow of desperate people had not stopped at just 13 men. More came all the time, and more still were cast out of other farms when the air got too low for the owner himself to safely share anymore.
"Air beggars" now travelled from farm to farm, begging for air to just survive. Jen and Seth's farm now was like a village of desperate vagrants, with men coming and going constantly as Jen's ability to make power fluctuated.
The air beggars were scouring the surrounding area for any metal Jen could use to make batteries with, stealing from neighbouring farms to get the metal Jen needed to give them air.
Society was starting to break down into little fiefdoms centred around viable power grids, and people were starting to kill over air or things that made air.
Seth was one of the most merciful people in the area, and with Jen he had the ability to generate the most power so long as she had the materials. Therefore it was only natural that Seth was helping the largest number of people.
The more people they helped, the more people were drawn to them, creating a feedback loop of ever growing population. The more people who arrived, the more power Jen had to produce, but also the more people they had to search for the materials Jen needed.
Seth was willing to help anyone if he could, but he had one major condition, that if you breathe our air then you help out in some way, either by finding materials for Jen, or by providing some form of labor if physically able to do so. As a result of this policy, Seth had a true surplus of farm labor and the bliss grass was being planted and harvested so fast that there was barely even room to store it now! If they ever survived this, Jen and Seth would be rich!
The air beggars were sowing ever bigger fields of bliss grass mixed with just enough yap-yap to fuddle the satellite, and with the cold season over the plants were growing quickly. Others were organised into crude militias to guard the various sheds and other farm property, as the area became ever more vicious.
Jen barely got to see any of the farm now. She had an entire crew of men assisting her at all times to make ever bigger and more powerful batteries to cope with the insane power demands, and apart from the occasional short nap she worked nonstop directing these men to assemble her batteries.
No one dared to sexually harass Jen anymore, men who had tried it had been instantly stabbed to death by the mob! Without Jen these people would die, and any threat to her safety was frantically removed with lethal violence! Society really was breaking down!
In front of Jen was a large pile of various scrap metal, probably stolen from other farms, and a gang of men mixing up plant extracts to make precursors to the chemical reagents she continually needed. It was nighttime outside, but a single ultra high efficiency light bulb in the ceiling of the bliss grass shed illuminated the single room to let them see to keep working.
The shed was so full of bags of bliss grass, much of it probably stolen from the remaining fields of the abandoned farms the air beggars themselves had once owned before the Wsuians stole all their solar panels and everything else of value, so full of bliss grass bags that Seth was now storing it in other sheds for somewhere to put it all. The bits of the shed not filled with bliss grass bags were now filled with Jen's batteries, chemistry reactions, materials for making batteries, and the air bottles constantly being filled by the hydrolysis unit.
Outside the shed was the currently parked quad bike, with one of the Plowman brothers getting ready to drive it, currently changing the battery and offloading fresh materials for Jen to use. The quad bike never stopped now, it was the only vehicle they had to provide logistics for this ever growing operation. The quad bike might use power, but it used it far more efficiently for the same work as human muscle powered by hydrolysis unit air.
As well as the quad bike, the outside of the shed had a lot of sleeping bodies gathered around large air bottles, forced to sleep outside just to remain close enough to the precious air supply. The outside walls of the shed were piled high with walls of crude sandbags to protect this precious building against shrapnel damage, and Jen was guarded at all times from harm.
Seth was currently being treated almost like a king or feudal lord, EVERYONE was sucking up to Seth these days, and showing a lot of respect for him. Seth was the husband of the pricelessly essential Jen, and owner of this farm, he had a solid core of friends to enforce his rules, and people were terrified of offending him and being thrown out of the farm to die without air.
Even more important for Seth was the fact that Jen was loyal to Seth. These people could not survive without Jen's batteries, no one in the area made them as well as she did. This gave Jen power over everyone around her. All she had to say was "I refuse to make another battery until you throw that person off the farm", and the rest of the mob would frantically obey. This simple fact scared the hell out of people, and made her even more powerful than Seth, if not for the fact that she was imprinted to completely obey Seth.
Seth and those Seth was especially close to got to sleep inside the shed. Jen and Seth slept on the same pile of bliss grass sacks, and Jen napped with him when she could. They didn't have much privacy, but did still make love most nights, albeit very briefly.
Seth was currently asleep as Jen worked, and Jen was damp from his presence as she always was. They had already made love earlier tonight, and Jen was satisfied, though certainly wouldn't mind getting some more.
"Do you need to pee Mrs Renwick?" One of her assistants asked her.
Jen looked down and noticed that her wet vagina was dripping on the floor, she STILL didn't have panties and was currently only wearing her bra and a long tee shirt like a dress!
"I'm ok, it's nothing," Jen said quickly.
"Ok Mrs Renwick," the man said obediently.
Jen sighed, wanting to be laying with her husband right now, but she had too much work to do before her next nap break. Night time was always the busiest time for Jen, it was the time when the solar panels stopped adding power, the time when ALL the power had to come from batteries.
Outside the shed was a steadily growing pile of oxidised metal slag, much of it toxic heavy metals like lead. Jen's team continually filtered this worthless gunk out of the battery acids and other liquids in the various batteries, and chucked this toxic gunk on the pile outside to reuse old chemicals. Jen constantly took in pure metal, and corroded it away in chemical solutions to generate electricity.
It was quite astonishing how big that pile of oxidised slag was getting, it was easily over a metric ton in Terran weight by now, just astonishing how much metal she had corroded away to keep everyone breathing!
Jen was not sure how much longer the local metal would last...
***...
Jen frowned as rocks clattered on the roof of the shed, a rival "village" was mounting another raid to try to steal materials to make batteries.
It had been over 2 months now, and the wet season was due to start. People were terrified of having less light on the solar panels from the constant rain, and were desperate to get more power to survive the wet season.
The locals were running out of ammunition by now, both from the constant wars over air, and from using the lead and casings of the bullets as metal to corrode in the batteries. The locals had instead taken to using crude slings to hurl rocks at each other with deadly force.
"Jen's shed" was now so fortified with sand bags and clay earthworks that it was more like a medieval castle than a farm shed!
The "town" of "Jen's Shed" was now the largest and most successful population centre in the immediate local area, but it was just a baby compared to some of the "towns" further down the river. These towns all centred around the farm of a Wsuian customer, the only people who didn't get their power infrastructure stolen by the Wsuian soldiers.
The owners of these farms were now the equivalent of feudal lords, commanding the loyalty of those they shared air with. Society had completely broken down into warring gangs, who fought constantly over air and power resources.
Once the rivers got high enough for the cargo boats to reach the remote areas, the isolated "towns" would be able to sell their bliss grass harvests and buy enough solar panels to stop the violence. Everyone would hopefully then return to their senses and rebuild. It would still take years of harvests to rebuild absolutely everything, but in time the survivors would rebuild their lives.
The "soldiers" of Jen's Shed were hiding behind walls of clay outside and were returning fire with rocks of their own. The invaders would not be able to succeed in this attack, the town was too well fortified and well defended for that.
The area around the shed was now slowly taking shape as a shantytown, made from a combination of clay, rocks, and stuff that Jen couldn't use like corrugated iron that wasn't galvanised. Around the town was a lot of earthwork mounds, crude low clay walls that got slightly bigger each day in response to the periodic raids.
The soldiers of Jen's Shed had themselves been raiding other settlements over the past 2 months to steal all the metal Jen needed, and people had died in the fighting. It was horrible and nasty, but they had no choice, they couldn't breathe without a constant supply of metal that could be used to make batteries.
Jen and Seth were now so loaded with bliss grass that they might make many many times more than Jen had cost in profits this year!
The first priority for this money was power infrastructure and hydrolysis units, enough for everyone. The second priority was to order additional 679 line wives for their key supporters like the Plowman Brothers, to let them eventually return to their farm without being robbed a second time.
Jen was terribly tired. She had not had a full night of sleep in over two months, only having ever shorter naps as she was asked to do the impossible with ever smaller amounts of stolen metal. She was also getting ever more pregnant by the day, ate almost nothing except yap-yap cooked at the lowest possible power setting, and was getting less and less sex with Seth!
She was tired, unhappy, and horny, which made her even more unhappy. She was yearning for a full night of sleeping and a full day of fucking! It wasn't that Seth wasn't interested, it was that Jen had so little time. Even a 5 minute quickie was hard to find time for!
Jen was as beautiful as ever, only with a pregnant belly and swollen boobs. She was still 18, not quite 19 years old yet, but closer to 19 than 18 now. She was still a very young woman, and she was bred to retain her looks long into life before her first wrinkle, she was as beautiful as any young 679 line wife model was, and Seth certainly seemed to still find her very attractive!
As if in answer to this, Seth walked up and affectionately grabbed her ass. Jen immediately became so wet that she dripped on the floor, and bit her lip to keep from moaning. The wonderful ass squeeze was over as quickly as it began, and Jen was left with a growing wet patch on the floor as her imprinted husband stopped groping her.
Jen composed herself with difficulty, calming her aching 18 year old loins as the most beautiful man in the universe walked off to do something else. Seth was still the most sexy man in the universe to Jen's imprinting, he still got her wet and desperate without fail. She wanted him inside her, not walking away to do something else!
"What next Mrs Renwick?" One of her assistants asked, referring to the battery she was overseeing the construction of.
Jen forced herself to focus with difficulty, she just wanted a good hard shag! It had been DAYS!
As if in sympathy for Jen's frustrated wetness, it started to rain outside. Even the planet got wet at the sight of Seth!
"The wet season has started!" Someone called out.
A very "wet" season for poor Jen too, Jen thought glumly.
***...