Ullr and Artemis - Arctic Rangers [14]
Thank you to u/SpacePaladin15 for the universe and thanks to the other fanfic writers for giving me the inspiration for this little masterpiece of nonsense I have cooked up. And a big thank you to u/Mysteriou85 for the Artaya goober! I also got a redrawing of a famous meme now featuring Artaya by u/droughtier ! Additional thanks to u/rookamillion , u/Win_Some_Game , and u/Inside_Judge5855 for proofreading this chapter!
I’m also proud of the title card for the series commissioned by u/rookamillion and drawn by Kennedy Oz !
Also can't forget the comic commissioned by u/rookamillion and drawn by u/YellowSkar ! ❤️
And an entire ficnap crossover with Little Big Problems written by u/rookamillion and an accompanying piece of fanart drawn by u/VeryUnluckyDice !
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I also now have a master post on my profile for all four of my current series as well as this series specifically!
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Intro: Some time has passed since their last update. Now we join the apocalypse goobers, and they live their lives as mole-people underground and away from the wintery world above.
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Memory Transcription Subject: Ullr Hoback, Human KC Military Captain
Date: [Standardized Human Time]: September 22, 2160
Oh to be the man of the house. Three stories of meticulously carved halls and rooms. At least six thousand square feet to fit all of my stuff.
If I had any!
Rolling out of my midday napping spot in the upstairs skylight loft, I stretch out to see if Artaya has found a sunbeam of her own to lounge in before our tasks for the day. Not finding her in this room, surprisingly, I let my feet slap down the cold stone hallway and down the stairs to the second-floor bedrooms and failed to find her there either. Finally, in the first-floor heating room, the somewhat operational steam pipes run from the city supply to the rest of the home. There, where the pipe temperature is the hottest, she lies curled up like a very strange form of pipe insulation, but one that actually steals the heat from the pipe underneath.
“Hey, ‘Taya, you about ready to head over and give the place a look?”
Unraveling herself like an opossum from a tree, she too stretches out her legs and tail with a whine before looking up at me with a slight nod.
“Yeah, time to do the rounds and then the best we can on that supply station.”
With her close in tow behind, we head to the grand foyer of this old clan mansion, where I quickly throw on my working clothes and a good pair of boots to get ready for work, or at least the closest thing to work we have.
Who would’ve thought that an entire city devoid of life for a few decades would be such a large restoration project to keep yourself busy with?
Leaving our first complete restoration project, the largest clan mansion in the city, behind, we head to all the nearby restored shops and buildings, where we check on the storerooms in each one, where thousands of pounds of stored game meat lie waiting to be thawed and munched on. Building to building, room to room, Artaya follows close behind with her nose doing its job of scouring for any changes since the day before. No creatures, no bugs, no robots, no anything.
Despite the city being isolated from the worse of the weather conditions and seasonal changes, I can’t help but notice the subtle changes occurring in my faithful officer and companion. The sunlight hours are lessening and lessening, and although the temperature here doesn’t change much, I can see her thoughts slowing, energy draining. Even now as we check the last of the storerooms and then the camper and snowmobile we’ve brought inside after getting the city gate fixed, I keep a side eye on her as she takes a swig of kelai to energize herself.
Damn good thing that I insisted on collecting as much of the wild plant as we could. She would’ve already been near the end of her original supply from Tellus by now.
At the camper, I load up my backpack with sealing plates and tools while Artaya loads her vest pouches with tapes and sealants as we prepare for our primary task of the day. All geared up with only my pistol for protection given the lack of threats so far, I double-check with Artaya to make sure our target is the correct one of the many in the city.
“So, ‘Taya, you’re sure that this power facility is the one that is for our neighborhood?”
“I mean, I’m not exactly a fluids engineer, so I can’t read the diagrams with precision, but I am certain that it’s one of the two on Aulin’s Way. If not the one we work on today, then we can fix the other one tomorrow, and we’ll have two full neighborhoods up to power.”
“Honestly, we probably should fix both of them anyway and get this turned into a bright and cheery ghost city.”
“Wonderful idea, Ullr; then we can fix up a few of the trucks and drive around waving at the spirit neighbors!”
Laughing at ourselves, we leave our little neighborhood and follow the sidewalks towards the entrance of the supposed utility station for our current homes. As we get further and further from our base of operations, the limitation of two people trying to clean an entire city by themselves becomes more and more apparent. Dust, broken glass, collapsed bricks, and all sorts of junk and trash start to appear and eventually become the most common decoration on the pavement.
At last, we turn down the utility street and go past a few commercial shops and trade offices until we arrive at the large access door to the topside building above. Despite being locked, time has worn the metal handle and locks down to rusted threats more than promises. I grab a piece of rock off the ground, and with a single blow, I shatter the lock, letting the door creep open with a perfect horror movie creak.
To continue the horror vibes, the same weather condition that led the door to its demise shows itself quite clearly in the staircase up to the utility plant. Water drips on the echoing concrete stained and cracked with years of freeze and thaw cycles while any lights that presumably lit the passage are long burnt out. A faint glow of sunshine is diluted to sickly blue at the far end of the stairs. Pulling our helmet visors down, we let the night vision and tracking do the obvious work as I watch each step carefully not to slip on the intermittent ice patches.
At the top of the stairs, we go through a small breezeway with a connection to the plant and the outside, where the outside door has certainly seen better days. Rust has eaten through any weather sealing it might have been built with and icy drafts squeeze through the sides, blowing snow and debris in.
“First fix of the day, Ullr?”
“I think it’s a worthy candidate.”
I lean over Artaya and pull a tube of expanding foam from her vest and, in a swift motion, apply it all around the edges of the door. It quickly seals the door shut, and the howl of the wind is replaced by the subtle bubbling and crinkles of the foam.
Damn good thing we don’t need out through here or back in. That foam is going to have that door sealed in more than just airflow.
Leaving that door behind, the door to the plant is in surprisingly good shape compared to the door below, which would be a problem if locked, but the handle turns without an issue. Just as creaky as the door below, this one opens to reveal a place much more depressing than it is horrifying.
Multi-pane windows are set high and low around the expansive brick facility, casting blue light down on the sputtering machinery still trying its best to supply its long-dead and gone masters. Iron walkways are mounted around the perimeter overlooking the massive piping drilled into the center of the floor. The pipes are quickly split into several different machines that probably should be spinning given their turbine-like shape, but the lack of any noise aside from the hissing of leaking steam quickly leads me to guess why the city below has no power.
I wonder if this system was in place before or after first contact. It’s so steampunk, but also how deep can steampunk society drill to access this type of geothermal?
“So, Artaya, seeing as you’re significantly more educated than me, where do you think we should start here?”
Artaya gives long, slow glances around the bottom, then middle, then top of the facility before answering me.
“I think we should do a perimeter sweep with the foam and patch any cracks or holes in the exterior walls, as that’s the easiest and will at least stop further weather damage.”
“Even up on the walkway?”
“Ehhhhh, actually, you do the bottom floor, and I’ll do the middle with the walkway. Being on four paws gives me less pressure on the old metal.”
“Sounds good, be safe up there.”
Going our separate ways, I take a can of foam from her vest, and she retrieves her own as we inspect the building. Both unsurprisingly and surprisingly, the walls have plenty of little holes and cracks in the bricks and around the piping going in and out, but overall, the place is in great shape. The severity of each hole and crack is easily checked by simply having one of my hands ungloved and feeling for airflow. The entire time I work, I watch the white-furred lady above take careful steps on the metal, which creaks in the most uncomfortable way.
No falling, Artaya; if you fall and die, my finger might just ‘fall’ on my pistol’s trigger. Haha. Oh shit, am I threatening myself to kill myself if I lose her? Whoa, calm down, big man; look at her, she’s fine.
Shaking my scary, intrusive thoughts away, I finish my round and wait near the center of the plant near the entry pipes until Artaya comes and joins me. The hissing of the steam escaping the pipes remains, but calmingly, the sound of wind whistling through the walls has been significantly reduced. A few window panes remain broken above, but their small size and height mean they will stay that way for the foreseeable future.
“Okay, what’s next, ‘Taya?"
“Uh, I think we should check the turbine generator thingies and make sure the wires are still looking okay and that they can still spin. Then if they’re good, we can use the patches and start doing pipe seals.”
In our combined expertise on electricity, power generation, and engineering, totaling zero years of knowledge, we circle the massive pipes to the turbine generator sets and do the most thorough inspections of the cables that we are comfortable with while avoiding being fried and ending the short-lived return of Jaslip to Esquo. Seeing that the cables are all heavily insulated, we can only hope that they are in good enough condition to handle any current they carry and that whatever fuses or breakers are down the line are just as well-shielded.
This leaves just the small glass viewing ports into the spinny-bits to see if they are just as okay. Looking through each one with our flashlights as bright as possible, each one is still lazily spinning with the low volume of steam shifting through.
“Well, Ullr, in my non-expert opinion, I say we can patch any pipes that we can reach and see what happens.”
Removing all the pipe-patches that we had found in repair closets from my backpack, Artaya goes into her bipedal mode, and we start from the incoming section of the pipes and work our way to the turbines. Both terrifyingly and encouragingly, as we patch closer to the turbines, the hiss of steam from the remaining cracks and leaks increases both audibly and visually. At the last crack right before the splitter to each turbine, the steam is actually jetting out with an uncomfortable amount of heat and pressure. I jump over the pipe and go to the other side so we each can push down as fast as possible together to avoid scalding failure.
By now, the turbines have begun humming behind us, and with this whine of success, we slap and wrap the patch with only minimal steam jets hitting our wrists. This last patch added the turbines taking the full pressure of the steam, and my heart drops as the torque on the shaft causes all the machines to lurch to the side.
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Memory Transcription Subject: Artaya, Jaslip KC Military Colonel
Date: [Standardized Human Time]: September 22, 2160
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, and one more fuck for good measure.
My brain fog lifts for just a moment as my claws try their best to grip into the slick concrete and get as far and fast away from those deathtraps as possible. ~~Big-Obor~~ Ullr is not too far from me as we make it to the exit and turn back to see if all our work was for naught. The whine of the turbines hit their maximum pitch, and the machines luckily seem to settle back into place. The low-pressure steam exiting the turbines snakes over to the water and heat-supply boilers, which are already starting to bubble in excitement. The zero-pressure steam exiting those is, thankfully, going up and out the tall stacks, as evidenced by the shadows of billowing clouds dancing on the windows.
“Artaya, look, the lights!”
Willing my eyes away from the angular-moment batteries, I look up at the roof of the building and see that the ancient lightbulbs are beginning to glow, just slightly.
“We did it, Ullr. It’s… it’s nice.”
Warm, precise fingers scratch on my head and behind my ears as my eyes close, away from the glowing evidence of our success.
“Wait, we made this building work, but like you said, we could have just given the neighbors lights and not us.”
“Damn.”
Making sure we have all our leftover supplies and bags collected, I notice the dim light of the sun outside starting to increase and the air in here becoming noticeably warmer.
Ohhh, it’s melting ice off the windows. Very nice.
“Come on, Artaya, let’s go back and see if we were right and get you another cup of kelai.”
“K-Kelai? Right, right…”
Shit, sorry Ullr. I’m not feeling righter. Yes, need kelai…
He leads me down the stairs, and he is somehow able to see in the stairwell despite the dim glow of the lights above. It’s only halfway down that he pushes something over my eyes, and the stairs get a lot brighter.
Hehe, night vision visor. Yeah, that’d certainly help.
We exit through the door that he had broken to get inside, and I use my tails to slap it shut behind us as we slowly walk back home. Along the way, the glow of the lights above and dark eyes of the carved statues looking down on us remind me of our little goals.
“Ullr…”
“Yeah?”
“Trash and rubble.”
“Right, thanks for the reminder.”
We make our slow journey even slower as we clean our path from anything out of place and put it where the old trashcans and containers are or used to be. Little by little, each piece of debris seems so heavy, but the trail we leave behind looks so nice. We turn the street corner and look way down at our place, home, and my heart flutters in excitement at the faint glow of the streetlights and houses around coming to life.
“Ullr! Look!”
“Wow. It’s… beautiful. Hehe, dammit.”
He’s upset, Ullr upset, but why?
“Ullr, what wrong?”
“I really had convinced myself that I’d never live underground again after Tellus, but here I am.”
“Sorry Ullr, but this is the safe place.”
“No, I know that; the frustrating part is I actually kinda love it.”
Oh, he like it?
“Well, that good thing then. You made it your own.”
Ullr stops and looks down at me with a head tilt like a kit.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s right, but you’re missing one part there.”
“What miss?”
“You, I didn’t make it my own; we made it ours.”
My brain knows that this is something important just said to me, but the fuzzy gray of the world is too strong to fight back against the fluttering in my heart and head. I instead just push my head into his side and paw as we continue back home.
In the sled house, I climb into my place and rest my head on the table with my eyes closed as I hear things being opened and meat sizzling on cooking pans. My brief rest is interrupted by a clunk near my nose and a familiar, distinct smell. Opening my eyes, Ullr is there with a saucer of chilled juice ready to lap up. I weakly lap up a tongueful, and then more and more as it tingles at my whole mouth and down my throat.
“Wake up, ‘Taya, I need you awake for dinner.”
Taking his command to heart, I drink and drink until the whole world comes back into focus. Smells of meat and the hum of everything in the kitchen. The whole day flashes back through my mind, but his face seems to dominate my memory before I’m flooded with guilt. Guilt that builds to tears as he sets dinner down on the table between us.
“Eat up. I hope you don’t mind, but this time I cooked the- hey, hey now, what’s wrong, Artaya?”
“Ullr, I’m struggling.”
“Hibernation? Yeah, I’ve noticed, but I’m proud of how well you’re doing with it so far.”
“Yeah, but it’s making me worth less and less, and then you were talking about us building a life together, and I couldn’t even talk. Like I’m some stupid animal or-”
“No! No! We’re not doing that. That’s part of you, not going to lie, it’s a bit for me to get used to, but that’s part of living together.”
In an attempt to stop even more tears, I put my face down into the plate of meat and chew it down while forcing another apology.
“I show showry.”
“You’re fine; just eat up and we can go back to the clan mansion and look around at the new lighting and then head to bed. Tomorrow, we can do it all again.”
He’s so understanding… This, this has to be my last hibernation. If we’re going to be together for real, I have to be with him awake and alert.
When dinner is done and we’re all cleaned up. I actually take the lead as we walk out of the camper and into the mansion to inspect what effect the restored utilities have had on the place. Immediately a problem reveals itself.
Holy Sweet Esquo, it’s fucking hot!
The previously maxed-out heating system control was now making use of the increased hot water supply, and the air inside was as hot and dry as the test track in the deserts of Tellus. I nearly feel like collapsing in the heat as Ullr rushes past me and to the control room, where he exits a few moments later, drenched in that human sweat and already unzipping his clothes with heavy panting.
“Artaya, we gotta get out of here.”
“Ah-ah-greed.”
I stumble out, and we walk as far away from the house as fast and as quick as possible to the cold areas of the city as icy drafts blow from the buildings, cooling us off.
“‘Taya, how long is that going to take to cool off?”
“Again, not an engineer, but with the amount of air, size of the pipes, and all the stones absorbing heat, there is no way we are sleeping there tonight.”
“Back to the camper?”
“Exactly, just like old times.”
In the camper and settled down in our layered sleeping position, I feel hands reach up and go right for the ears, and I press my nose right into his neck to make it as easy as possible for him.
“Artaya?”
“Yes, Ullr?”
“Do you think we should check back in with the Fighters?”
“Yeah, probably. Why, something on your mind?”
“Not exactly beyond our families, but I wonder if anything crazy has been going on since we left."
“Ullr, the Federation reveal on Tellus was scary enough; don’t wish any more craziness on us.”
“Good point, good point. Goodnight then.”
“Goodnight.”
Oh Esquo, imagine if there has been more we don’t know about since our last contact? Ah, who am I kidding, there’s no way anything else has been going on…
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Posted Jun 9, 2026, 12:02 PM UTC