That night, for the first time in the history of the wolfkin village, a light that didn't come from fire was shining—powered by water. That's what they were all thinking.
Wolf children walked toward the river, dancing happily and making shadow puppets with their hands. The wolfkin women smiled brightly as they watched their kids play.
The wolfkin were amazed, their eyes wide with attention as they stared at the light glowing near the water wheel. Awe filled their hearts as they looked at the strange magic the camo team had brought.
Even though it was just a regular lightbulb, its glow drew the full attention of the wolfkin villagers. Luke smiled. Gideon stepped toward him and congratulated him. He had brought modern technology into a fantasy world.
Something no one here had probably ever imagined.
Lena and Lyra walked over to Luke, a big idea forming in their minds—one that could help the wolf village.
The SOF team gathered to talk about the idea from Lena and Lyra. Meanwhile, the wolf villagers stayed near the water wheel, still watching the glowing bulb. They began to feel warm just being close to the light.
"What if we provide electricity for lighting in this village?" asked Lena.
"I was thinking the same when the water wheel started working. Do you think we can actually do it?" asked Gideon, turning to Luke.
Luke went quiet, one hand on his chin, deep in thought. If they were in the modern world, he would've had plenty of tools to help make it happen.
But this was a fantasy world. Electricity was completely new to the people here. It would be hard for Luke to bring that idea to life.
"If I say I can do it, will you help me?"
"Of course. We're a team."
Luke smiled. He cleared his throat and looked at each of them. The 24-year-old blond man felt confident that he could bring full lighting to the village.
"Alright. I'll figure out how to do it and what tools I need."
"But since everything here is traditional, don't expect too much," Luke added.
Gideon nodded and patted Luke's shoulder firmly.
"Just light. No TVs or fridges here."
"In that case, I can do it easily."
He cleared his throat and looked to his side—at Lyra. The original goal of the water wheel wasn't to light the village, but to charge Lyra's laptop. That way, they could use the UAV drone for scouting again.
"Lyra, start charging your laptop. Use your adapter so the electricity doesn't fry it," said Gideon.
"Copy, Captain."
"Lena, talk to the elder wolfkin men about what Luke needs. Make sure they'll help us again," said Gideon.
"Understood, Captain."
"I'll go meet Bian. That bright light might attract wild animals or enemies. I need to set up a perimeter and guard posts."
"Yes, Captain," the three of them replied in unison.
"This might not be part of our original mission, but we can't just sit around doing nothing. I'll keep looking for real answers about how to get back to our world," said Gideon.
"Until then, we help this village."
"So this will be our military shelter, right?" Luke asked.
Gideon smiled. It had been a long time since he heard that word. "Shelter" was often used by tactical teams for frontline supply posts and more.
Given the situation, he didn't mind the idea.
"That's right. This is our shelter."
***
Five days later.
Wolf Village.
Lyra stepped out of the house carrying her laptop, connected to a 10TB external SSD. She always brought that device with her. It held tons of data copied from the US Army's main servers.
One of those was a blueprint archive of US Army technologies. In short, that SSD was the key to unlocking hundreds of modern technologies they could apply in this world.
Her attention shifted to the side. She saw Gideon talking to several wolfkin men. He was standing and holding a book of their language, while the wolf men sat on the ground listening to his instructions.
He wore a dark brown tactical T-shirt with black cargo pants and black boots. The mixed-cotton fabric made it comfortable for Gideon to wear.
But that wasn't what caught Lyra's attention. She noticed Gideon struggling to speak with them. He kept flipping through the book, trying to find the right words. Bian stayed close to help him.
Seeing his struggle gave Lyra an idea. Maybe this time she could use her skills to make communication between the SOF team and the villagers easier.
She returned inside and sat at the wooden desk. She pulled out her phone and connected it to her laptop. Lyra opened her code editor and began programming.
Yes. She planned to create a simple mobile app —a translator from English to wolfkin language and vice versa.
For Lyra, a programming and debugging expert, building a two-language translator app wasn't hard.
At the very least, she needed a dataset from two different databases —one for English, and one for the wolfkin language.
For the second database, she needed someone to help provide samples. She already had the first one, from a previous app she'd built.
'I need samples to build the wolfkin language database. But who can help me?'Lyra thought, resting her chin on her hand.
The front door opened. Lena entered, carrying her white medical box. Her eyes drifted forward, noticing Lyra working on her laptop.
Lena walked over and leaned in, curious about what Lyra was doing. She saw Lyra writing code for a program.
"You're building an app?"
"Yes. I'm planning to make a translator app," Lyra said.
"WAAAH!"
"That would really help us!"
"I thought so too. But I'm missing the language samples for their side."
"Do you know anyone who'd be willing to help?" asked Lyra.
Lena nodded quickly. She knew exactly who would be the best person to help Lyra. She set her medical box down and walked out without saying another word.
'Where's she going?'
Soon, Lena returned with a female wolfkin. The two were already friends, and the wolf woman had taught Lena much of the wolfkin language. Lena was sure she'd be able to help Lyra.
"Is she the one?" Lyra asked.
"Yes. She's my new friend. She can help you."
Lyra was silent for a moment, then nodded. The wolf woman sat near the wooden table, staring curiously at Lyra's tech setup.
Lyra started collecting sample data. She asked the wolf woman to say her own language version of whatever word Lena gave.
Luckily, the wolfkin language was simple —with no grammar or strict rules.
Lena said "hello." The wolf woman replied with a word in her own language. Lyra wrote it down using Latin letters, since her model couldn't accept foreign characters.
They kept at it from morning until night. Lyra collected around 2,500 parallel data samples between the two languages. She had Lena say common, everyday words like "help," "guard," "please," "take," and "thank you."
"How's it going?" asked Lena, her throat dry after speaking nonstop.
"That's enough. I'll keep updating the language later. It'll be part of the app's next version."
"Good. I need some water."
Lena and Nai walked out of the house, leaving Lyra alone. Lyra felt relieved. Now she could move on to the next step —training the MarianMT model using the converted dataset in source.txt format.
Her fingers typed quickly on the keyboard. Her eyes focused on the screen, scrolling left and right along the lines of code.
Gideon arrived after finishing the trench and palisade. He was sweaty and short of breath. His steps slowed when he saw Lyra working alone in the living room.
"What are you doing?" asked Gideon, wiping his sweat with a towel.
"Building a two-language translator app."
"WOAAH!"
"That's great. It'll really help us."
"Yeah… but could you not talk to me? I'm focusing right now."
"Of course."
Gideon went to his room to get ready to shower. Lyra kept coding, eventually converting her work into a mobile version.
She worked nonstop from night to noon. Luke came home and asked the same question — Lyra gave him the same answer.
Clack-clack-clack.
The sound of the keyboard echoed through the night, while Gideon and the others slept.
The next morning, Lyra smiled widely, eyes locked on her phone. The program was finished, displayed as a simple UI. When she tested the speech-to-text translation, it worked well enough for her.
"Nice. At least this is better than flipping through that book every time."
Gideon walked out of his room, still yawning. Lyra turned quickly and startled him.
"You didn't sleep?" asked Gideon.
"Give me your phone," said Lyra. Gideon nodded.
He returned to his room and came back with his phone. Lyra transferred the app and installed it.
The installation was successful. Lyra handed the phone back.
"Try it, Captain."
Gideon nodded. He spoke a few sentences, and the app instantly translated them into the wolfkin language using a female voice. The voice matched what he often heard from the villagers.
"The app works!" said Gideon, excited.
"That means we don't have to carry around that language book anymore."
"Thank you, Lyra. You really helped us."
"Of course… I'm glad…"
The exhaustion from staying up all night was finally catching up to Lyra. Her eyes closed as relief washed over her. She was happy that she could help the team with her skills.
Before, she wasn't sure she could contribute.
Gideon saw Lyra nearly collapse. He rushed over and caught her in his arms. He smiled proudly, seeing the hard work she had done all night.
"You worked all night for this amazing app. You really are talented, Lyra."
"Now get some rest."