War Core Wednesday! War Core 4, chapter 13.

Chapter 13.

Now that Hugh was satisfied the door wasn’t going to somehow unlock and open on its own, he took a look at the interior of the security office. It was an odd setup. The rear of the station was like a small warehouse, and several office cubicles were up near the door front. A pair of holding cells, both empty, were placed along the back wall. Along the sides of the room were a total of twelve cradles, each with a security drone similar to the one Hugh had lost, save for being a bit larger.

The drones looked like they were inactive, despite his earlier selections, and he couldn’t detect any indicator lights showing they were powered up or that the charging cradles they were docked to were even functional. A quick tour of the room didn’t reveal any infected lurking in the shadows. There was a roll-up metal door at the far end of the room, likely the access for the security drones so they wouldn’t have to walk through the front office every time they went into action.

The work cubicles were standard small office ones, except for the one in the back which was larger, like a supervisor’s station. It reminded Hugh of an office cubicle farm back home. Was the entire galaxy cursed with such things? Heading to the supervisor’s station, Hugh placed his palm on the console, figuring that it would have more access given that it was the supervisor’s office if that was even a thing with the people that built this place.

Access granted, welcome to security office 1a, Administrator. Full security office access has been granted. Please select from the following options.

1. Personnel management and office settings.

2. Security Requests.

3. Drone Management.

4. Inventory Management.

Hugh went through the various options. He had some time, the door to this part of the office was much more sturdy than the one in the front office. If the infected proved strong enough to break in, it would be some time before they could do so. The personnel management was a bust, just a human resource interface for the ten or so people that worked for the security office, all of which were likely dead. There were extra tabs for office settings that he didn’t bother with. Security requests were a rehash of his earlier discoveries, a long and unanswered list of requests for help from when the station first fell to the infection.

Drone management was what he was looking for. An error code told the story, an energy generation module used to power the drones was located on the exterior of the building and it had been damaged in the chaos. The charging cradles and their attached drones had their power supplies drained completely. From the logs, it looked like the problem with door access had kept them inside here instead of out where they could have possibly dealt with the infected. The system kept activating the drones, only to have their access blocked by the faulty doors. They had gone through the useless cycle thousands of times before finally draining the last of their power reserves. Now they sat, unpowered in their cradles.

“Repair drone, can these cradles be powered by the internal power supplied to the security office?” Hugh asked.

“Work order confirmed, diagnosis processing,” the little repair drone said. It scampered over to the cradles using various attachments to scan for the source of the problem.

“Internal power can be rerouted to the drone interface modules, do you wish repairs to proceed? Estimated time to completion is fifteen minutes,” the drone asked.

“Do it,” Hugh ordered. The repair drone went to work, cutting into the wall and splicing wires at a furious pace. With that underway, Hugh checked out his last option on the console.

Inventory Management.

1. Office supplies.

2. Community rewards.

3. Armory.

Hugh didn’t foresee any need for office supplies, but he was curious about the community rewards. It turned out to be small treats and toys given out to children on the station, nothing Hugh could use. The armory was what he had been hoping to find, so he accessed that tab next.

The armory is currently in lockdown. Your access level is Administrator Prime, full access has been granted.

With that, a section of the wall near the drone cradles opened, and a treasure trove of gear was now on display. Hugh rushed over and took a look at what was offered. There were simple uniforms of various sizes and shapes, confirming the station had various species living on it. More importantly, there was powered riot armor and various weapons. Much of which wasn’t set up for human-sized users, but there was more than enough that Hugh could work with. His interface helpfully sorted the gear, highlighting what he could use.

Personal Protective Gear.

1. Riot armor. An internally powered armored suit designed to resist both kinetic and energy weapons. The suit has a light power boost that can enhance the user’s strength. While the internal power supply is good for 10 hours of normal operations in a hostile environment, additional power packs can be added to the loadout. Charging for the suit can be performed at any power outlet on the station. This suit has three hard points for attachments.

2. Riot shield. This device generates a power field that can deflect physical objects and absorb their kinetic energy to reduce the physical strain on the user. Not intended for heavy combat use, this shield offers only minimal protection against beam weapons.

The armor was something out of a science fiction movie. It was a fully sealed suit with a helmet that provided much better protection than the one he currently wore. It also had integrated filters to block out toxic fumes, and protect from environmental hazards. The fact that his interface highlighted it, meant it was safe for humans to use.

The shield was a bust, he wasn’t facing rioters throwing bricks and bottles, he was facing infected monsters. The infected were strong and would pull the shield off his arm in seconds if he let them get that close. He would rather free up his second hand to use with his rifle and for changing mags.

Armor attachment modules.

1. Power supply booster. This module adds 2 hours of emergency power for the riot armor and can also be used to charge your weapon systems.

2. Personal aid kit. A collection of drugs and nanobots that can assist in the healing of most injuries and infections.

3. Camouflage System. When active, the camo system will hide the user from a biological-based optic sensor, electronic scanning methods, chemical sniffers, and thermal scans. It will consume suit system power when active, effectively halving the operational time from the suit's internal power supply.

Hugh was a bit worried about the personal aid kit. He had his med patches and knew not to use them if there was a chance of infection from the monsters swarming outside. The aid kit was integrated into the suit and it might pump him full of nanobots and accelerate any infection before he had a chance to deal with it. That left him with a power supply booster and the camo system.

The suit had three hard points, which meant that the camo system could be paired with two additional power supplies. He didn’t know if the camo would hide him from the infected, but if it could, that would make his life much easier. Given that the suit would drain quickly with the camo active, and the option for the suit to recharge his weapons, every additional bit of power was needed.

The suit was easy to put on, and it fit over his current body armor which was a plus. Hugh didn’t want to ditch his existing armor in case he ran out of power and had to leave the suit behind. It took a moment to calibrate and once it did, the suit informed him it was sealed from external hazards and had enhanced his strength by an additional 25%. It also claimed to double his endurance as it assisted him even with the simple task of walking.

The camo module was a bulky-looking backpack that could be attached to the armor. It didn’t weigh too much despite its bulk and Hugh activated it for a minute to get a feel for what it did. His vision blurred and when looking at his reflection on the console screen, he was invisible. When Hugh moved, you could see a little blurring, but to a casual observer, he was invisible. Deactivating the camo, Hugh mounted the two power supplies, which were thin black metal panels that attached to the legs of his suit. With his defenses taken care of, it was time to see what kind of firepower this security office had to offer.

Weapon systems.

1. Plasma beam pistol. This low-powered weapon is effective against all target types but has limited range and charge capacity.

2. Plasma beam carbine. With a longer range, a more powerful beam, and a larger charge capacity, this weapon is the standard assault weapon for all station defenders. Access classification of 2C or higher is required for this weapon. Your access level of Administrator Prime meets the minimum requirements to access this weapon system.

3. Disruption wave thrower. A non-lethal weapon system to suppress large crowds. The range is limited to a 30-foot cone, and its internal power supply holds 3 charges.

4. Stun grenade. This grenade emits a non-lethal energy blast that can incapacitate any known humanoid species for up to five minutes.

5. Plasma grenade. Generates a ball of condensed plasma effective against all species and armor types.

Hugh had a lot of options, the first thing he did was grab one of the plasma carbines There were only two on the rack, along with a pair of pistols. A few others, obviously modified for another species were present, but they did Hugh no good. He wasn’t exactly happy to test fire the weapon inside the room, but he needed to know if and how it worked. The operation of the weapon was pretty straightforward. A selector switch on the side activated the power source, which was a magazine-shaped pack inserted into the bottom of the weapon.

There was a traditional trigger, but Hugh found the trigger break to be a bit off from what he was used to. There was no feel for when it was about to fire, just suddenly it was on. Firing a thin beam of plasma, the blast hit the far wall and dug deep into the concrete-like material the building was made out of.

There was a burst mode on the weapon that was supposed to fire three beams in quick succession, but since the one shot had nearly penetrated the wall, Hugh held off on any further tests. A convenient ammo counter was placed on the side, and it showed 99 more shots remaining. The boxy magazine held a lot of power if every pull of the trigger delivered that much destructive energy.

Originally a bit sad to see his M4 out of ammo, Hugh now gladly swapped weapons with the new carbine. He took a pistol as well, it functioned about the same as the carbine, but it had a smaller power magazine that only held enough energy for 50 shots of its lower-powered beams. While his armor didn’t have any remaining hard points for gear attachments, the belt did have slots to mount six rifle magazines. The pistol had a holster with a pair of magazine pouches on it, which gave him quite a bit of firepower.

There were only two of each type of grenade in the arsenal, all of which he took, placing one of each on the grenade pouches mounted to the chest of his armor. The remaining pair he stuffed into a small gear bag he found among the personal equipment. Slung over one shoulder, it was a bit awkward, but he would need it to carry everything he wanted to bring.

Cleaning out the armory gave him another twelve magazines for the carbine and six for the pistol. There was an additional pair of power supply boosters for his armor, and they joined all the other gear inside the bag along with the disruption wave thrower, or stunner as Hugh liked to think of it. The stunner used the same magazine as the pistol, but that only gave it enough juice for three shots. He would have to test it out when he had a chance., but most likely, he’d just pillage the magazine at some point for use in the pistol which gave him fifty shots instead of three.

“Power reroute has been established, and the enforcement drones are charging. Time to full charge is estimated at 25 days, 11 hours, and 38 minutes,” the repair drone said, finishing its work.

“Woah, that’s not going to work, what can we do to speed up the process?” Hugh asked.

“Shutdown of all non-essential power draws for this room would help,” the drone offered, but it didn’t give him much more than that. It appeared the bot’s ability to communicate was limited to simple instructions.

Hugh fiddled with the console, digging back into the personnel management and office settings. It was here that Hugh realized he’d made a mistake. He had almost written off this part of the console options, thinking it was boring office stuff. Some of it was, but it also included access to all the systems which he could turn off and on as needed. One of the options was for internal security. It was currently set for safe mode. Hugh looked at the options it gave.

Office security interface.

1. Active Defenses.

3. System maintenance.

Hugh hit each of the options, determined to let anything else slip out of his hands.

Active defenses are currently on standby. A charging link fault has been detected. The following defensive systems are installed in this station.

Dual-purpose turrets (2), mounting both suppression beams and lethal plasma beam weapons.

Both systems showed a low charge rating of only 18-23%. The stunner beams were something similar to the disruption wave thrower inside the armory. If stunning people weren’t enough, they could activate the lethal option for the turrets, generating a beam about as powerful as his pistol. One turret was located to cover the front office, and another was mounted outside the building to cover the entrance.

“Repair, drone, we’ve got a fault in the defenses. Can you check it out without exposing yourself to danger from the infected?” Hugh asked.

“Unknown, this unit will attempt diagnosis and repair, with the restriction placed by the user to not expose this unit to danger,” the drone said before scuttling about the room, scanning various things. It eventually climbed to the ceiling on its stubby little legs and then unbolted one of the climate control vent covers. His repair drone disappeared into the ventilation tube, but Hugh could hear it puttering about and the sound of the occasional tool powering up as the drone did its job.

After a few minutes, which Hugh spent going through the system maintenance and turning off anything that wasn’t critical, Hugh could hear the drone cradles hum with power as they finally started to charge the drones at a better pace. The time to full charge had dropped to just 23 hours. A quick check of the door to the room showed it was still holding strong and despite the constant pounding of the infected, it didn’t look like it was going to come down anytime soon.

“Partial repairs complete. Several power lines had been disrupted when the main station power core nearly went critical. Without access to the power couplings inside the front office, this unit could only get the system operating at 84% efficiency. All active defenses and the drone cradles are now charging,” the drone said before settling down near one of the power outlets to recharge itself. It requested that Hugh activate the outlet, which he did for the hard-working little guy.

The system defenses were coming up faster than the drones, and it would only be an hour and a half before they were active. They were already hardwired into the building and now that the power lines had been mostly repaired by the drone, they only needed a smaller power reserve to start working. Hugh sat back and relaxed, tasking the repair drone to check on the door’s integrity while he rested and waited for the defenses to come online. With the security drones, internal automated defenses in the building, and his newfound firepower, Hugh was beginning to feel a lot better about his chances of breaking out of this place and meeting up with the rest of the team.