Derelict 3. Chapter 30.

Chapter 30.

Slater drove his avatar up to the crowd of Chixturax, spotting Hixrax near the front of the mob. The crowd skirted away from his imposing mech, afraid of being crushed beneath it. Ixlab pushed his way forward, not worried in the least as he began prodding at and using scanners on the avatar’s hull. Slater ordered the medpods containing Kraxton and Bexlan to be brought forward and the armored casing removed so Hixrax could see his children.

“Why are all these people with you, Hixrax?” Slater asked.

“The hive is split, as you predicted, the elders agreed to the station’s terms. I refused to give up my children as a bargaining chip and many others agreed with me. We came here in the hope you could either finish the ship for us or allow us to leave onboard your vessel. There is nothing for us here now that the hive is sundered. May I see my children?” Hixrax asked, scuttling over to the medpods. The external display gave a rundown of their condition and the treatment progress. They would both live, picking up a few scars perhaps, but alive despite the damage they took.

Slater looked through the eyes of his construction drones, seeing the progress made on the Franklin. It was still mostly a skeletal framework, with the hull complete and only part of the superstructure built out. His core room was only half complete, so he ordered the drones to finish it up, then prioritized some of the weapon’s systems and shield generators, things he would have not trouble powering up with just his core. As he had ordered, all work had stopped on the Chixturax ship.

Slater was torn, he was still angry over how he had been treated, but the ones that separated from their hive were the ones that disagreed with his treatment. Did they really understand what was going on, or were the just making a last effort to get their own ship? Looking at the kids inside their medpods, Slater realized what he had to do. The gathered Chixturax were the ones that had helped him, these were the ones that sacrificed their businesses and donated their funds to buy the salvage to start his new Franklin. He would help them, but woe to their entire race if they betrayed that trust, Slater was just about done with giving second chances.

“I will see what I can do, there is little time and while I am confident in my forces, the station will eventually overcome us. I will create a shelter for your people to wait in. It won’t be comfortable, and the facilities will be limited, but it’s the only place I can think of that might protect you from the coming fight,” Slater said.

“Thank you, Slater, we appreciate the efforts you are making even if our past leaders do not,” Hixrax said, giving what looked like a little bow to his avatar. Having done that, all the other Chixturax followed suit, honoring his efforts.

“I can’t guarantee we’ll have your ship ready in time, my efforts will be focused on the Franklin, but if it can be done, we’ll leave together,” Slater said. Some of his drones broke off to begin building a reinforced shelter in the corner of the dockyard where it would hopefully be out of the line of fire.

Slater reviewed the progress on both vessels. The Chixturax ship was further along, not having as many complex systems or strange requirements that Slater had for his warship. If he balanced out the work on the ships, timing things to finish up simultaneously, he needed about a week. Neither ship would be complete by then, but they would be able to navigate and fight. Getting away from the station as quickly as possible seemed to be the smartest course of action.

He had no idea what kind of defenses the station had, but he could only assume they were extensive, otherwise, some other race would have likely taken it over by now. Sitting in the old unused section of the station turned out to be in their benefit, there were no anti-ship weapons that could come to bear on him or his ships. Once he pulled away from the station it was going to be a different story, the Franklin would need to run a gauntlet of fire to escape the system.

Slater’s rebuilt stealth rat contingent spread out from the dockyard area, hopefully giving him advance warning of what Administrator was planning. It went without saying that the attacks could come from either above or below but cutting through the deck wasn’t going to be easy and it surely be time consuming, allowing him time to react. Strongpoints did need to be created throughout the dockyard, and his drones began another series of bunkers to protect the entire area. While resources weren’t a concern now that the station itself was fair game for harvesting, the time it would take him to construct defenses was an issue, as every minute the construction drones focused on defenses, they weren’t building his ship.

For now, his stealth rats would lie low, focused on spotting the foe as opposed to getting in a grenade blast. With his defenses being constructed and the Chixturax taken care of for the moment, he looked at dividing up his construction drones, wanting to keep at least some of them working on the ships despite their other responsibilities. With just over fifty drones, Slater tasked ten with Chixturax ship, twenty for his own, and the remainder split between building defenses, the Chixturax shelter, and gathering materials. As the drones finished building out defenses, they would be re-tasked to help either with the ships or with gathering resources.

“Slater, may we help in some way? Other than our warriors, which all bound themselves to the elders, our people have limited skill in combat but are willing to participate in the defense,” Hixrax offered. While he didn’t want to risk the vulnerable Chixturax, Slater could use every trigger puller in the coming battle.

“Very well, I was planning on using some of my forces to defend your shelter, but if you think your people are up to it, they can help by defending the shelter,” Slater offered. The shelter complex would have been occupied by a squad of cyborks and a pair of kobots to provide protection in case the enemy broke through near it.

“Yes, I have around fifty who are able to fight if needed, we only lack the means to do so,” Hixrax advised.

“I can’t pull much away from the construction projects we have going, but I’ll pull one of the construction drones building your shelter, and have it print up some weapons and armor for your defenders,” Slater said. He would gladly tie up one of his drones if meant he could free up some MOBS to reinforce his other defenses, choosing to build a third bunker outside the main hatchway to reinforce the defenders there.

“Thank you, for everything,” Hixrax said gesturing to the shelter, the ship, and his children being treated in their medpods. Slater felt a bit guilty that the kids were hurt inside his core room, but it seemed Hixrax was thankful they were alive. It made sense, if they had been at home, the elders would have snatched them up as part of the deal with the station.

His rats caught glimpses of forces gathering in the stairwell, but it was too risky to send a rat inside to get an accurate count. He would need every pair of eyes he had to keep tabs on the abandoned level. It was like a small city and while it gave his scouts plenty of hiding places, it also gave the enemy cover to move closer before they struck. His defense was going to be helped by the location of the dockyard at the extreme end of the level. A foe had to traverse the entire area of the ruins before getting to the hatchway leading toward the docks.

Time passed, and while his scouts detected more movement, the enemy seemed to be gathering forces and weren’t quite ready to make a push just yet. After an hour of waiting, he received the welcome notification that his core room was ready. Slater stomped his avatar toward the boarding pathway to the Franklin. Stepping onto the rapidly growing ship for the first time, Slater felt he was home. Once safely ensconced in his core room, Slater had his nanobots begin to permeate the ship. It would be a stretch, but he had enough to encompass the entire vessel. If he had built it any larger there might have been problems.

As his control settled over Franklin, Slater could feel it around him, feel the ship grow with each load of salvage turned into a component by his construction drones. Nearly all his weapons systems were still under construction, but a pair of five-inch dual purpose guns and a dozen point defense weapons were active now that his core was powering them. The rear eighteen-inch turret would also be done before too long.

An attack from space was almost inevitable, but now he could fight back. From where Slater was docked, only the rear of the ship would be exposed, so he focused his defensive efforts there. It made no sense to complete the forward main batteries first if they couldn’t even come to bear on an approaching foe. He would have to fight with only a portion of his firepower, but the enemy would also be limited on their avenues of approach, or risk seriously damaging the station, given where the dockyard was situated.

His forces were in place and the ships were being built, every minute that passed meant he was that much closer to departure. The salvage on hand was now depleted so his drones would need to begin stripping the station for salvage, using their own materials against them. Slater risked opening the hatchway leading to the dockyard wide enough for his construction drones to pass through. They ventured out into the nearest old warehouse buildings and rubble, gathering resources and at the same time pushing back any cover an attacker might have. Given his stealthed rats were on watch, the risk of an enemy sneaking in was pretty slim and the MOBS stationed in the bunkers outside the hatchway would provide cover if someone slipped past his scouts.

Slater’s drones had just finished up the defenses inside the dockyard when the stealth rats discovered movement. Three groups of attackers were picking their way across the compartment, heading toward the hatchway. Slater ordered all his drones back inside and sealed the hatch, the MOBS inside the bunkers readied themselves to repel an attack. The push by the station looked like a big one, each of the groups had several heavily armed squads. It was a mixed bag of races, the majority being dwarves once again. Each squad had least one or two anti-tank rockets and Slater could count two of the heavy, tripod mounted lasers being carried forward.

The first attackers creeped into position, the kobots inside the bunkers had them in their sights, but Slater wanted to make their first volley a devasting one. He waited for the two heavy weapons were being setup before ordering his forces to fire. Three heavy machineguns peppered the ruins with armor piercing, explosive ammunition, digging out the attackers that were trying to use it as cover. The kobots picked off the heavy weapons operators and anyone else who was foolish enough to approach the heavy lasers. While he didn’t have any gnomechs stationed outside the dockyard hatch, he did have some grenade launchers printed up which the cyborks in the bunkers put to good use.

Return fire began to come in as the attackers began to get over their initial shock. The bunkers were well designed and could shrug off just about anything other than a heavy weapon or a lucky anti-armor rocket hit. Rocket after rocket streaked in to explode on the bunkers, shattering the concrete exterior and digging toward the armored frame. Another push was made to get to the heavy lasers, the kobots cut down the attacker one after another, but couldn’t fire rapidly enough to stop a team of gnolls from getting ahold of one of the weapons and firing on the center bunker. Already weakened by the rocket hits, the heavy laser melted through, killing most of the defenders inside and taking out the heavy machinegun.

A pair of cyborks lived and continued to fire, but without the suppressive fire of the machinegun, it did little. Unfortunately for the attackers, their last rush, while successful in taking out a bunker, had cost them too much. First one, then another of the attackers began to back off, heading away from the fight. It didn’t take long for the other attackers to join them in their flight, it was hard to be brave when you could see you allies running away. With the kobots covering them, some of the surviving cyborks swept the ruins, making sure the bodies left behind were truly dead. Once his scouts confirmed the enemy was broken and fleeing, Slater ordered the construction drones back out. They would repair the damage to the bunkers and print up replacements for his losses, using the fallen enemies to supply the bodies of his MOBS.

The pattern remained the same for the next few days. Administrator would send out an attack, only to have it beaten back by Slater’s forces. Eventually, the station forces realized they weren’t going to wear down Slater in a battle of attrition. With every failed attack, they left him what he needed to rebuild his lost forces. Once they tried to cut their way in through the top of the dockyard compartment, but the noise alerted the defenders inside and they easily fended off the security forces trying to fast rope their way to the ground.

Slater wasn’t going to complain about their ineffective attempts, each hour brough the ships closer to completion. The exterior of the Chixturax vessel was complete, and his drones were now working on finishing up the interior systems and getting the drives online. His own Franklin was also nearing completion, with only the keel gun and the forward main batteries needing some work. The armor scheme was also still in process, the final layers and ablative coatings to deflect laser fire were some of the last things to complete. Much of the interior work, including the final buildout of the crew compartments wasn’t done, but since they weren’t going to be needed just yet, that work could happen while they were underway.

Engine tests for both ships were conducted on the fourth day of the siege, both ships passing with flying colors. After the main drives for both vessels shut down, Slater could feel a change in the station. The enemy were trying to burrow their way in once again, only this time, they were coming from both top and bottom while another large assault team formed up in the ruins to attack the hatchway directly. The combined forces would test his ability to hold off the enemy. Despite still needed a lot of work, it was time to board the ships and fight their way out of this place.