Derelict 3, Chapter 29.

Chapter 29.

Several things happened at once. First, Slater ordered his drones to build a pair of medpods for the injured kids. He had designed them for the Chixturax ship and knew they would do the job, if he could get them inside quickly enough. While the medpods were being built he flashed a warning to the MOBS at the dockyard, they went into high alert, moving into position in case the Administrator struck there. He called back his nanobots, pulling them from the Derelict compartments and infusing them into the armored platform his Core was housed in. Slater also tried to open a comm channel to Hixrax, he had to get the warning out the Chixturax.

“Slater, what can I do for you?” Hixrax asked.

“We got trouble. Administrator came in and demanded I stay indefinitely; he didn’t like it when I told him no. It looks like I may have to fight my way out of here, and I wanted to give your people a heads up,” Slater advised.

“What about our ships? They are not yet ready for departure,” Hixrax asked.

“No, but if he cuts us off from resources, I’ll start pulling material from the station itself to finish building them. It’s up to you, but I have a bad feeling about this and think that if you want to leave, you need to gather your people and head to the docks. My MOBS can handle most anything this station can throw at us and once my forces from the arena arrive, we’ll be well placed to hold off any of their security teams,” Slater said.

“I’m not sure my people will want to risk trouble with the station, especially if the ship isn’t ready yet,” Hixrax replied.

“That’s fine, I just wanted to give your people a heads up. Maybe once I depart, they’ll leave you alone, but who knows. This Administrator is kind of volatile, when I told him I wasn’t going to stay forever, he lashed out. I’m sorry to tell you he hurt your kids during our meeting. I have medpods to treat them, but you may want to make arrangements to get them home. There’s a good chance my trip to the dockyard is going to be a running gun battle,” Slater said. He was concerned over how Hixrax would react to the kids being hurt.

“I will try to meet you as soon as possible, please do what you can to supply medical treatment and keep them safe,” Hixrax said. For once, showing emotion that the translation protocol didn’t need to translate for him.

“I’ll do what I can,” Slater said.

The hatchway leading out of his Derelict was locked down, which was not entirely unexpected. It was heavily armored, but his construction drones had no trouble cutting their way through. Once the hatch was clear, he had his cyborks push out of the core room, protecting the passageway that led out of this section of the station. Slater wasn’t sure how many forces Administrator had at his disposal, but they would, no doubt, greatly outnumber his own.

His path out of the station wouldn’t be an easy one. He had never been given a map of the place, so he would be forced to follow the same path that he had used on the way to fight the Elgenflazzle. At least the pathway avoided major population areas and followed supply routes with wider passages and fewer obstructions. The downside was that there were several chokepoints that would make it easy for the station forces to defend. He doubted the station defenders had faced anything resembling a real battle, and they were about to find out that a Derelict’s MOBS were much tougher to stop than some rowdy visitors that had gotten out of line.

The medpods were complete and he had the construction drones place the kids inside. With a slight whirring noise, the medpods got to work. Initial diagnosis showed cracked and broken exoskeleton and some internal injuries. It would take time to heal them, and Slater wasn’t quite sure what do with them. If he left them here in the core room, there was a chance that Administrator might try to use them as bargaining chips. For now, he had some armor placed over the pods for protection and the armored boxes were placed on pallets that his construction drones could move when he left. The work drained his available salvage, but without worrying about any rules, his drones could pull as much as they wanted from the station itself.

Slater expected to face heavy resistance throughout their trip to the dockyard. There was no information on how large the station’s security forces were, but given the size of the place, they must be substantial. To provide recon for his move, Slater would have thirty stealthed bilge rats fan out as observers. The stealth rats had the added benefit in that they could detonate on any particularly juicy targets they found. Since this was like a military operation, he divided his MOBS up into squads, nine cyborks and a kobot for each squad and a total of five squads. His core was housed in a heavily armored case that made up his avatar project. After building a pallet lift for his core, a trio of construction drones would push it and the two medpods. To protect them, six gnomechs would march alongside as guards. On top of his armored case and on each of the medpods, kobot snipers would ride.

The total force was a bit less than he had already stuffed into his Derelict, freeing up some of his control limit which Slater used to reinforce the MOBS at the dockyard, giving them another squad of orcs with some kobots in support. He ordered a pair of bunkers to be built outside the hatchway leading to the dockyard, providing some advance warning and a chance to stop smaller forces before they could get inside where they might cause real damage to his ship. It took a little time to reprocess and rebalance his forces, but within ten minutes, Slater and his army of MOBS were ready to go.

“Slater, I have troubling news,” Hixrax said over comms while Slater began his journey to the docks.

“I don’t doubt it, tell me quick, things are about to get busy here,” Slater said, watching through the eyes of his MOBS as they made their way out of the arena zone using the supply corridors to avoid as many civilians as possible. Administrator must be planning something, since the normal guards in the area had all pulled back.

“The station has contacted the elders and convinced them to sign over rights to your core. Many of us objected to this move, but the elders said it was the only way to keep the people safe,” Hixrax told him. Slater expected this, since Administrator and warned he was going to press some legal advantage, not that the law on a space station meant anything to Slater.

“I already knew they were going to try; I hope you don’t think I’m going to complete your ship after all this,” Slater said, his attention diverted as a pair of dwarven guards blundered into his column of MOBS. They looked like they were on patrol and somehow hadn’t gotten the word that bad things were about to go down. His cyborks hacked them to pieces with their axes and the column continued its way toward the cargo elevators.

“It is understood, the Administrator has offered to finish the ship for us if we agree to his terms,” Hixrax said.

“They’ll be starting from scratch since I plan to strip it for resources. I have the kids in their medpods with me, can I drop them off somewhere, I don’t want them in the middle of a battle,” Slater said.

“Protected by you may be the best place for them, I fear for their safety back home, the station is demanding them as part of the deal, they intend to use them as leverage against you, I believe,” Hixrax said.

“I’ll take them to the dockyard, and you can meet us there if you want, but I can’t talk now, I’ve got a fight on my hands,” Slater said, cutting the connection.

His bilge rats had done their job, identifying a blocking force manning a barricade at the entrance to the cargo lifts. Slater wasn’t dumb enough to get on a lift where the station could easily drop him to his doom, but the stairwells were also in that spot, and he did need those to get to the dockyard. It looked like the station had gathered a couple dozen of their dwarven guards that were still constructing defenses. He had worried that the time to organize his forces would give the station an edge, but it appeared the forces her weren’t used to full mobilization. The only challenging part of the defenses in front of him was the heavy laser they had mounted behind the barricade, and in addition to their laser rifles, several of the dwarves were armed with anti-armor rockets.

They had been too busy to spot his bilge rats, but after this first surprise, it was going to be much more difficult for his scouts to move unnoticed. Just as his first squads turned the corner to the lifts, a dozen bilge rats detonated themselves among the station defenders. The dwarves manning the heavy laser were blown to pieces as four of the rats exploded right next to them. Over half the remaining defenders were cut down by the remaining blasts, the rest still alive thanks to their body armor.

Distracted by the exploding rats, the dwarves weren’t prepared as two squads of MOBS rushed toward the barricade, guns blazing. Kobots took down anyone who looked like they were going to still put up a fight, but for the most part, the dwarves broke and ran, leaving the exit clear. It was perhaps too easy of a fight, and Slater didn’t think that one puny barricade was all that Administrator would throw at him.

With the stairwell clear, Slater’s forces began their descent. It was a long way down to the level his dockyard was placed on, nearly at the extreme end of the station. They progressed down the first few levels with little trouble other than the occasional guard taking a pot shot at them from either above or below his group. At a couple of the larger stairwell landings, attempts were made to stop him, but the limited space allowed only a few guards to fire at him, and his kobots had no trouble picking off the enemy one by one. A quick rush by the cyborks would mop up any remaining defenders.

The station defenders changed tactics at that point, triggering hidden explosives at various points to pick off the lead elements of his forces. He lost several cyborks and kobolds to the improvised explosive devices, but the screen of stealth rats adapted and began to detonate any traps ahead of the main force. His number of stealth rats was steadily dropping and by the time he had reached the same level the dockyard was at; he was down to six of them. There was always the option to stop and print up some more, but with the enemy defense stiffening, even taking a few minutes to print up more scouts was too big of a risk. Instead, speed and violence of action was the plan.

As his troops left the stairwell, Slater looked out over the nearly abandoned section of the station. He didn’t see them yet, but he knew this was where the station forces would try to stop him. This level consisted of huge open compartments turned into city blocks of abandoned and dilapidated structures. From here, Slater could see the remains of the warehouses that he had fought the gnome in. There were lots of places for enemies to hide and he would be running a gauntlet of fire to make it to the dubious safety of his dockyard.

His remaining scouts spread out, trying to find where the enemy would make their stand. A few found observation posts, marking them for his snipers or gnomechs to take out. Two of his rats were spotted and taken out, but the rest began to swarm around some storage containers placed in an empty lot. As his lead squad advanced, the sides of the containers dropped, spilling out creatures that Slater had never seen before. Charging toward him were ten-foot-tall reptilian beasts with armor and tubes fused to their bodies. It looked like an amateur attempt to copy his cyborgs, and while the attempt may not have been very elegant, these things moved like lightning.

Whatever enhanced the monsters granted them improved speed, despite their size, allowing them to crush half his stealth rats before they could detonate. The few that managed to explode didn’t’ even slow the monsters, who ignored the bleeding wounds and charged toward his forces. To make matters worse, station security began to fire from nearby cover, laser blasts and anti-armor missiles rained down on his troops. Unlike normal troops, his MOBS didn’t get suppressed, and couldn’t be broken, they returned fire and began to engage the various enemies.

Slater wasn’t much of a ground pounder, most of his combat experience was inside a starship. One thing he did remember about ground combat was that when you found yourself in an ambush, blast your way out of the kill zone. Move and establish fire superiority was the name of the game and Slater had the perfect way to do both. Ordering the kobot on top of his container to jump off, Slater activated his avatar.

The bulky steel container that housed and protected his core began to shift, gears whirred and four oversized limbs, like those on his reaper drones unfolded to stand on the deck. His avatar’s body shifted into place; the overall look was almost like that of a tank turret on legs. From the front of his avatar, the twin barrels of a weapon extended and trained on the charging monsters. His avatar began to stomp its way forward, Slater’s core charging the weapons for their first strike.

Slater fired at the first monster closing in on his forces, a small hum was heard followed by the distinct twang of a railgun round firing. He had scaled down the point defense weapons he used on his ship, mounting them in the avatar as its primary weapon. Designed to destroy missiles and small starships, the twin railgun projectiles hardly slowed as they passed through the first creature, the energy of their passage tore the foe into a mess of bloody chunks. His shot wasn’t done yet, the weapons had been aimed by the Slater himself, with all the processing power of a Derelict core behind the targeting calculations. The two shots crashed into the remaining containers, shattering them and the creatures still inside before slamming into an abandoned warehouse, collapsing part of the wall that several station security were using as cover.

One shot had killed a monster and five security forces, and Slater was just getting started. While his railguns didn’t have anywhere near the cyclic rate of fire that a point defense weapon had, Slater could still fire every three seconds, so every three seconds enemies died. Armor, walls, and rubble used as cover meant nothing to his weapons, and Slater relished the feeling of being in complete control of his Avatar, it felt real, not like ordering or observing his MOBS.

Despite the carnage Slater was inflicting, the enemy forces didn’t relent, they had a huge numerical advantage, which resulted in the loss of MOBS at a disturbing rate. The cybernetic monsters he was facing were even worse, shrugging off shots from the lighter cybork weapons as they charged into melee with his lead squads. Metal reinforced claws tore through his MOBS, the cybork axes replying with deadly strikes of their own. Responding to the destruction Slater was causing, the remaining cyborgs charged directly at him, ignoring any other MOBS in their way.

His avatar was infused with nanobots, making it difficult for the claws of the attackers to do more than scratch the surface of his avatar. When the last of the swarm gathered to bite and claw at his avatar, Slater activated his next surprise. Small compartments opened all over the avatar, and the distinct curved shapes of mines were pushed forward. On command, dozens of mines fired off, blasting thousands of small metal balls through his opponents. Cybernetically enhanced or not, the beasts were shredded to pieces, eliminating one threat from the battlefield.

“Hey boss, that worked better than I thought, maybe you can make one of those avatar things for me?” Pixi asked.

“It’s one of a kind, only the entire core can drive it, you’ll have to stick with your rat for the time being,” Slater replied, pushing his force through the ambush. Without the melee attackers to worry about, his kobots and gnomechs were having a field day, blasting any foe that tried to fire on them. A couple squads of orcs swept the buildings in front of them, the close quarters fighting inside the maze-like structures was their specialty.

His forces weren’t without casualties, half the gnomechs were down, having attracted most of the attention of the anti-armor missiles. The cyborks were tough, but the enemy cyborgs and the fire from the buildings had reduced their numbers by half. Thankfully, the enemy seemed more focused on the targets firing back and the armored shells of the medpods took only a few stray laser blasts, none of which penetrated. His kobots had taken the least damage, with only two casualties, and thankfully, his construction drones made it out of the fight without a scratch.

The fight wasn’t over, but the once through the initial ambush, the station security forces thinned out and other than sniping, and action that usually went poorly for them given the kobots, the column pushed on without delay. Nearing the dockyard area, Slater could hear a fight going on. Leading the way in his avatar, Slater cleared the last warehouse and saw the hatchway leading into the dockyard. A group of dwarves were crouched down in some rubble firing laser rifles and the occasional anti-armor missile at the bunkers guarding the entrance. One bunker was a smoldering wreck, having received several direct missile hits, but the other was still putting up a good fight.

Slater didn’t hesitate, charging in with railguns blazing. It only took a couple of shots before the attackers broke, filtering their way back into the abandoned section of the city. A quick order to rebuild the bunker and replace his losses was sent out, with open conflict breaking out, he had nearly as much salvage as he could want, his drones would just cut away parts of the deck to get what they needed. Entering through the hatchway, Slater was shocked at what he saw in the dockyard. Hundreds of Chixturax were there, many laden down with belongings. It looked like things were going to get even more complicated.