Derelict 3, Chapter 22.

Chapter 22.

The debris remaining inside the dockyard was sparse, most of it had been sucked out when the gnomes destroyed the airlock. Thankfully, they had enough funds to bring in fresh salvage, even though prices continued to increase as sellers realized that the Chixturax were buying whatever they could find. When the first loads of salvage arrived, Slater’s pair of construction drones began to rebuild the airlock, pausing now and again to print up another construction drone to aid their efforts. The shipyard was attached to a large warehouse building that Slater intended to turn into a veritable fortress with bunkers, mines, and MOBS to defend his work.

Inside the Derelict, Slater had reset everything and waited to see what the station would throw at him next. Since there was minimal risk of his core being destroyed in the immediate future, Slater scaled back the difficulty by swapping out several cybernetically enhanced MOBS with their normal versions. Research continued to refine his ship designs and improve the internal systems for both the Franklin and the still unnamed Chixturax ship.

The second pass of research on his gnomechs completed, giving them a tad more accuracy and speed. They also unlocked additional weapon types to mount on their platforms. He now had the choice of mounting a heavy machinegun, a flamethrower, or a grenade launcher. To improve their survivability in close combat, Slater had command detonated claymore mines attached to the hull of the gnomechs, allowing them to cut down anything or anyone that got too close.

Further refinements of his Avatar last ditch defense plan were made, including a new weapon system he would try to scale down for his other MOBS eventually. Should a hostile enemy make it into his core room, Slater would be ready. Another group of challengers went through his Derelict while Slater focused on research and shipyard construction. This was a group of the hyena-like gnoll creatures, they made it to the chow hall before calling it quits, losing two of their party of six. The attempt didn’t budge his rankings that much, but from what Slater gathered, he was beginning to draw the attention of more popular challengers, which would improve his ranking and more importantly, his income.

“Hey Slater, you’re spinning your wheels here with the research. Sure, we’re making things better, but how about we try and get some new schematics to peruse? That might really speed things up for us and give your processor something more to chew on instead of figuring things out from scratch,” Pixi asked. It was a good idea and Administrator said that almost any kind of information could be found on Sarton Station, for a price.

“Let me try to get ahold of Hixrax, maybe he can buy what we need. I think anything we can find on ship’s systems would be good, we gathered a lot of information in our earlier fights, but we haven’t faced even a small fraction of the spacefaring races out there,” Slater said, hitting the comm link for his Chixturax contact.

“Slater, is everything well?” Hixrax said, a worried tone in his voice.

“Don’t worry, there’s no problem, I just wanted to see what we could do about finding new schematics to improve our systems,” Slater said.

“It depends on exactly what you’re wanting. Most businesses on the station have access to a purchasing interface. Let me see about getting one installed in your core room. That way you can peruse the offerings,” Hixrax said.

“Excellent, but will I need to contact you every time I want to buy something from the interface? Waiting for the elder’s approval on every purchase isn’t going to be very efficient,” Slater asked.

“I can see about getting a portion of the arena income placed into an account for your use. Any information you purchase can be directly downloaded, but physical items will be sent to Ixlab’s shop and then we can forward them over to you. Understand that the elders will not want to delay construction for a shopping spree, so the funds allocated will be limited,” Hixrax replied.

“I’m not going to be buying souvenirs, I’m going to be buying schematics and items to improve our ships,” Slater retorted.

“Understood, but what you have already designed is sufficient for our needs. Improvements are always welcome but leaving this place on our own hive ship is the most important thing for my people. We can see that our dream will become reality soon, and that has made our people almost as impatient as kobolds,” Hixrax said.

“I get it, see what you can do to get that interface in here as soon as possible. Don’t worry, I don’t intend to stay aboard this station any longer than necessary,” Slater said, thinking once again about the two privates that might still be out there in space waiting for rescue. The odds of them still being alive after all this time were low, but he owed it Long and Harris to make the effort.

Several groups passed through his Derelict over the next few days and Slater could tell these groups were better prepared. The higher ranked challengers were balanced groups with enough members to handle anything a core could throw their way. They proceeded methodically through his defenses and seemed to realize when things were becoming too difficult for them, most opting to halt their attempt before a single casualty. Despite the improved challenger quality, none had made past the labs yet, leaving his most powerful compartment unknown to attackers.

The improved challenger pool allowed Slater to begin upping the difficulty, reversing his earlier decision as he slowly replaced what Pixi called the meat-based MOBS with their cybernetic versions. During this time, credits rolled in at a decent pace and his rankings climbed. Salvage also poured into the dockyard, allowing him to replace the damage caused by the gnome raid while at the same time reinforcing his defenses.

The cargo bay that the dockyard was placed in was now covered by a trio of bunkers that were each manned by a pair of kobot snipers and a cybork manning a heavy machinegun. Two gnomechs, one with a heavy machinegun and the other with a grenade launcher, patrolled near the airlock, ready to unleash their impressive firepower against any intruders. With each new load of salvage that arrived, Slater would improve his defenses. Next on the agenda would be another pair of kobots inside concealed sniper nests welded to the ceiling. A squad of ten cyborks would also be added to the Chixturax area of the station, functioning as guards for any shipments of salvage that were sent to the dockyard. When the gnomes realized their initial target was well protected, they would inevitably look to cut off his supply by attacking the salvage deliveries.

Alongside the long pier jutting into space, two very different ship hulls began to take shape. Slater had completed the necessary research to make them both the best of their class, and every hour that passed, more research was completed to improve their performance. An armored shipsuit was created for the strangely shaped Chixturax, giving them some protection in a fight, while Slater also performed a few improvements on the small arms he had made for his new friends. Hixrax had found a couple of old dwarven soldiers who were willing, for a large pile of credits, to train them in basic military tactics. Slater hoped some of the bugs would stand out as good soldiers and could for a core group of defenders who could train the rest of their crew once they sailed from the station.

With the critical systems designed and his MOBS updated, Slater pushed all his processing power into developing drones for his ship. He wanted a long-range attack option other than missiles, and drones would give him exactly what he needed. Before he got too deep into his own drone design, Slater wanted a peek at what was already being used. Time had passed and even thought the alien races were reluctant to advance their military tech, humans must have developed something truly impressive by now. A Chixturax worker had finally dropped off the purchase interface and his drones were even now installing it near his core.

“It’s time, boss, do you want me to peruse our options, or do you want the honors?” Pixi asked as Slater looked at the purchasing interface. It was easy enough to link to the device, even if the menu system was a bit disorganized in his opinion. Slater wanted to focus on the shipyard and Derelict, it might just be better to have the Pixi fragment do the digging on this, if nothing else, it might keep him quiet for a bit.

“Go for it Pixi, we’re looking for anything about earth and humanity. I want to know what’s been going on while we’ve been gone. Other than that, look for any ship or weapons schematics we don’t have yet. Prioritize any remote assault drones, as well as ways to extend signal ranges. You also need to find out more about these Elgenflazzle gnomes, I want some payback. It looks like Hixrax has linked an account to our purchase interface and we have just under 500 credits to spend, do what you can with that,” Slater said.

“Got it, this should be fun,” Pixi said. It was strange, Slater could feel that fragment of his mind go off on its own, working on the task at hand. He wasn’t sure how he liked having Pixi inside his head, but he was finally convinced it wasn’t a deadly parasite and was indeed something of his own creation.

“Woah, that’s weird,” Pixi said.

“What’s weird?” Slater asked.

“Well, first I filtered out anything we couldn’t afford, then I started digging into information on humanity. I got a couple of historical summaries downloaded for cheap, but they were written by other races, so who knows how accurate they are. When I started digging deeper, the prices skyrocketed on anything remotely interesting. I did snag some early drone schematics from the gnolls and some newer stuff from the orcs. Their gear is just a step above garbage, but it will at least give us a starting point,” Pixi advised.

Slater dove into the human histories, the first was written by a gnomish scholar and was laughably biased and incorrect. Despite all the chaos in the galaxy, Slater was confident that humans did not capture at eat the young of other races to inflame their bloodlust in battle. The other entries were less detailed, but when he cross referenced them all, it did appear that humanity had done what Slater had feared. They had fallen back into warfare with each other and weren’t prospering and expanding throughout the galaxy like he hoped they would.

The direct threat to human space was limited, other than border skirmishes, the other races seemed to leave humans alone after the destruction of the council. At least the council didn’t seem to be a threat anymore, the data he had confirmed what the Chixturax kids had told him. There was no information on any tech advances that humanity had made, and the other races seemed to have continued their lethargic pace of innovation. Just like humanity, the other races appeared content to bicker among themselves and other than an occasional group feeling the need to conquer something adjacent to their local territory, the borders remained stagnant.

The drone schematics that Pixi had scrounged up were some older designs from the gnolls. They were bulky, inefficient, and didn’t pack much of a punch, but it gave him some ideas. The one orc schematic they had been able to snag was geared more toward the drones being used as an extended point defense weapon. Like the gnoll designs, they were inefficient and crude, despite being recently developed. It was a slapdash attempt to negate the powerful missile volleys that human ships could dish out.

Slater’s drone research took a big leap forward with the acquisition of the schematics, but it would be a while before it was done. In the meantime, he took a look at his latest rankings, a steady income would be crucial to building his ships on time.

Total views: 7,127,638

Victory/Defeat: 25/1.

Total kills: 321.

Fan favorite MOBS: Gnomech.

Number of fan followers: 18.964.

Credits earned in last match: 9,244.

They weren’t making as many credits as they had in the big match against the gnomes, but from what the Chixturax had told him, that match was heavily advertised by the station due to the unusual hostility of the gnomes. His Derelict was drawing the more experienced and popular contestants, the only downside to that was the increased time between battles. The lower ranked contestants knew that Slater was deadly, and they were staying away. Pixi had done as well as he could with the credits they had been allocated, but the money had run out before he could find information on the gnomes. Maybe the Chixturax could do some legwork on that for him?

“Uh, boss, some direct transmissions from human warships were just offered for sale, they’re cheap, way cheaper than they ought to be, and well, you’re going to want to see this,” Pixi said.