Derelict 3, Chapter 10.

Chapter 10.

The new entry hatches opened, and a team of six dwarves crept into Slater’s first compartment. His view wasn’t that great inside the room, his nanobots were still working on permeating the place and he was forced to use the views of his various MOBS. These dwarves were well enough equipped, with one holding a disruption beam device and the others scanning the rubble filled room with their laser rifles as they made their way inside. The contestants divided into two groups each led by a burly dwarf holding an oversized riot shield.

“Look out!” One of the dwarves called out as a half dozen of Slater’s bilge rats charged from behind the crates where they had been hiding. The high-pitched snap of the laser rifles going off was met with squeals from the bilge rats. These Dwarves were no slouches when it came to hitting their targets. Only one of his rats made it into melee range with the dwarves, only to be gunned down before it could do any damage.

“Not quite the defense we were expecting,” one of the dwarves called as they looked around the compartment.

“What’s that?” Another dwarf called, catching sight of one of the small grenade rats at is crept up on them. The grenade rats were stealthy, and their fur blended in well with any background, but a sharp observer would be able to spot them. The dwarf got off a shot, the single beam easily killing the smaller rat. Unfortunately for the dwarves, they noticed the second grenade rat approaching from the other direction a bit too late. The boom of a grenade going off was followed by screaming and cursing from the dwarves. His rat had been forced to detonate too early and the dwarves were just outside the kill radius, but it was still close enough to pepper them with shrapnel.

“Get me a medkit, one of the dwarves shouted, looking down in shock as blood poured from several holes ripped into the body armor he wore. The other dwarves came to the rescue of their wounded comrade, pulling off his armor and placing large rectangular bandages onto the wounds. Slater was familiar with the treatment, the bandages were permeated with a concoction that would stop bleeding, prevent infection, and accelerate the healing process.

“You good to keep going?” The medic asked the wounded dwarf.

“Aye, need to make it further into the Derelict if we want to recoup our entry fee. Let’s see what the next compartment has for us,” the wounded dwarf replied. Slater was curious how their end of the financial transaction went. From what he had heard, it sounded like the contestants paid an entry fee, but how much that fee was and how much of a potential reward they could earn was a mystery.

The dwarves gave only a cursory check of the rest of the compartment, giving up after realizing the crates stacked around the place were just props and not stuffed with valuables. Did the other core shards or perhaps the administration hide valuables inside the Derelicts? He sure wasn’t going to give out any freebies, not with the limited salvage he was taking in. The dwarves also completely ignored the ruined reaper in the corner and passed it by without any reaction. They reformed behind the two shield bearing dwarves and when one of their team hit the hatch control, the damaged reaper came to life and opened fire.

With their shields facing the hatch, the dwarves were unprepared to be sprayed with fire from their flank and the reaper scored a few easy hits on the dwarf that had triggered the hatch. The armor piercing explosive rounds passed easily through the dwarven body armor and Slater could hear the dull pops as each round exploded inside the dwarf, dealing horrific and fatal wounds. The shield bearing dwarves reacted quickly, pivoting to face the reaper and provide some protection for their fellows who were even now returning fire.

His reaper fired off a few more rounds before the familiar blue beam of a disruption weapon hit the damaged mech, cutting its connection and silencing its weapon. The last few rounds from the reaper had destroyed one of the shields, driving fragments of it into the face of the hapless dwarf that had been holding it, causing the dwarves to again scramble to deliver first aid to a comrade.

Something strange happened when one of the dwarves started to take equipment and personal effects from the fallen member of their party. The red light that signaled the start of an incursion flashed and the dwarves looked as shocked and frightened as Slater was. Had there been some mistake and was there a second batch of invaders on their way?

Warning! It is not allowed to remove the fallen or any of their gear. This is your only warning. If you continue to violate the rules set for the in the contestant agreement, you will be excluded from any potential rewards and your license to compete will be revoked.

“Woah, it’s an honest mistake, we’re not trying to do anything wrong here,” one of the dwarves said.

“Wait, this is our kin, can’t I even take is personal effects back to his family? All I need is his family rune,” the dwarf that had been rummaging through his effects said. He held up a leather necklace that held a small carved rune.

“Nae, you daft fool, he shouldn’t have brought anything with him other than his weapons and gear. He knew as well as we do that the core shard keeps what it kills,” the dwarf with the final shield said, smacking the other on the side of his helmet.

“So, what do we do now, do we continue, or do we head back?” The shield bearing dwarf asked.

“We continue, I want to have something to give to his family,” the others agreed. They formed up and prepared to enter the next compartment.

Slater felt some regret over not being able to return the heirloom back to the family. It was a strange dichotomy, he had no qualms over killing the intruders into his Derelict, but he still felt sadness over a grieving family. He didn’t know if it was part of his being what he was that prevented him from feeling guilt at the killing he was doing, or was it that those being killed volunteered for the risk?

He thought about his old life, the one where he was flesh and blood as the battle for the crew compartment commenced. The dwarves finished clearing out the kobolds inside with little difficulty. The lack of cover and the limited weapons of his kobolds had led to their quick demise, but the dwarves didn’t escape without injury. Their last shield was a useless wreck after being hit with numerous laser pistol blasts and several of the dwarves were sporting new wounds from the firefight. None of them had died, but they were defiantly scuffed up pretty bad.

“Now we head back, agreed? The dwarf with the melted shield said, dropping the remains of the useless item onto the deck. The others agreed and the group announced their surrender, causing the restraint device to close over Slater’s core, necessitating that he quickly place all his forces to inactive status. As he had hoped, Slater finally felt like himself, power surged through his core as internal announcements began to pop into view. He was finally back to normal, well, as normal as a man transformed into a Derelict Core could be.

Core repairs complete.

Research nodes are unlocked and available for use.

Current Research: None

MOBS Capacity: 2%

Mana energy absorption commencing.

Mana: 0/1800.

Memory nodes have unlocked.

You have 1 urgent alert from an unlocked memory node.

“Okay, that’s much better,” Slater said.

“Agreed, I can assist a lot more now as well, but you really should take a look at our memory alert,” Pixi said. Slater paused for a moment, relishing his newfound power. Still, any alert he sent to himself would be important. Slater unlocked the memory node; it was the only one that hadn’t automatically opened. As the memory hit, Slater recalled why he had been anxious earlier, the feeling that something important was missing. It was Private Long and Harris! He had them in the escape modules and was protecting them after the destruction of the Franklin.

Slater could see it now as he recalled how he placed them into suspended animation inside the reinforced medpods. As resources ran low, he had been tempted, far too tempted to begin feeding on their life sustaining medpods. Before his nanobot numbers dwindled to almost nothing, Slater had cut them free, allowing the pods to slowly drift away from his core. Using most of his remaining salvage, he had built a small thruster on the pods and pushed them back toward the system that he had just drifted out of. According to his calculations, they would land on one of the moons inside the system, the location was etched into his memory.

With solar power as a backup energy source, the pods theoretically could be fine for hundreds or even thousands of years. His first order of business once his ship was ready would be to rescue the two hapless privates. How they would react to being asleep for a hundred years was unknown, but it was his duty to save them. Slater knew that neither of them were married, but they might still have living relatives out there. How they or their families would deal with them suddenly appearing after a hundred years was unknown, but the two privates were free to decide what they wanted to do with their lives at this point.

“We are going to rescue those two, right boss?” Pixi asked.

“Of course, that will be the new Franklin’s first destination after we leave Sarton Station,” Slater replied.

“Good, from what I found in your memories, those two were pretty good crew, but of course, the big question isn’t how the humans are doing. The big question is whether or not Mr. Hidey is still alive,” Pixi said. Slater didn’t honor that comment with a reply. The Pixi side of his mind was still going strong, even after repairs were complete. Now that he was back to full power with everything unlocked, Slater took time to do a full scan of his core, and once again, not a single hint of parasitic infection. Pixi seemed to have a mind of his own, even if he was actually part of Slater, but at least the voice in head didn’t seem to be a parasite.

“So, what do we research first?” Pixi asked.

“I want to start on MOBS upgrades right away but we also need to work on improving the design of the Franklin. I’m sure we’ll need plenty of ship upgrades, but we need to earn enough credits before construction can begin. Not only do we have to earn money, but I’m also really going to need more powerful MOBS if we want to put up a fight during a boarding action,” Slater said.

His prior research on kobolds had progressed the furthest of any of the races he had in his database. If anything, his Derelict created kobolds were better physical specimens than most of their natural born kin. To improve them further, he needed to go with something new, he needed to go with cybernetics to enhance them. What he would exactly unlock with this line of research was unknown, and without having Doctor Cheng assisting him, the research speed might not be all that fast. The rudiments of cybernetic enhanced MOBS were there, he had learned through trial and error how to bond the wrist blades to his kobolds, so at least the new enhancements wouldn’t be starting from scratch.

Current Research:

Cybernetic MOBS enhancement, subtype Kobold, 100%.

That was it, he pushed all his focus into improving his most advanced defenders. When he had tried to select cybernetic enhancements in general, he found that it was too broad a category. By narrowing it down to a specific race, he could sense the research progress would move much faster. Slater also hoped that completing research into one of his MOBS would lay the groundwork to make the others more efficient.

“Slater, you have done well in your last fight and it looks like we’re finally getting noticed,” Hixrax said, drawing Slater’s attention away from the early stages of planning the new Franklin.

“Thank you, I’ve had a breakthrough in repairing my core, so we should see more improvements in our MOBS here shortly,” Slater advised.

“Excellent, I’ll send over the latest rankings as well as the schematics for our ships now. Many in the hive are curious to see what you do with them,” Hixrax said. The data flowed through and then Hixrax cut the connection leaving Slater and Pixi some time to examine the data as his construction drones began the process of resetting the Derelict for the next contestants.

Sarton Station Ranking for the Chixturax core shard: 268/274.

Total views: 14298.

Victory/Defeat: 16/1.

Total kills: 120.

Favorite MOBS: Automated drones.

Fan favorite MOBS: Orcs.

Number of fan followers: 144.

Credits earned in last match: 396.

They needed to move faster, his need to complete the Franklin and rescue his abandoned soldiers was almost overwhelming. Now that Slater knew they were out there, he couldn’t stop thinking about them. To distract him, Slater took a close look at the ship designs that Hixrax had sent over. These were a set of detailed schematics on their largest class of ships. It looked like the Chixturax didn’t have specific civilian and military vessels. They instead tried make every ship a mix of the two types. That was bad news as far as Slater was concerned. Their oversized ships were large enough to serve as homes for some of the smaller hives, but they lacked the firepower of a warship even a fourth of their size.

To Slater, their ships looked like a giant manta ray, with a large cylindrical hull and huge wings sweeping out to provide more space to house their large populations. The protrusions in the front were reverse thrusters and the rear “tail” was where their sensor arrays were housed, a foolish design that was far too vulnerable to attack. An oversized flight bay at the bow of the ship allowed them to use the numerous shuttles that were housed aboard. Like the rest of the ship design, the shuttles were a blend of cargo transport and assault ship. The dual functions of their designs were inefficient, something the Chixturax had to have realized.

From the limited knowledge he had of the insect-like people, they were logical and methodical in their ways. That led Slater to believe there was some other reason for keeping ship designs that were hopelessly outclassed by most of the other hostile vessels they would come across. He had a bad feeling that there may be some cultural significance that kept them from adapting and improving this technology.

Digging deeper, it looked like the Chixturax had a more efficient reactor design than the one that Slater had been using, even if their propulsion system was subpar. Weapons were also weak, with them only carrying an array of smaller dual-purpose lasers and a few missile launchers. They could fight with their shuttle craft, each of which carried one of the same lasers as the main ships, but they had poor acceleration profiles and weren’t maneuverable enough to survive in a dogfight with a drone. In fact, other than repair drones, everything on the Chixturax ship required interaction by the crew. He would need to ask Hixrax about the reasoning for that on their next call.

For now, Slater would take and improve on some of the Chixturax technology, incorporating it into the ship he intended as the new Franklin. Gone were the small designs for destroyers, corvettes, and even battlecruisers. No, this time the Franklin would become a true battleship, the largest and most powerful ever seen by humanity. Ideas were already flowing, waiting to come to life as soon as the salvage and a place to build it was found.