Repel Boarders

by Dean Henegar

  “Lucky for us,” he continued, “the council frowns on adventuring crews that try to kill cores. The ones to watch out for are the more primitive spacefaring races and the pirate types. Some explorers may feel that they can hide from the wrath of the council or have the types of shady connections that would let them fence our core. The value of our core is enough to set an adventuring team for life. If any of these clowns show up, it’s game on. We can kill them and be as deadly as we want without repercussion.”

  Slater wasn’t looking forward to being attacked by murderous boarders, so he would do everything in his power to defend himself. The strange part was, he knew he should be aghast at what had happened to him, but he wasn’t. He was just taking everything in stride and accepting it like it was normal. How could it be normal for a man to transform into a reactor core that built creatures and traps to kill others? He didn’t know the answer to that, and in his new state of being, he found that he didn’t really care.

  — 5 —

  “So, the rats are dead. What’s our next step?” Slater asked, watching the drones working away to clear the room and process all the salvage and biomass inside.

  “We’re limited on options until we can gain control of the entire ship. For now, we have a whopping two compartments to our name, and this new one is going to be stripped down to bare walls once the drones get through with it. We need to have the whole joint under our control and permeated with nanobots before we unlock most of our options. For now, I suggest we make some MOBS or drones before trying to take the next chamber,” Pixi suggested.

  “That makes sense. The rats were a scare for sure. How do I make MOBS?” Slater asked.

  “Easy, just like you did with the drones. You should see a new menu open for creating MOBS. Since you unlocked the bilge rat pattern, the ability to construct them will also unlock. We can task MOBS to defend a specific room or order them to attack into areas outside our control.”

  Slater didn’t want to gain control of the next room only to have another swarm of rats take out his drones, so he checked out the MOBS menu for the first time and reviewed his current resources.

  Slater, Derelict Core, Level 0, Experience: 3/100

  Core Health: 5%

  Core Power: 5/10

  Biomass: 22

  Salvage: 37

  Nanobot Permeation: 10%

  Compartments Controlled: 2

  Defenses: None

  MOBS: 0

  Boss MOBS: 0

  Construction Drones: 4

  Schematics:

  Construction Drone, Level 1

  Bilge Rat, Level 0

  Time until next jump: n/a. Core needs to be fully repaired to begin the jump sequence.

  They had built up a decent supply of biomass and salvage, but the drones had harvested nearly everything they could in the room. He needed to make his resources go as far as they could while he tried to learn more about his new life. As a precaution, he decided to move a drone back into the core room chamber where the original drone had been stored. The drone would rebuild and harvest salvage if things went bad. He pulled up the MOBS menu to see about building some rats of his own.

  Mobile Offensive Battle Units

  Bilge Rat, Level 0: Basic combat unit. A poor choice at defense unless used in swarming tactics. It takes 5 units of biomass to craft a pair of these creatures. Each pair of bilge rats requires 1 core power to operate.

  Well, he had a choice of rats or more drones for defense. While he did get two rats with each batch, the drones still seemed a bit better to him. He decided to ask Pixi for his input.

  “Pixi, why would I build rats instead of more drones? The drones were more effective in combat despite the warning that they were poor at it.”

  “Oh, yeah, I can see how you would think that based on our last battle. Typically, you’ll unlock the lowest-level version of the things—in this case, rats. Over time as they fight, you will be able to glean more knowledge on that particular unit’s strengths and weaknesses. At some point, you’ll be able to upgrade them and improve on the original designs. While we can, we should improve our drone’s effectiveness at building and repairing things. We can’t improve on a drone’s combat abilities unless you find or download a schematic for a combat drone, something that’s very rare,” Pixi explained.

  “Okay, I suppose we’ll make a batch of rats and hope we can unlock some improvements for them down the road,” Slater replied. He looked at the menu and saw that he had five core power available, and with twenty-two biomass, he would craft four pairs of rats and use salvage to build a fifth drone. His core power was now maxed out, but he didn’t feel any different. As a test, he tried to order his drones to build another of their kind, throwing him over the limit. Pain, worse than any migraine he could imagine, lanced into his mind. After a few moments, the pain began to slowly subside, and a warning prompt appeared.

  Warning! Core power exceeded. Cutting core power to mob production as dictated by power triage guidelines. Damage to your core has been sustained. Repairs to your core are currently disabled. Core health is now at 4%.

  “Woah! What are you? Some kind of suicidal idiot?” Pixi chided. “The limits are there for a reason, boss. They prevent you from overloading and damaging your core. Next time, just let me know if you have a question about the limits and what might be dangerous.”

  “Hey, lay off, Pixi. It’s not like an owner’s manual came with my new life as a derelict, unless a parasite counts as one. How about instead of warning me afterward, you give me a heads up when something like this might happen? A simple ‘Hey, Slater, don’t go over your core power limit or your head will explode’ would have been nice,” Slater snapped back. He was distracted from the pain in his head and his frustration at the parasite when a new menu opened up for him.

  Core Power Triage Hierarchy

  1. Core functions (cannot be disabled)

  2. Construction drones

  3. Mobs

  When core power is unavailable, the lowest-level units on the hierarchy will be disabled until enough core power is freed up for continued operations. Going over your limit of core power will damage your core structure. Allocating core power to MOBS pulls them from your total available power, even if they haven’t been constructed yet. New items and abilities that are unlocked as your derelict grows will be placed at the bottom of the hierarchy unless specifically ordered into a new position.

  It looked like his automated systems would prioritize what was important to keep online if he lost core power somehow. The default made sense, and he kept it where it was. His core itself would be the highest priority because, without power to his core, he was dead. Having construction drones next would enable him to rebuild if everything else was destroyed. MOBS were important for defense but couldn’t make repairs or build others of their kind. He would have to fiddle with the settings when he unlocked more options, but for now, he left them alone. At the thought of new systems and MOBS, Slater could feel almost a hunger to acquire them. It was a strange feeling and not entirely natural.

  With his painful and potentially fatal lesson learned, Slater sat back to watch how his drones went about creating biologically based MOBS. One of the drones scuttled back to hide in his core room while another pair continued to process the last of the debris in the compartment. The remaining two drones moved to the center of the floor and began to make buzzing sounds while flailing about with their tools.

  Using the zoom feature of his new consciousness, Slater could see the drones were, in essence, printing out copies of the rats. Starting on the ground, the feet of the rats appeared as the drones printed them from the bottom up. Since they were printing the creatures inside a derelict, they were able to hold the body in a kind of stasis until it was complete. Once the finishing touches were done, the first pair of rats started scurrying about the room, taking in their new surroundings. Slater could feel a connection to the creatures, but instinctively, he knew he had limited control.

&n
bsp; “Nice work,” Pixi said. “The rats will default to defending the room until you send them somewhere else . . . like when you finally get around to permeating the next room with nanobots. You’ll notice the rats take power to run. Sure, they’re meat, bone, and other disgusting stuff, but inside the derelict, we can sustain them with the power you emit.”

  What Pixi said about the rats made sense; Slater had no way to feed any creatures he would create, so having his power keep them alive was efficient. The fact that he didn’t have to deal with their waste was another big bonus of using his own power for the rats.

  “What happens if the rats leave my area of influence?” Slater asked.

  “Your core radiates energy in levels powerful enough for your MOBS to function a short distance past the areas you control. Thanks to that, we can send the MOBS out to attack if we have to. They will eventually run out of stored power and plop down into a pile of goo if they go too far, so it’s best if you keep them close,” Pixi advised.

  “The other question I had was, what are these experience point things, and how did I get three of them? Also, how do we start repairs on our core?”

  “The experience points—or XP, as most folks like to call them—are a representation of how much you’ve learned and how effective you are as a derelict. As you fight things and overcome challenges, your power grows. Eventually, you’ll have enough power and knowledge to increase your core to the next level. Each level will unlock more powerful upgrades and allow you to make the ship larger. You have a few points from killing the rats, a small challenge and a correspondingly small reward,” Pixi told him.

  “What about the repairs to our core?” Slater asked again.

  “Nothing we can do about that right now. Until we control the entire derelict, the nanobots will ignore internal repairs. Once we’re in charge of everything, they’ll slowly repair the damage.”

  “Okay, let’s go ahead and take over the next compartment.” Slater started pushing resources into nanobot production. When he got to fifteen percent, he could begin to feel his control settle over the new space. It looked like five percent was the magic number to take over a compartment. Pushing his point of view into the new room, he could see that it was a narrow passageway. The previous compartments had been a uniform fifteen by fifteen feet in size. His new passageway was a five-foot-wide and fifteen-foot-long featureless corridor. The passageway featured several of the orange smiley face logos of the company that had originally owned the ship he once commanded.

  The four active drones—he was keeping the fifth inside his core room—moved into the passageway and gathered up the sparse debris. In total, there were only three units of salvage and no biomass in the hall. The rats rushed in as the drones were finishing up, sniffing about and checking out every nook and cranny of their newly expanded home before focusing on the hatch leading out of the hallway and into the unexplored portions of the ship. The hatches on his derelict each had a spinning wheel to seal them, almost like something you’d expect on a submarine. This wheel began to slowly spin, and his rats became more and more agitated.

  “Uh, Pixi, why is that hatch opening? Can’t we lock it?” Slater asked, starting to worry about whoever or whatever might be turning the wheel on the other side.

  “Oh boy, that means something that knows how to open a hatch is on the other side. To answer your question, no, we can’t lock them, either. Normally, we could place traps and stuff, but those types of defenses aren’t going to be available until you have control of the entire derelict. Looks like the rats are on the job, though. I hope they’re enough,” Pixi said, and Slater could detect the nervousness in his voice.

  They were both quiet as they watched the slowly spinning hatch wheel. It squeaked and appeared to stick at times, either a new design feature of the derelict or—as Slater really hoped was the case—the thing trying to open it was physically weak.

  With a final metallic clank, the wheel finished turning and the hatch began to open. There was silence as they waited, the rats crouching down on the floor near the hatch. Slater noticed a quick flash of motion as a reptilian head peeked into the room and then withdrew once it spotted the rats.

  Upon spotting their prey, the bilge rats went into a frenzy, charging into the next chamber through the cracked-open hatch. Hissing and the sounds of bodies flopping about emanated from the other room. A pained hiss cut off abruptly, and then came the sounds of meaty thumps as if something heavy was hitting flesh. The battle went on for quite a while as Slater and Pixi waited for the outcome. It was frustrating for the captain to be so close but unable to move his point of view far enough to see into the next compartment.

  The sounds eventually stopped, and after a few agonizing moments, a pair of bilge rats returned victorious from their fight. Both creatures were bloodied and battered, but they were still moving—albeit one was pulling itself on three legs; its right rear leg had been crushed by something during the fight. Slater knew these were just constructs, but he thought he detected a look of triumph on the face of one of the rats.

  “I think we won,” Pixi advised. “Don’t worry about the rats. Now that they’re out of combat, they pull energy from your core to heal quickly. It doesn’t cost us any resources or extra power, just a design feature of a creature created by a derelict. You should pump up nanobot production and take over the next chamber so we can recover all that biomass.”

  Slater funneled another five salvage into nanobot production, and slowly, the next compartment was added to the derelict. Once permeation was complete, he moved in to see what he was dealing with. This compartment was bigger than the others; its area comprised a thirty-by-thirty-foot square. The nature of Slater’s new existence and his connection to the nanobots enabled him to exactly calculate the size. His new compartment was another hybrid. It contained the half of the mess hall with two of the food dispensers and the three tables for crew seating. One of the tables in the middle of the room was neatly sliced in half, its stainless-steel surface shining where the cut had been made to join the two halves of the room together.

  The second half of the room was, curiously enough, his captain’s cabin. Slater could see his bunk and desk. The drawer from which he retrieved his pistol when the enemy boarded the Franklin was still open. The captain looked longingly at the few personal items he had in the room. There was a framed picture of the first ship he ever commanded—the wet navy coastal patrol craft Sampson—and his collection of tour patches showing all the ports and places he had visited over the course of his naval career.

  “Hey, bud, not a good time for wistfully reminiscing about your old life. There could be more hostiles nearby. Something tells me these kobolds weren’t alone,” Pixi said, snapping him from his reverie.

  On the floor of the new compartment were the bloodied remains of a pair of four-foot-tall reptilian humanoids. These were the kobolds that had attacked the Franklin. He hadn’t ever seen them during the battle, having pushed the self-destruct button before they cut through into the reactor room. These didn’t look at all like an advanced spacefaring race. The kobolds were dressed in rags and held makeshift weapons in their clawed hands. One kobold held a club made of a leg from Slater’s own desk while the other was armed with a sharpened piece of scrap metal.

  The kobolds had gashes and chunks torn from their bodies, victims of the bilge rats’ razor-sharp teeth. Scattered about the pair of kobolds were the six rats that had been killed in the fighting. Slater ordered the drones to begin processing everything in the room. This new compartment looked like it would contain a good haul of salvage and biomass for his growing derelict.

  “Hey, Pixi, why were the kobolds still alive after over a hundred years, and where is all their gear? These guys built and crewed a starship that defeated all five of the ships in my fleet. Why do they look like homeless lizards?” Slater asked.

  “Like the rats earlier, these guys were likely grabbed up in the creation of the derelict. They would have been in stasis du
ring that time and would be stripped of any nonorganic matter in the conversion. When you awoke, it must have also awakened them like it had done for the rats. Since they’re larger and more intelligent, the kobolds took a bit longer to come to. Once awake, they would have gathered any weapons or clothing they could find. Hence the prison shank and table leg club,” Pixi advised.

  While Pixi was explaining his theory on the origins of the kobolds, Slater had the reserve drone from the reactor room come in and grab the picture and patch collection, then ordered it to mount both keepsakes near his core. Slater had felt himself drifting, becoming more and more like the derelict and less and less like the man he once was. This existence was new, but he would try his hardest to hold onto at least some of his original humanity.

  “Why are you wasting your time with that junk? Let the drones salvage that. Every bit is important, you know,” Pixi argued.

  “My stuff, my choice, Pixi. These things are staying in the reactor room,” Slater ordered, hearing the grumbling of Pixi in the back of his mind. Was this parasite really giving him good advice? He seemed to always push Slater away from his old self and toward falling into the role of an uncaring derelict.

  New MOBS Schematic Unlocked:

  Kobold, Level 1: Requires 5 biomass and 1 power per unit.

  New Weapon Schematics Unlocked:

  Club, Level 0: Basic bludgeoning weapon that can be used by any humanoid species. The club requires 1 salvage to craft.

  Dagger, Level 0: This weapon is essentially a sharpened piece of scrap metal. Functional in a pinch if there are no other weapons available to the user. The dagger requires 1 salvage to craft.

  “Hey, nice work, boss. These kobolds are better than the rats, even if you can only get one instead of a pair of them for each point of power. We should print up a couple as soon as we have enough biomass,” Pixi suggested.