Repel Boarders

by Dean Henegar

  Slater decided to change out his MOBS a bit, opting to go with a total of eighteen kobolds, eight pairs of bilge rats, two taskmasters, and finally his kobold captain boss. In addition, he added two more drones, maxing out his available power. He ordered the new force to be printed up in three groups. The first group consisted of five kobolds and four rats, all led by one of the taskmasters. They would start out in the hallway with the cargo containers and would be ordered to fall back to the mess hall if pressed too hard by their enemies. The second group consisted of eight kobolds, four bilge rats, and a taskmaster. They would be assigned to the barracks room that had so effectively defended against the first swarm. Finally, the boss with five kobolds and eight rats would defend the bridge as a last stand.

  Each of the first two groups of defenders would be printed by their own pair of drones. He kept his last drone back in the bridge area to print up the two new drones before it began working on the remaining MOBS for the bridge compartment. The survivors from the first fight consisted of the boss, three kobolds, and two very wounded rats. The wounded were slowly healing under the energy of his core and would hopefully be back in fighting shape by the time any foes reached them.

  Once the two new drones were completed, Slater would send them out to gather resources. He had the resource-gatherers start with the boarding hatch compartment and garbage rooms before working their way back to the bridge. He knew the drones would waste time walking all the way to the farthest area of his derelict to start harvesting, but he wanted to make sure he didn’t leave any resources close to the entrance, where the admiral might have some way of recovering them.

  While the drones went to work on rebuilding his forces and harvesting biomass, Slater took a look at the second message he had received. He interfaced with the comm array and noted that, somehow, an automated data burst was sent from his derelict toward a specific point in the system. The burst had been sent when he completed the transmitter, and the message went during the initial powerup of the system, which hid its existence from Slater. He couldn’t crack the encryption, but he was able to read the reply message, which was sent in plain text.

  Derelict designated 762h2 is in violation of the council-derelict agreement. A level 1 sanctioned disposal team will be formed and sent to remove this defective unit.

  Just as Pixi had warned, a kill team was on its way.

  — 15 —

  Slater sat frozen in panic for a long while. Thankfully his drones continued to do their duty, printing out new MOBS and gathering the waiting biomass. He didn’t know how long he had to live or even what exactly a kill team was. Resisting the urge to ask Pixi, he decided to act on something he could control—finally destroying the deadly parasite.

  With nothing to go on other than the admiral’s claims, Slater looked for a way to free himself. He focused internally and could see his connection to the entire derelict, including—of course—his core. The tiny black dot that was Pixi was still there. He zoomed in on the parasite and could see that the symbols representing the firewalls he had built to contain the little monster were still in place. Unfortunately, a thin tendril here and there had snaked past his defenses and were slowly corrupting and consuming his core.

  It was as the admiral described, and he had to stop it if he didn’t wish to lose himself to madness as his former leader had done. Concentrating first on one of the tendrils, Slater zoomed his perception in far enough to see the parasite’s actions. The tendrils sent out small shoots, the ends of each slowly eating away at his core. Pixi was taking it slow, trying to avoid notice until it was too late, but Slater had noticed, and he was ready to fight.

  The area of his core around the tendrils changed as Slater ordered it to break down the material near it. The black tendril fought back, seeking to burrow past the small section of his core that was slowly breaking down the corruption. Pixi’s attempts failed as Slater changed more of the core energy around the parasite into a form that broke down the corrupting monster into his component molecules. The parasite screamed in his mind, railing against the doom closing in around him.

  The corruption shrank, molecule by molecule. Pixi fought hard, but Slater could feel the resistance weakening from the creature. The more he dissolved of Pixi, the easier it became. In what seemed like days but was in fact only a few minutes, the last of the parasite was consumed. Still worried, Slater spent more time scanning his core, looking for any hint of remaining corruption. Thankfully, he found none.

  “Good riddance, little parasite,” Slater muttered to himself, feeling truly free for the first time. No voice scratched at the back of his mind; there were only his thoughts. But . . . was he now mad like his admiral? He didn’t think so, but then again, neither had the admiral. She was convinced she was sane and that her plan to consume everything was righteous. The fact that Slater wanted to help humanity, not consume it, confirmed that he was still of sound mind . . . didn’t it?

  Forcing himself back from his introspection, Slater prepared for the oncoming battle. If the need to rid himself of the parasite hadn’t been so urgent, he would have postponed freeing his core from the deadly creature. Being distracted by Pixi when the next attack occurred would have been a disaster.

  Slater started his preparations by checking on the research that had been chugging along during the attack. Laser weapons research was still processing, the progress currently at thirty-six percent. Natural weapons level 1 had completed, and clothing level 2 was at twenty-nine percent. Slater activated the natural weapons upgrade and examined his MOBS. The level 0 upgrade for natural weapons hadn’t had a noticeable effect on his kobolds; the level 1 upgrade was more pronounced. His kobolds now had actual claws that looked effective—but they still weren’t nearly as dangerous as the ones on the admiral’s defiler kobolds. The longer claws didn’t seem to interfere with the kobolds’ weapon-handling, something he worried about when he first saw the upgrade.

  The main beneficiary of the upgrade once again was his bilge rats. The rats’ claws had grown into formidable weapons, but the critters’ jaws were the big surprise. Slater watched as one bilge rat nipped at another, a common behavior with the rats and one that was just a playful activity for the beasts. What surprised him wasn’t the large fangs; the surprise happened when the rat’s open mouth revealed a second row of teeth behind the first. Like a shark, his rats could now shred the flesh of their opponents once they grabbed on.

  With a freed-up research point, Slater decided to place it into level 1 bio-implants. He looked longingly at the empty lab experiment chamber. Slater really wanted to work on creating new MOBS variants but couldn’t waste the time or resources on it just yet.

  He noticed that since the destruction of Pixi, he felt like a weight had been lifted; the parasite had been constantly draining away part of his energy. A quick look at his power levels confirmed it. His core power had increased from forty-five to fifty; the little monster had been holding onto five of his precious core power. Without the parasite, he could have crafted more MOBS to resist the initial invasion, saving him a lot of hassle.

  Speaking of more MOBS, Slater worked on putting his newfound power to use. With some tinkering, he was able to come up with another full group of MOBS. He maxed out his power once more by queuing up a taskmaster, two kobolds, and a pair of rats. Slater didn’t know if the admiral would give him enough time to complete his additional forces. There was always the possibility that she had unlocked some way to produce MOBS at a faster pace than he could. In order to have the resources to print weapons and clothing for his kobolds, he was forced to reprocess the remaining traps in his derelict. Once victorious, he should have more than enough resources to beef up his fixed defenses.

  Motion at the boarding hatch caught his attention. The defilers were dropping down into his ship once again. The invaders charged forward at a rapid pace; this time, they wouldn’t face any opposition until they reached the cargo hall. The drones in the cargo hallway hadn’t had time to finish printin
g up replacements. Thankfully the drones were prioritizing the most powerful MOBS first. They had completed a taskmaster and three kobolds, who were even now preparing to face off against the defiler horde . . . only the horde wasn’t quite a horde this time. Whereas before the mass of creatures had filled his boarding hatch chamber, he now counted just over forty defilers in the attacking force, much less than in the initial wave. It appeared that the admiral didn’t have a limitless amount of resources and was now scraping the bottom of the barrel to continue her assault.

  After sending the drones back into the safety of the core chamber, Slater ordered his first group of kobolds to fall back and join their brothers in the barracks room. The drones in the barracks room had completed a taskmaster and four kobolds before the invasion commenced. The strange restriction of not being able to make more MOBS while invaders were on his ship was still in place. While he had been able to force the shackles that bound his MOBS to their assigned chambers, it looked like he was unable to rewrite certain programming—at least for now.

  The bridge had nearly a full complement of MOBS, despite only one drone working on them. The kobold captain, three kobolds, and a pair of rats had survived the initial assault, and the lone drone was able to print out two more kobolds before the invasion had started up again. Slater contemplated sending his bridge crew to join the other forces in the barracks, but instead, he chose to keep them back in order to provide cover for his other kobolds, should they need to retreat.

  The group in the barracks room was able to expand the barricade to accommodate all nine defenders. The horde of defilers made its way to the barracks room without taking any losses, as all the traps had been broken down into salvage. There would be no slow whittling down of the enemy on this attack, only one or two large fights to determine which derelict lived or died. When the defilers finally opened the hatch to the barracks, a steady volley of laser fire greeted them. The two taskmasters and five of the seven kobolds had laser rifles. The remaining two kobolds held their blunderbuss fire until ordered to fire by a taskmaster.

  When the horde pushed through the withering fire and finally reached the barricade, Slater ordered his forces to fall back to the bridge compartment in order to concentrate all his firepower in one place. The time it took for the defilers to climb over the barricade allowed the kobolds to fall back without any casualties. Slater had set the door as easy to open for his own minions, rapidly switching it back to hard before the defilers could get there. The kobolds sorted themselves out for the coming fight, the kobold captain ordering them to the positions he wanted them to occupy.

  The laser-armed kobolds were stationed behind the bridge consoles. A total of eleven of his MOBS were armed with laser weapons—twelve actual laser weapons when considering the captain’s dual-wielded pistols. With that many weapons in the mix, the kobolds would be able to keep up a constant fire on the enemies when they entered the chamber. The pair of kobolds with the blunderbuss weapons were placed off to the side of the laser-wielding kobolds, giving them good fields of fire without any risk of hitting friendlies. The remaining pair of rats were positioned halfway between the door and the laser-wielding kobolds, ready to slow the enemy as much as possible.

  The defilers cranked open the squeaky hatch and poured into the room. For several moments, the laser fire picked off each defiler trying to enter. When a large group broke through at the same time, Slater’s rats engaged, shredding with their newly improved teeth. The first of the blunderbuss kobolds was then ordered to fire, dropping a pair of defilers. The kobold tossed aside its empty weapon, drew its knife, and ran to assist the rats in holding back the line.

  Another boom sounded as the remaining blunderbuss’s fire swept the hatchway clear of invaders. After that, the fight turned into a relatively easy affair. Laser fire back in the barracks room had dropped at least ten of the defilers, and the remaining thirty-plus attackers had lost another dozen of their number before they even reached the rats. The blasts of the blunderbuss weapons had knocked down big groups of defilers, giving the laser-wielding kobolds the time needed to pick off what remained as they rushed the bridge. With only the loss of the knife-wielding kobold and the valiant pair of rats, the admiral’s second wave was defeated.

  Slater sent his drones back to work and the MOBS back to their assigned compartments. The admiral had just gifted him the biomass from another forty defilers, giving Slater an ample reserve. By all appearances, the admiral’s force was spent and her own derelict open to invasion. He took the time necessary to print up all his forces before moving them toward the boarding hatch.

  During his preparations to take the fight to the admiral, the laser weapons upgrade completed. The rifles’ recharge times were slightly better, and they had a more efficient sighting system. His forces should now have an increased rate of fire as well as a higher hit percentage. The clothing upgrade to level 2 didn’t give him the hoped-for armor, but it did lead Slater to believe he was on the right path. The level 2 clothing version included a sturdy coverall with boots and gloves. His kobolds gained greater resistance to extreme temperatures and minor protection from physical damage, which he supposed was armor of a sort. He took his free research points and dropped one into each of his two traps, anticipating that he would soon have salvage to spend on them.

  With everything in place and his numbers at full strength, Slater switched his MOBS over to offensive mode. One of the taskmasters took a small group of kobolds up into the admiral’s derelict. After finding no resistance in the entrance hatchway, they motioned for the others to join them. Great at leaping down from a high area, his rats were unable to climb the ladder into the admiral’s derelict and required a boost to get up the stairway. Once the rats were aboard, his army of MOBS began its assault—out of his view and on their own.

  Slater couldn’t see into the other derelict. Even though his MOBS were in there, his nanobot sensor network wasn’t. Due to what Slater assumed was the proximity of two vessels to each other, he could vaguely feel where his forces were on the admiral’s ship. His MOBS moved down the first row of seven compartments that comprised half of the admiral’s derelict. He could sense when his MOBS were killed. At first, it was a pair of rats and a single kobold. There was no way to know what his MOBS were encountering, but the rapid nature of the loss led him to believe it was a trap of some sort.

  His MOBS crossed over to the second set of seven compartments and pushed on. First one and then another of his kobolds fell—far fewer losses than he had been expecting. All in all, the invasion hadn’t taken that many casualties until they reached the final compartment before the core room. The final room must be where the admiral had placed her boss creature. Nothing other than standard defilers were on his vessel, so that meant any boss or upgraded MOBS that his opponent had developed were still on board her derelict. His rats were taking a beating, and then kobolds started to drop. A taskmaster fell, and then the fight must have ended since no more losses were occurring.

  His MOBS moved to the final compartment of the admiral’s derelict. A couple of kobolds fell before Slater felt a rush of energy hit him. The admiral’s core had been breached, and all the power she had gathered was now his. Slater’s core drank in the released energy even as his nanobots went into overdrive to absorb resources from the admiral’s derelict. His MOBS returned and the drones began to print up replacements for his losses.

  His nanobots now faced no opposition and began to pull material from the admiral’s derelict in earnest. They were working much faster than they would when a ship full of explorers was docked to his hatch, but the process was still much too slow for Slater’s liking. Impatient to have all the resources he could gather, he sent in five of his drones to assist in the salvaging efforts. The drones were able to carve off large chunks of the vessel, then drag them back inside his own ship to be broken down into their component parts, which the nanobots inside his vessel easily absorbed. It was still a bit cumbersome but worked faster than just waiting
for the nanobots at the hatchway to do their thing. After canceling the reprinting of a kobold and two pairs of rats, he ordered the construction of three more drones, bringing his drone total up to ten. The newly produced drones were then ordered to join the others in stripping down his prize.

  The admiral’s energy continued to flow into Slater, the breach in her core functioning like a leak and not an explosion like he had suspected it might. During the process of absorbing her energy, Slater began to pick out snippets of the admiral’s memory. He saw her battle of wills with the parasite inside her core; she had pushed the creature back and trapped it much like he had done in his initial fight with Pixi. Admiral Lopez had recovered from the derelict transformation more quickly than him. While both of their ships had been completely destroyed in the battle, the parasite infesting the flagship was more capable and aggressive than Pixi. She discovered that the parasite hadn’t been contained on her vessel due to her parasite’s overly aggressive nature. Once she had discovered it, the admiral fought hard, eventually destroying the creature but losing far too much of her own self in the process.

  The admiral was overcome by the base desires of a derelict—desires that even now swirled in the back of Slater’s mind and sought to control him. Her true derelict nature came to the fore and overrode what was left of her humanity. In her descent into madness, the admiral sought to hold onto anything of herself that she could, eventually latching onto her deep-seated desire to help humanity. Her madness twisted that desire into a goal to bring peace by consuming any in her path. Two of the small kobold ships, like the one that boarded his derelict, had arrived to search for loot. She ruthlessly killed the kobolds and pulled as much from their hulls as she could before the ships fled.