Chapter 19. Open Fire.

“How long until we can see exactly what this is?” Watkins asked.

“It shouldn’t be too long, your sensor net is degraded, and you haven’t unlocked all the information in your database about the system and potential threats, so it will need to be fairly close to get exact identification on the object,” LANI explained.

She was right, he did feel rather incomplete, a feeling that was oddly growing as he integrated more and more of the ship. It was like the more of his ship that Watkins gained control over, the more he could realize its deficiencies. He could deal with the deficiencies later, for now, he wanted the entire ship under his control, as well a way to handle with the object heading toward them.

While they waited to identify the object, Watkins pulled his drones off salvage duty and tried to assign them all to the point defense laser. As the drones arrived at the laser, he soon realized that you could have too many chefs in the kitchen. The drones were getting in each other’s way and causing more problems than they were fixing.

After a few seconds of tinkering, it turned out the optimal number of drones working on the laser was three. The other drones he ordered to made sure the chunk of salvage impaling the ship was secure. He didn’t want to lose it if that unknown object slammed into them.

Once that was done, the drones gathered, along with his surviving mutant rats, into a rapid reaction force. Half positioned themselves in the reprocessor room, and half with the fabricator. If they were all in one place and the hull was breached, he stood to lose all his defenders.

Watkins adjusted his maneuver thruster several times, trying to buy extra time for his drones to work. A strange feeling hit as the point defense laser came online. There were still several faults showing with the weapon, but the drones were on the case. It should be less than a minute before the weapon was ready for him to fire if need be.

“Look at that, it appears that object is the aft end of our ship. Oh, that’s not good,” LANI said, drawing Watkins’ attention away from the laser repairs. He could see it, a large chunk of the aft section, including the one of the thruster nozzles from the main drive. A maneuver thruster, still operational, was glowing with an odd, green power signature. It provided enough thrust that the chunk of debris could remain on an intercept course.

It wasn’t the engine or the collision course that had drawn LANI’s concern, it was what Watkins could see growing throughout the wreckage. Another of the void creatures, larger than the one he’d recently defeated, had somehow integrated itself into the wreckage of his vessel. Having a chunk of his engine compartment wasn’t enough, the monster was coming not just for Watkins’ core, but also for the rest of his ship.

“LANI, how is that thing driving the debris? The other one you said was being sustained by my core energy, what’s keeping this one alive?” Watkins asked.

“There’s a lot we don’t know about the void creatures, which is why this whole research project was created by the council. Only a bit of that research is in my database, but what it does contain tells me that the larger the void creature, the more powerful it is. Something like that may be able to not only sustain itself, but also use part of the ship for its own purposes,” LANI explained.

“It may have hitched a ride on part of our ship, and is using one of the thrusters, but we have something it doesn’t,” Watkins said as the point defense laser repairs were complete and he could feel the weapon under his control. It was almost like the weapon was a natural part of his body, which he supposed it was now.

Using his view of the approaching wreckage, Watkins adjusted the thruster so their only weapon could come to bear on the target. The distance was well within the weapon’s range and his ability to target, so Watkins fired his first shot in space. While the laser’s beam should have been invisible in space, it was perfectly visible for Watkins. Looking at everything around you with sensors gave different feedback than the visual spectrum he could see with his human eyes.

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The beam pulsed for under a second, and Watkins could feel it pull power from his core as it fired. While the amount felt negligible, he could see how having all his weapons online would drain his core energy quickly. The weapon looked like a reddish-orange beam that lanced out into space.

His aim was off, and the beam came nowhere close to the target. Watkins adjusted his aim, his core providing its incredible processing power to solve the targeting error. A moment later he could sense it, the turret mechanism was binding up and the malfunction made it harder for Watkins to adjust his aim.

Pulling more power from his core, Watkins fired again. The red beam pulsed toward the target, missing once more, but closer than it had been with the first shot. He wanted to order the drones to repair the track the turret swiveled on, but there was the potential that the ongoing repairs would cause the weapon to go offline, right when he needed it the most.

No, he’d continue the fight with the turret as it was. The distance between his vessel and the creature was closing, making Watkins’ job easier with each passing second. Firing his third shot, the beam passed within meters of the bow of the wreckage. A final minor adjustment, and the weapon active a fourth time.

This time, Watkins hit his target, the beam burned deep into part of the exposed mass of the void creature. The beam pulsed for under a second, but that was enough time for it to dig deep into the creature’s flesh. Vapor from its unnatural form drifted from the point of impact, and some of the fluid from inside the monster was pulled out by the vacuum. Exposed like this, the monster seemed especially vulnerable to the weapon Watkins was using.

“Targeting errors have been solved, it’s time to light this thing up,” Watkins said as he activated the point defense laser again. This time, instead of a single shot, Watkins fired the weapon the way it was intended to be used. The point defense laser was supposed to rapidly pulse out beams of energy to intercept missiles or small attack craft.

Its rate of fire wasn’t a beam going out every minute or so like it had been when Watkins was dialing in the range. Even with the limited efficiency of the weapon, Captain Watkins was able to fire a pulse every ten seconds. One after another, the beams lanced into the wreckage and the creature that now controlled it.

Watkins needed to keep less and less of his attention on targeting as the distance closed and each shot became easier to aim. At first, the beams peppered the debris, sometimes hitting and melting part of the alloy structure of what was once part of his engine bay, and other times into the exposed flesh of the void creature.

As the range closed, Watkins could focus a bit more accurately, and the beams ceased hitting the precious salvage moving toward him, and almost always bit deep into the void creature. The monster squirmed, trying to force itself further into the wreckage, but Watkins was relentless.

Shot after shot punched into the monster and more and more of it was vaporized. Each shot caused double the damage it normally would as the monster seemed vulnerable to the vacuum of space when its outer flesh was breached, and more of its mass was pulled out of it. The only problem was that the damage wasn’t occurring fast enough.

He was tearing it apart, but the creature was many times the size of the previous monster he’d fought. It was hurting, but given his weapon’s current rate of fire, there would be a lot of it left of it when their vessels collided. Maneuvers also began to demand more of Watkins’ attention, he needed to constantly adjust his heading with the limited power of the maneuver thruster.

As it stood, he was likely going to be able to mitigate most of the impact by matching speed and heading with the debris as it closed in. Something flew from the wreckage toward Watkins, and several alerts sounded as his core analyzed the new threat.

Warning, incoming kinetic rounds.

Shields are offline.

Armor scheme is compromised.

Recommended course of action, evasive maneuvers.

“I can help with calculating the evasive maneuvers if you wish, Watkins, I think we can avoid the incoming fire without much trouble,” LANI said as Watkins read the rather unnecessary recommendations from his core systems.

“Thanks, but what exactly is coming toward us? That section of ship didn’t have any weapons mounts on it,” Watkins said, confused over how the enemy was attacking them at range.

“Watkins, these void creatures possess many deadly abilities, and the larger the specimen, the more dangerous it becomes,” LANI explained as she smoothly added her processing power to his evasive maneuver calculations.

“We’re going to need more firepower,” Watkins said as a desperate plan began to form in his core.