Chapter 4. Beyond the Core.
Watkins couldn’t see where the drone brought the rat carcass. Just like with his fabricator, the reprocessor was in a different compartment where he had no vision. After several minutes, the drone returned and began to fix up the scratches that the mutated rat had carved into his core housing.
Despite welding and using various other tools on his core housing, the drone’s efforts had a soothing effect instead of the pain he expected to feel. It wasn’t long before Watkins confirmed he was good as new, well, at least as good as he had been earlier. Something told Watkins that there were a lot more repairs and upgrades ahead of him if he wanted to gain control over his ship and function as he was intended to.
Core housing durability: 100%.
Available Salvage: 0.
Available Biomass: 1.
He was out of salvage, but something new was there, biomass. That must be what the rat corpse had been turned into. There had to be a use for it, but he could worry about that later. Right now, he needed to figure out a way to see beyond this one compartment. He felt a deep-rooted need to expand his presence. This ship was his, and he wouldn’t stop until it was all back under his control.
Taking a good look at the compartment he was in showed that it was a mess. Part of the ceiling had buckled and there were the remains of a device that reminded Watkins of a computer server in the corner opposite his core. While the computer server thing was probably important, all the other garbage and debris strewn about the room was useless. It was a perfect source of salvage as far as Watkins was concerned.
Pulling up his drone command interface, Watkins played around with the settings until he figured out how to assign his drone to begin gathering salvage in his compartment. The drone went to work, and the whole process reminded Watkins of one of those robot vacuums. It clattered its way methodically across the floor, but instead of dragging each tiny bit of debris out of the room and to the reprocessor, wherever that was, it placed the debris in a compartment at the back of its rectangular main body.
After a few moments the debris placed inside would be compacted down to make room for more. When the drone had filled its salvage compartment, it left the compartment to drop off the salvage for reprocessing. As the drone made its delivery to the reprocessor, Watkins noticed that his available salvage had increased by one.
It was slow going, but eventually, the available salvage ticked up to five and Watkins was able to start production of a second drone. With two drones sweeping up the debris, the compartment was slowly scoured of anything useful. As the last of the floor was taken care of, the drones began to effortlessly climb the walls, their spider-like legs somehow finding purchase on the slick metal.
They cut off a damaged section of the wall, which clattered to the deck with more noise than Watkins would have liked. By removing the bent and battered section of wall, it revealed the ingress point that the rat had used to enter the compartment and attack his core. One of the drones began to straighten out the wall panel when another of the mutated rats clambered through the opening.
Watkins immediately ordered his drones to attack as the rat made a beeline for his core. Before it could reach the core, the drone that had been trying to flatten the bent panel charged forward, using the welder integrated into one of its legs to burn through the back of rat. Just like the first fight, his drone didn’t come out unscathed as the rat snapped off one of the drone’s legs before it succumbed to the welder.
Seeing the smoking corpse of the rat, Watkins was glad he no longer had a sense of smell. He could see, hear, and communicate, and seemed content with those senses for the time being. What he had was all he needed to complete the task of securing his vessel.
The damaged drone repaired itself, then dragged the rat carcass off to wherever the reprocessor was located. While it was gone, the other drone continued to work, taking over as it bashed and welded the bent section of wall back into its original shape. When the other drone returned, the pair lugged the now-repaired panel into place and welded the opening closed. It was an ugly repair, but it would probably keep the rats out or at least hold them back long enough for him to respond.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
You have unlocked a new schematic. Your fabricator can now construct Mutated Bilge Rats as a Level 0 Mobile Offensive Battle System (MOBS). The cost to create this MOBS is 5 biomass and 1 salvage.
Available Salvage: 4.
Available Biomass: 2.
Knowledge clicked into place and Watkins could see how to recreate a version of these creatures. His creations would have a processor implanted in its brain, as well as some structural enhancements. This would give him complete control over the creature and allow it some autonomous control. While it didn’t possess tools or weapons, the mutated rat MOBS instinctually knew how to fight, and enhanced by Watkins’ technology, should perform better in combat than its natural kin.
Until he acquired more biomass, Watkins would have to wait before he could go Doctor Frankenstein and create swarms of mutant bug-rats to defend his core. For now, his pair of drones would have to suffice. Soon, he would be able to add a third drone if their resource gathering continued to show results.
Watkins was a bit worried that he’d run out of resources to gather. So far, the floors had been swept clean, and there wasn’t much on the walls and ceiling of the compartment that could be scrounged without tearing new holes in the place. About the only other thing he could think of was to try and break down the ruined server.
Up until now, he was a bit concerned about touching it. Somewhere in his new memories, he recognized the device as important. Damaged as it was, its usefulness might be at an end. At least now it could serve as salvage and help him to create another drone to help protect and repair his ship.
Please confirm you wish to salvage the server housing your Limited Adjunct Network Interface. This is a critical piece of ship infrastructure and requires an override by the core to proceed.
That was something new. His new memories weren’t complete, but it was important enough that the drone was going to make him confirm that he wanted to turn it into salvage. Instead of reprocessing it, Watkins took a chance and ordered one of the drones to attempt to repair it. The drone spent some time walking around and over the ruined server before it began to pull out more delicate tools to start its work.
The available salvage trickled down. When the salvage reserves hit zero, the drone stopped its work and went to assist its comrade in clearing up the rest of the damaged walls and ceiling sections. Their work deposited another point of salvage and the drone that had started the repairs ceased its salvaging duties and returned to its repair task.
Watkins could see that several general orders could be programmed into his drones. Right now, they were all set to repair and defend and repair his core as their top priority. After that, it was salvaging operations, though the task of repairing the network interface device in his compartment superseded the salvage commands. In the future, Watkins could adjust settings as he desired, but for now, he kept the drones’ work priorities at their current settings.
He watched as the drone worked on repairs. It carried some salvage stored inside its body, but when the salvage ran low, it left the compartment, and went to what Watkins presumed was the reprocessor to gather more. When the latest point of salvage was gathered, Watkins could feel something click in his mind and the server began to light up as it came online.
The Limited Adjunct Network Interface (LANI) is now active. Please note that some data was lost when this Adjunct was damaged.
“What’s a LANI do?” Watkins asked.
“I was tasked with assisting you through your transition into a ship’s core. In addition, you’ll assist me in my primary task,” a feminine voice said. It had the same artificial quality to it that Watkins’ voice had, but somehow, it was comforting to talk to someone else other than a drone waiting for commands.
“Hi, I’m Captain Watkins. Pleased to meet you LANI,” Watkins said, trying to be polite with his new neighbor.
“Thank you for your welcome. Tell me, Captain, how long have you been active? My database is damaged, and many portions of my history post-installation are missing,” LANI asked.
Watkins was about to answer that he had no idea how long he had been here, but as he was about to say it, the knowledge clicked into place. From the time he was snatched up from the exploding drug runner’s boat, Watkins had been here in this world for over a century while he slowly acclimated to the core he now inhabited. It seemed impossible, but the chronometer in his core had been functioning correctly the whole time.
“It’s been 112 years, 9 months, and 14 days since I’ve been brought here. I should note that I’ve only been awake for a short time,” Watkins muttered, still hardly believing how long it had taken for him to wake up as the ship’s core.
“That is…longer than I expected,” LANI admitted. She went quiet and Watkins gave her some time to process everything.
“It seems this vessel is in worse shape than I had anticipated. No matter, I will do what I can to guide you on the right path. There are some security protocols in place, and I’ll need your permission to access data and suggest actions to improve our odds of survival,” LANI said as a new prompt appeared.
Your Limited Adjunct Network Interface has requested access to your database and system logs. Do you wish her to have access to this information? Y/N.