Chapter 7. Extermination Services.
“Here it comes, should we name it?” Watkins asked as the mutant rat finished construction.
“I suppose you could if you wanted to, but these MOBS will likely have a high casualty rate, so I wouldn’t get too attached,” LANI said as a panel at the end of the fabrication machine opened and his shiny new mutant rat walked out.
You have created your first MOBS. As with your drones, you can individually command your MOBS or set parameters for them to operate under. The processing power of the hybrid biological mind utilized by these creations makes complicated commands impossible. If issued a command the unit doesn’t understand, the until will simply default to guarding its current position or following its last valid orders.
That seemed simple enough. For now, Watkins ordered his mutant rat to return to the core room. The creature he’d just built moved oddly, lacking the fluid grace of a real mutant rat. It was a copy and from his original description, it had been listed as level zero, which suggested he could improve the design over time.
As soon as the rat moved toward the drone hatch, it opened for the creature. Apparently, his MOBS could also activate and use the hatches just like his drones were able to. A trio of normal rats stuck their noses out from under the storage racks as Watkins’ mutant walked past. The rats hissed at his MOBS but slunk back under the cover of the metal racks as the mutant entered the core room and the hatch closed behind it.
“We need to clear those rats out the fabrication compartment. There’s probably a lot of salvage under there that we can’t access as long as they’re a threat,” Watkins said. For now, he was too worried about having his drones harvest salvage from that half of the compartment. By his estimation, that was the half of the compartment with the most for him to gather.
“The rats were numerous enough to fight off a single mutant, but maybe we’ll have the advantage with our MOBS being backed up by a drone or two,” LANI suggested.
“That’s what we’ll do, harvest this side of the compartment and see how many drones we can produce from that,” Watkins decided. Both drones began to harvest salvage, and the amount in storage began to climb. He ordered a third, then a fourth drone to be produced. A slight wave of dizziness hit Watkins, but it slowly faded.
“I think you just experienced some strain on your core. With it controlling four drones and our rat, you’re starting to see that there is a limit to how much you can currently handle. Let me see if I can bring something up to help us gauge how many units you can command at once,” LANI explained. A few moments later, new information appeared in front of Watkins.
Your core has a command limit based on the amount of processing power you can funnel into unit sustainment. Each unit you build brings you closer to this limit, and once you reach it, you cannot construct any additional units. Upgraded and enhanced units may require additional command limit resources.
Command Limit: 5/10.
Current units:
Level 0.
1. Simple repair drone. (4).
2. Mutant rat MOBS (1).
“LANI, how do I grow my command limit?” Watkins asked.
“We’ll have to research how to improve it. To do that, we’ll need to develop something that functions as a research module. Before we can work on research, I think we’ll need to retake control of the rest of the ship. I can see that I have a schematic in my database for a basic research module, but I can’t unlock it yet with the damage to my server. You would also need more processing power to operate the module than we currently possess,” LANI replied.
“How do I get more processing power if I can’t research a way to upgrade my core?” Watkins asked, confused over the seemingly impossible bottleneck.
“The key is ship control. As you probably found when claiming the fabricator compartment, the entire ship is infused with tech to help you run it. The more areas of the vessel we control, the more you’ll be able to tap into that tech. Your command limit, as well as your other abilities will improve as we expand. Eventually, we’ll control the entire ship, and then you’ll need some assistance via the research modules,” LANI explained.
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“I get it, let’s get to work and claim my ship. With four drones and the mutant, I think we can take on the rat nest under the storage racks. I’ll build one more drone for an emergency and then we’ll pick a fight,” Watkins decided.
His four drones were scouring their side of the compartment for resources. It wasn’t long before he had enough to produce a fifth drone, but the resources gathered after that were spent on repairing the compartment’s deck. The last thing he needed was to leave an opening where more of the mutants could suddenly appear while he was fighting the normal rats.
Repairing the deck wasn’t quite as costly as he’d feared. Much of the raw materials needed were harvested from the damaged sections. Still, by the time he’d salvaged half the room, and sealed up any potential points of entry, the total salvage he had on hand was not quite enough for him to build a sixth drone.
Available Salvage: 4.
Available Biomass: 2.
“Let’s use what we know about these rats,” Watkins started, outlining his plan for LANI to examine. “They’ll react when a mutant rat moves nearby, and given their earlier actions, they also reacted to my MOBS rat. We’ll set an ambush with the drones, and then send in the mutant to bring the enemy out of hiding. As they move to attack the MOBS, our drones will pounce. When the enemy rats shift their attention to the drones, the mutant will join the fight.”
“I like it, this will be a big test for our units,” LANI replied.
Watkins started by sending out the four drones he’d selected for the battle. He broke them up into pairs and had them approach rather close to the storage racks. Once in place, they went still to keep from drawing any extra attention. Next, the mutant rat was sent out. It made it about three steps into the room before the rats responded.
Like earlier, three rats appeared from under the storage racks, shrieking at Watkins’ mutant but not moving out from their position. Ordering the mutant forward, Watkins had it stop in between the first pair of drones he’d arranged earlier. Coming this close seemed to do it for the rats and their screeches grew in volume and number. Seven of the huge rats charged from under the storage racks.
Watkins watched as the rats passed the first pair of drones, he waited until they neared the second pair before he sprung the trap. Using the screwdriver tool and hammer, the pair of drones closest to the mutant scuttled forward and attacked the approaching foes. The other pair of drones also moved to attack, hitting the fight right when the rats started to react the first pair of drones’ assault.
Weaker individually than the mutant rats, these large, but essentially normal rats fell quickly to the assault. Their fate was sealed when the MOBS mutant rat joined the fray. Another two rats charged from under the storage racks, but it seemed like their numbers were depleted from their earlier fight with the mutant and Watkins’ forces seemed to have this fight in the bag.
A total of five rats were killed before the survivors fled. Running under the storage racks wouldn’t save them, and one of Watkins’ drones lowered itself and shined a bright light into the cramped, dark space. The survivors, along with a new, even bigger rat, cowered in the far corner. Debris, and even bones of what were likely past victims or fallen allies were strewn about under the racks.
Movement near the largest rat turned out to be several younger rats, each about half the size of the adults. These too were aggressive, hissing and screeching at the drones and the mutant rat threatening them. Watkins almost felt bad about attacking the rat nest, but he couldn’t just leave them here to cause problems.
He was just about to order his troops to attack when a portion of the ceiling, right above where the rats were cowering, popped out and clanged against the metal racking. Several figures fell out, one of them was a screeching rat. Watkins wasn’t sure what was going on and ordered his forces to fall back.
Several more pings were heard as two more bodies dropped from the ceiling. Watkins shifted his point of view to that section of the compartment, watching as several huge bugs fell to the compartment floor. These bugs looked like beetles with an armored carapace and oversized mandibles. They were smaller than the rats, but still far bigger than any type of bug Watkins ever wanted to encounter.
The beetles immediately tore into the rats, who turned away from Watkins’ forces to do battle with the new threat. Doing a quick count, it turned out there were six of the beetles, but they seemed unconcerned that they were slightly outnumbered by the rats, not to mention they completely ignored Watkins’ troops who were staying well away from the fracas.
“What’s going on here. Why are there so many vermin on my ship,” Watkins said in frustration.
“I’m not entirely sure, but I think they may have all become stirred up by your core fully activating. At least they are fighting among themselves, I don’t think we’d do well against all of them if they combined forces,” LANI said.
“This is a starship, not a zoo. Let them fight each other, then we’ll mop up whoever is left,” Watkins said. Looking closer at the beetles, he had a good idea of where the insect-like carapace of the mutant rats had come from. Beetles, rats, and mutant combinations of the two. What was next?