Chapter 9. Reprocessor.
Watkins felt his will exert itself over the compartment. He wasn’t sure how much time passed, as the efforts took most of his concentration. His new mind was able to process some information as he worked. A recap of where he was with unit production and resources was placed in the corner of Watkins’ vision as he worked.
Jesse Watkins.
Command Limit: 10/10.
Units:
Level 0.
1. Simple repair drone. (5).
2. Mutated bilge rat. (5).
Resources:
1. Salvage: 18.
2. Biomass: 9.
His little army of drones and rats was ready, and after a time, the resources trickling in slowed, then stopped. He couldn’t take his attention off his current task, but Watkins figured his drones had harvested everything they could and were now waiting for new orders. New orders would be ready to go soon, Watkins thought as he finished integrating the next compartment.
It felt like something snapped into place as the process completed. Vision over the new compartment spang to life, and it took Watkins a minute to adjust his senses to seeing three compartments at once instead of two. The system confirmed he had found the reprocessor. It was in a state of disrepair, and its status was showing at only 45% functionality.
The machine was about half the size of the fabricator and looked like it had been through the wringer. One end had a large opening on top where the raw materials could be placed. Whatever was placed inside would be ground up and separated into its base components, ready for his drones to pick up and deposit into the fabricator.
The status of the reprocessor dropped by 1% and Watkins watched as one of the large beetles emerged from a bent panel at the top of the machine. It was carrying a long strand of wiring that it chewed on as it walked. After a few moments, the beetle had stripped all the insulation off the wiring before it headed back to the far corner where a pile of garbage had been carefully arranged.
Another beetle scurried out from the garbage pile, which looked like it was their nest. The new beetle headed toward the reprocessor, ready to take another piece of it as a snack. The huge, boxy reprocessor looked like it was built for hard use, but whatever had damaged the ship had also jostled the machine off the deck where it had been mounted. That movement had buckled some of the access panels at the top of the machine, allowing the beetles entry into it like it was their personal 24-hour buffet.
This new beetle seemed distracted on its journey, instead of heading directly to the reprocessor, it began to drift toward the far corner of the room opposite the nest. Watkins noticed several beetle shells strewn around the area. His knowledge about beetles was rather lacking, and Watkins wondered if they molted and shed their shells when they grew too big for them. That would explain the mess in the corner.
A translucent string seemed to descend from the ceiling of the compartment. When the string touched the top of the beetle’s back, it seemed to stick there. Clacking its mandibles aggressively, the beetle tried to pull away, only to find itself hauled up into the air. Zooming in his view, Watkins could see the faint outline of some other creature hiding up there in the corner of the compartment.
He didn’t like what he saw, as the eight legs and bulbous abdomen of a spider were revealed as it went to work on hauling in its prey. The more the spider moved, the more Watkins could make out its shape. The thing was entirely translucent, giving it excellent camouflage when still. It was easily the size of a large dog and was strong enough to haul the beetle up by using its legs to reel in the line it had cast.
When the beetle got close to the spider, it gave a frantic last effort to escape, snapping its oversized mandibles at the line holding it. The move didn’t work out like the beetle had hoped, and just like its body, the mandibles were stuck fast to the odd web that the clear spider was using.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
With a slight crunching sound, the spider bit through the hard carapace of the beetle’s back and began feeding. As it fed, Watkins could see it take on the same dull grey color of the fluid it drained from the beetle. Minutes passed as the spider fed, and once it was done, another dried out shell clacked down to the compartment’s floor, where it joined the others.
While Watkins had no idea how long the spider had been here, it looked like it had fed on dozens of the beetles given the number of shells on the ground below it. Oddly enough, the spider seemed to turn toward Watkins, like it knew he was observing it. It kept up its stare as it digested its meal and slowly faded into invisibility once more. Now that he knew what to look for, Watkins found that he could spot the faint outline of the spider in its corner.
“Just how many different types of vermin do I have to deal with on my ship,” Watkins said in frustration.
“I suspect this should be the last, though I’m not sure if I’d qualify the spider as vermin. It seems to have helped us by keeping the number of beetles from growing out of control,” LANI said.
“I don’t know, my memories are mostly gone, but I still remember that I was always creeped out by spiders. I don’t know if my rats and drones would be able to handle that thing with it hiding out in the corner of the ceiling,” Watkins said.
“Hm, yes, but it appears to be an ambush predator. If you take out the beetles, it will likely lose its food source and then be forced to leave its corner to hunt, which is when your forces can engage it,” LANI suggested.
“Let’s do that, I’m going to send in the mutant rats and four of our drones to deal with the beetles. We’ll keep one drone in reserve in case something horrible happens, that way, we have someone who can repair and gather up salvage for us if we need to rebuild,” Watkins decided.
The wall between the fabrication compartment and the reprocessor had both a regular sized hatch, as well as one of the smaller ones that his minions could use. While the beetle nest was huge, Watkins believed their numbers were probably depleted after the fight against the rats earlier, as well as the creepy spider feasting on a stray beetle here and there.
His MOBS got into formation, the mutant rats up front, with a line of construction drones following behind. At his command they moved quickly forward, through the hatch and into the new compartment. Watkins watched the nest for signs of activity as his odd combination of troops approached.
When they got halfway to the nest, the beetles finally responded. A group of three of them emerged from the nest, clacking their mandibles at the approaching MOBS. Intimidation tactics didn’t work against Watkins’ MOBS, and they just followed their orders fearlessly.
His rats charged forward when they were close, leaping to get on top of the beetles. Two mistimed their jumps and found themselves snatched up by beetle mandibles. The others attacked, their mutated teeth cracking into the hard-shelled beetles. It was a brutal brawl and the two sides seemed about even, but a few seconds later, the drones arrived, and with their numbers added to the assault, the beetles were easily mopped up.
Watkins had lost two of his mutated rats, but he was already working on producing replacements. With the surviving rats on overwatch, a pair of his drones began to dismantle the beetle nest. It had been built of old bits they had torn off the reprocessor, as well as some thick, burlap-like fabric.
Where the beetles had found that fabric aboard was a mystery, but Watkins was more than happy to feed it, and all the other junk nearby, into the reprocessor. He also assigned one of his drones to effect repairs on the huge machine. Thankfully, his connection with the device allowed both Watkins and the drones to immediately know what was wrong with the reprocessor and how to fix it.
The repairs and harvesting all the resources would take some time. There was one shock when a final beetle pulled itself from the partially dismantled nest. This beetle had a badly cracked and battered exterior, which meant it was probably a survivor from an earlier brawl with the rats, or a run in with the spider. It was too injured to put up much of a fight, and the drone that discovered it had no trouble putting the monstrous insect down.
They also found a half-dozen beetle larvae that were also sent to the reprocessor. The last thing he needed was for some of them to escape and start a new nest somewhere else on the ship. A system message appeared as his drones continued their work.
You have unlocked a new schematic. Your fabricator can now create Yendax beetles. Yendax beetles are classified as a Level 0 Mobile Offensive Battle System (MOBS). The cost to create this MOBS is 5 biomass and 1 salvage.
It was the same cost as the mutant rats, and having seen both in action, Watkins didn’t think the new design warranted him replacing any of his rats with beetles.
“LANI, what is a Yendax beetle?” Watkins asked, not finding anything in his database about them.
“They’re normally a small pest that is more of nuisance than anything. In large numbers they can pose a danger to a ship’s food stores, but other than that, they are harmless. These have grown much larger than normal, and I think it has something to do with the core energy you’re releasing,” LANI said.
“So, both the beetles and the rats are common aboard some vessels?” Watkins asked.
“Yes, but everything here is mutated beyond what they should be. I believe that they have all been subsisting on your core energy all these years. That spider is a bit of a mystery. I have no record of anything like it in my database,” LANI explained.
“Hm, the spider hasn’t tried anything yet, but we will need to deal with it at some point,” Watkins said, already making plans on how to kill this latest threat.