Raptor One – Chapter 75
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Sitting on my Captain chair slightly forward while watching the work of my pack as we do a very tight and high G gravity sling on Beta Stratta III, the Gas giant where’s The irradiated clown station is located.
“Okay guys, final check, I don’t want parts of the ship falling off mid flight!” I say with a big grin.
“Sir yes Sir!” they respond as we get closer to the gas giant.
“I got the ship aligned with the orbit to lessen the force on the exterior parts on the ship.” I say my report, my strong voice resounds along with my growl, alerting both Li sisters into work.
“Ship Component heat factor sent!” Li’luk say.
“Ship Component G force limit factor sent.” Li’lak also reply.
“*Gravitational Sling Course deployed.*”
“It’s up to you two, let’s get this done.” I say and relax, this will take a total of 10 medium cycles.
“Roger!” Both Su brothers say before following the instructions.
The first waypoint was completed with almost no issue, but the second one was starting to exert both pilots, so I open my eyes and keep watch due to the smell of sweat.
Third and fourth waypoints was completed with minimal stress to the ship, but the logs coming from all over the ship say it’s about to not go well, and we still have one more waypoint to go, which is the hard one, and we are already feeling very high G forces right now.
As we where about to start the thrusters for the last waypoint I see my pack falling unconscious one by one, forcing me to take full on command, I hurriedly adjust the ship configuration, angle, and thrust vector to ease the amount of stress the ship is under, my attempt is poor for a pilot, but as a mechanic I managed to lessen a lot of stress and G force without using extra energy before aligning the ship with the waypoint.
This however take a lot of energy out of me as I need to check the life signal of my pack, adjust a lot of mechanical factors and pilot all at once.
I manage to complete the last two waypoints with enough margin for error that can fit another smaller ship.
I lean back to my chair and groan as the G forces being exerted on the ship slowly reduces back to zero and the gravity drive return back to it’s normal functions, I sigh and get up to check my pack better, starting with Zu.
Zu is out cold, a irony because we are cold blooded, I chuckle and start trying to wake her up, which I manage.
“Huh? What happened? I was helping and then... Nothing...” Zu ask me when she sees my large frame.
“You passed out due to high G forces.” I say and pat her head before going to wake the girls.
They did not want to wake for nothing so I pinched a very painful area for Avalis, they jumped at the pain and woke up.
“Yelp!” Li’lak gave a cute yelp before looking around and understanding the situation.
“Ouch ouch ouch!” Li’luk however took a bit more force to wake up.
“Awake now girls? Good, give the ship a status check, after that you’re both clear for recreation, you too Zu.” I say to both Li’luk and Li’lak before looking back to Zu and nodding.
Heading to the two fallen brothers I see Su’ra wake up on his own so I focus on waking Su’zu, he’s out cold too, as worse as the Li sisters, a pinch at his tail get him up and vaulting over his console.
“Awake now?” I chuckle at Su’zu, he gives a small scowl back but nods in thanks anyway.
“Good, you both check the direction with Sigma and correct it if there’s any errors, after that you’re both free until next checkpoint.” I say and nod at both brothers before walking out and heading back to the low deck, this time to work on my Augments.
Getting inside the small hangar bay I take off my power armor in a more accessible location before heading for the conspicuous crate close to my Viking, a small look give me it’s contents.
All the materials to make my full augment.
As this will take time i get comfy besides the leg of my Viking and start working, levitating piece by piece, and component by component, following the blueprint that both me and Sigma made.
With pure concentration and mechanical knowledge I managed to work both leg augments into existence, something that should take the entire long cycle took only a medium cycle and five.
The boots looks like a a velociraptors leg and a heavy power armor boots had a baby.
Giving some final tests I see that the Leg augments are ready and functional, including the cyber nerves.
I sigh and look at my legs, I'll have to basically hack my knees off to get this Augment installed...
I take a full breath and try to force my will into my nanites, trying to make it obey and recede back into me, leaving only my knees...
Yeah... As if it was that easy.
As soon as I tried to become a temporary cripple, my nanites rejected my orders immediately, so I have to try to brute force my way by trying to devour both legs.
As soon as my nanites seep inside my legs and try to devour it, a war breaks loose inside of me, one part tries to recover, the other tries to devour, sending me into very bad pain.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
After five medium cycles of pure suffering, my nanites finally manage to sever my legs and keep it that way, so I hurry to install my Leg Augment, something that happens almost with no external help.
I sigh and groan as I feel the new parts of my leg, compared to the old normal and true to a fault pair of legs, this one comes with lots of upgrades, including sound negation.
I sigh and get up, giving my new pair of legs a test drive, they feel like my old legs, but with a little cyber connection to the mix.
After getting my legs a try I head to my power armor and start dismantling it, I manage to take it down into it’s skeleton frame in one quarter of a hour, the removed equipment and plates recycled in another quarter, and the hardest, the skeleton frame, in another quarter.
“How many hours do I have Sigma?” I ask Sigma of which I connected into the small hangar console before starting to dismantle my Avali power armor.
“*One long cycle and fifty five medium cycles before next gravity sling.*”
“That reminds me we just slinged from Beta Stratta III into the direction of Beta Stratta II.” I reminder myself out loud.
“*Correct, beware White, Beta Stratta II may be a barren rock type Planet, but it also have strong gravity, so the G forces inserted into your pack will as strong as B.S III, and there’s a high chance of in orbit asteroids due to dislodged asteroids from the asteroid field in Beta Stratta Station.*”
“Rodzher.” I say while finishing to sort and store the materials and components from my old Avali power armor.
Sighing I sit down again beside my Viking and start working on my new Arm Augment, after taking the needed resources from the cargo box and going over my and Sigma blueprint I start working on the Arm Augment, due to the modular technology we Avali love to use I manage to hasten the work by building it as multiple separate modules, cutting a quarter of a hour.
I look at the finished product, Two BIG claw arms, equipped with both tower shield and liquid metallic matter fueled high power kinetic gun each, down where the wing feathers are kept snugly lies a dual modular medicine maker upgraded with all sorts of medical equipment for treatment or repair of patients in need.
I look at the other Arm Augment and see the same.
Now is the question, how to I get the new arms attached?
After some thinking I put both arms close and upright, I’ll have to devour my own arms to the elbow before shoving the rest on the Augment slots.
“Here goes nothing...” I take a deep breath and prepare for the pain while grabbing both arms... And sending the devouring nanites...
I grunt in pain and grit my sharp teeth for a minute before the devouring nanites win as I manage to keep most of the resistance at bay, so I take my chance and shove both arms into it’s correct Augment, I don’t want to have to tear each hand out because of a rookie mistake.
It takes another minute for me to properly attach each arm augment and be able o lift the heavy arms from the ground.
I start testing both arms by opening and closing each of my hands, I feel some resistance at first because the cyber nerves where still connecting properly to the rest of my body, my sense of touch is still strange because the nanites that where not consumed are moving into the new limbs because the new limbs have blood circulation modules in it so repairs can be done with my nanites.
After getting used to my new hands after some time, that is, fiveish minutes, I start to feel there’s something amiss with the equipment on my hands.
“Sigma? I see that the ‘Toxic claws’ are in order, but I feel that the gun, tower shield and medicine maker are strange.” I say to Sigma, asking why.
“*The requested equipment upgrades was deemed outdated by your not so recent research on weapons, medicine, and shield technology, so they where upgraded within the current credit balance.*”
“Huh, I can’t say if that was a good or bad job if you don’t give me a once over of the new equipment.” I say smiling wryly at Sigma, hanging on the hangar console.
“*Heavy Kinetic Gun: Uses Liquid Metallic Matter, each holds 30 rounds, capable of firing 30 rounds or 10 burst, can make rifle rounds and shotgun rounds, burst fire only with rifle rounds.*”
“Huh, that’s a very cool and neat upgrade from the HK pistol variant, spacibo Sigma.” I say while looking at the almost completely hidden gun muzzle under my lower arms.
“*They are also silenced by default. Second equipment. ‘Power Shield’, a shield that works both magnetically and gravity wise, uses capacitor charges and can be recharged with any electricity capable port, and you have one on each arm, be aware that a EMP attack will discharge the entire battery.*”
“Spacibo for the warning, do I need to be aware of the same problem for the new limbs?” I ask Sigma.
“*Negative, they have direct contact with your nanite nerves and even if disabled they would resume normal work seconds later.*”
“Rodzher, last equipment, pozhaluysta.” I nod and ask about the new medical contraption close to my wings.
“*Cyber Organic Keeper: Uses Liquid Organic Matter as fuel, holds 100 charges and can repair both cyber and organic beings as long as the user have knowledge of the host, it’s equipped with multiple tendrils with modular equipment that allow for scanning of host and in field operation, along with refuel of the ‘Toxic claw’ cartridges which lies on the base of the fingers. Hands must be fully closed to start ‘Toxin’ reloading and uses ‘Healing’ charges.*”
"Rodzher... I like the new toys, anymore updates I need to know?” I ask Sigma while testing all the thought activated reloaders and equipment, my arms opening in various parts along with my legs before closing back everything back with a thought.
“*Nega... At another research of the torso blueprint, yes, I did.*”
“Which is?” I ask while leaning my head on the cold Tritanium plate of my Viking.
“*I have added the space for the ‘Rig Augment’ on the back of the ‘Torso Augment’, allowing you to lower the waste of body energy consumption due to physical damage, the tech itself needs to be researched and built separated however.*”
“Rodzher, so I'll start building the last piece of my current Augment now.” I nod and start levitating parts and components.
“*Understood. 1 long cycle and 30 medium cycles before gravity sling waypoint arrival.*”
I nod before focusing on working on the last part of my permanent Augmentation, it takes surprisingly a long time to make, I had to use every trick on my mechanic sleeve to finish it under 1,5 long cycle, many of my pack members came and left after watching me work on my augments, I had no time or processor to talk with my pack while working on the surprisingly hard torso augment, but I finally finished with half a long cycle left.
I’m already sitting, because if I wans't, I would fall on my tail due to exhaustion, I already worked for almost three civilians worth of energy today.
I sigh and start testing the Torso Augment, After five minutes of looking I find no faults, so I just put on the Augment.
I had to get up to even be able to start getting the augment on me, as the augment gets close to my chest, it opens into two parts, my hands freeze for a second at the absurdly amount of cyber nerves ready to drill all over my torso, but I manage to steel my mind and place the augment.
As soon as the Torso Augment closes on my torso I scream in agony, I feel every fur under my augment dissolve, my skin feels like it was placed on the core of a sun, and my bones feels like it’s being drilled by many miners on a asteroid rush sector.
But that was not the worst part.
“GGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!”
I howl in pain as I feel the same drilling sensation on each section on my spine, each spike of pain jolting my body and making me roar in pain harder as I fight to keep my body from disconnecting from my Gamma Core, each jolt harder than the last as I scream louder, feeling the drill on my spine go up one section at a time... Slowly... Agonizingly...
Then... Nothing... No pain... Only numbness...
After what felt forever I try to get up...
*Thump.**Clink* *Clink* *Clink* *Thump.**Clink* *Clink* *Clink*
Each step, despite the numbness is firm, resounded by three sharp claw sounds each.
*Click* *Click* *Click* *Click* *Click* *Kacha*
I hear a click as each section of my back gets upright before I finally get up, the sound of everything getting into place reaches my ears as I finish getting up, still dazed.
Finally I take in a breath, soon I'm breathing fast, less upright, legs a little distant from each other, hands forward, limp as I try to take as much breath as I can.
“White?” I hear a voice, it’s Zu.
I give a side glance and see the entire pack, both packs around me.
“You ok there Captain? Those howls of pain was no joke.” Li’luk say, serious.
The rest nod, keeping their eyes locked on me, ready to help as best as they can, but not knowing much about what to do, they did only the basic emergency life keeping training.
“I’m ok...” I say and huff, a heavy growl leaving at each heavy breath. “Just tired...” I continue after some more heavy breaths. “And numb...” I say the last words before checking how bad the numbness is.
After some checks I see that despite the not so light numbness, that I'm just exhausted, so after breathing some more I manage to regulate my heavy breath and right myself.
“GRRRrr... I’m somewhat okay now, what did I miss?” I ask after giving a heavy growl, not purposeful.
“*White, please recover me back into your Augment slot, we are about to run out of time for the last gravity sling.*”
“GRR... Rodzger...” I say and walk to the console where Sigma is dangling and disconnect her and recover the connection cable, placing it back into storage while reconnecting Sigma.
“*Connection success. We have 3 medium cycles to act.*”
Everyone is looking at me, so I raise my hands and shrug. “GRRR... You all heard it, lets go, I can relax and sleep after that... GRR... Try not to fall asleep again.” I say before shooing everyone into the bridge...