Raptor One – Chapter 87
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Waking up, thirsty and hungry, I give a groan as I open my grey eyes to find myself on my bed.
Looks like my metabolism is very fast as I get hungry faster than the normal Avali...
Stretching my numb arms and legs I hear soft squeaks as I feel the softness of fur and feathers on it, the voice giving out the owners.
“Mornin...” I hear Peppy say besides me.
“Hmm... Morning...” Shy respond too also besides me.
I look to my sides to see two naked girls on my bed hugging me, their brown fur and green trim give their sleepy face a soft look as their amber colored eyes lose their sleepiness as they lock on my grey eyes, waiting my words.
“Utrenniye, devushki.” I say, still shaking of the sleepiness while getting up.
I had to pass over Peppy to get out as they where still getting off their sleep mode, but Peppy's movement made me trip and fall over her.
“Whoa, izvinyayus Peppy, you okay?” I say while trying to get my weight off her.
Peppy don’t respond as I see a blushing mess, instead of helping push me off, she’s feeling me as I lift myself up again and jump down, trying not to hit the low table.
Behind me I can hear Shy’s whisper. “Lucky girl...”
I’ll just ignore that for now, I need a fill, empty bag don’t stop upright.
After getting myself two portions of food and water, along with a cup of avalon wine I devour my food before taking sips from my avalon wine.
The hour is... 6:02 AM, I slept two entire cycles, that’s more or less 10 hours of sleep.
I look up from my avalon wine to see Peppy and Shy sitting down with their food ration, Shy sits like a proper girl while Peppy sits in a more provocative way as she sits in a lotus position, showing more than necessary.
I just chuckle and get back to sipping my wine.
“What are we going to do today?” Shy ask me.
“Don’t know, I need a update on the ship status to see where I need to work next.” I say while shaking my head.
“We can help with that.” Peppy say making me focus my eyes on her as she takes a bite off her nutrient paste. “We organized the ship inventory again and the command module before trying to install the hydroponics, but it was to no success, so we just prepared the area and components for installation, they are on the upper deck module one.”
I nod as Peppy finish updating me on the ship status.
“Don’t leave without us, we will help you. Peppy, you forgot to say we finished getting the six battery purge ports working again.” Shy reply while eating.
“Sure, sure, you said it so I don’t need to.” Peppy say while drinking her fill.
“Urgh, your way of doing things gets on my nerves sometimes.” Shy say and take a big gulp from her cup.
“Devushki, no fight with me close by.” I say as I finish my cup of Avalon Wine and get up while looking at the time.
6:07AM, we have a lot of time to build the hydroponics and get the turrets working.
The girls also finished their food, and a minute later where on their Combat Exoskeleton, so we headed to the upper deck.
Upper deck, module one, the hydroponics.
The place was a small mess, but it was ready to get the module running after we get all the components in place.
I started by sorting out the components, that did not take much time as the girls helped with the sorting, the components where simple and easy to understand so we did not need that much knowledge on mechanics.
“Let’s see, Casings, nutrient dispensers, aerogel tubing, electric wire, logic wire, sensors, water tank, fertilizer tank, Yup, all here, let’s build this.” I say as I finish sorting out the main components of the hydroponics.
The building phase was easy, get the railing correct, install the tanks, place the tubing, install the casings, place the sensors, put the sun lamps, finish the wiring and test.
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The testing was done quickly as the girls was there to help, Peppy helped me with hardware faults while Shy helped with software faults.
The system was working like it was fresh out of the fabric.
“Okay devushki, we are done, now we wait as I buy the turrets and hope I have enough credits to buy the license... What do you think I should do first? Get the license or buy the turrets?” I ask the girls, the other three are on the line.
“Sigma is good, but we need protection.” Zu say on the line.
“We can deploy the drones and use Selket.” I say as we reach the Bridge, sitting on my chair we continue the talk as I transfer the line to the bridge augmented reality monitor.
“And who would take the helm of Selket? We need a Captain on the ship or we will be sitting ducks.” Cold reply.
“I’ll be the Captain, and with two devushki liberated I can post one as Selket pilot while the other will get the new guns reloaded and breach's repaired.” I say back to the girls.
“We would be under powered, a ship with good point defenses would shred the drones apart, specially if they are bigger than frigates.” Shy say from her chair, looking my way.
“True, with only Selket capable of doing bombing runs with her laser cannons we will be very under gunned, but fighters will have problems getting to us.” I say with a nod.
“Most of the ships currently flying on the known galaxy are fighters, a handful are heavy fighters, they are mostly military ships, and rarely corvettes, if they do happen they are mostly carriers, but there’s the off chance of it being a fully fledged warship.” Peppy say with her smile.
“We better be ready for the worst, if we have the money then you can run for the Ship AI license.” Zu say with a nod.
I sigh. “Da, we better prepare for the worst, our ship can build Warship grade weapons, that is, three layers of point defense, and two pairs of Railgun cannons while keeping the drones and fighter, that in itelf is a plus as I remade the ship with that in mind... Let’s get at least two pairs of Point Defense turrets first then well see if we have enough for the license.” I say with a nod.
“Who will be the pilot of Selket?” Cold ask me.
“That question huh, lets see... Nail, you are the new pilot for VCI – Selket, Peppy will be the ship’s repairman, Zu, Shy, and Cold will be Bridge crew.” I say and get up.
“Pozhaluysta start getting expertise on your assigned skillset, this will help with the problem of firepower.” I say and walk out.
A minute later I'm out of the ship and looking for the dockmaster again, a minute of looking get me her location easily, so I head her way.
As I get closer to her she sees me and lift a hand in hello.
“Yo weird buddy, what’s it this time?” the dockmaster say.
“Privet, working hard as always I see, I’m here to buy Point Defense turrets.” I say and look at my credits.
Credits:(121.098[C])
Maybe I can get two pair of PD turrets with ammo crates.
“Oh, that? Let me see... Nope, we don’t have it in stock, we have at most civilian grade kinetic rifles, the very old ones too, you know, farmer and all that.” The dockmaster say.
“That’s not good, we need the extra defense, got the coordinates for some? What about the NSGLS?” I ask her.
“Let me find you a station with good prices for PD turrets, and about the NSGLS, we don’t have it too... Hum, nope, maybe, heck no, that looks like a good one...” She start looking at stations after talking with me.
“...” I was about to talk but decide to stay quiet.
“Oh, found a better one... Okay lil bro, I got you some coordinates, it’s a planet bound station, got the full set, stores, shipyard, defense emplacement, combat fleet, civilian task force, you name it, the planet it orbit also sustain life too.” She say with a smile.
“What’s the price and how’s the planet?” I ask her.
“The planet is neutral, you find settlements from all races minus the yautja, some empire settlements too along with big cities, got a lot of quests there too and a big surplus of everything there, so prices are low, but there's more pirate activity there, here’s the coordinates.” The dockmaster say and give the coordinates.
“Heard you got a Reactor together, got the fuel for it? Also, nice Purge ports, now all you need is blast resistant battery racks and you will negate the chance of battery explosion doing damage.” The dockmaster say with a nod.
“Spacibo, dockmaster, what’s your name devochka? Never got it as the crew only know how to say ma’am.” I give a nod in thanks and ask her
“Oh? I’m Kate, what’s your lil bro?” Kate, the dockmaster say.
“I’m Alex Silver, close buddies call me White, want to exchange contacts? I’m mostly free and with a functioning Reactor I can accept some tasks now.” I say tilting my head and smiling.
“You know what, you win by cuteness, I normally don’t give out my call number but I'll make a exception this time, you’re a cool lil bro, don’t make me think otherwise, understood?” Kate say.
“Rodzher.” I say with a nod and exchange numbers with Kate before returning to the ship while calling the crew back.
Entering the ship, passing by the hangar deck, going up the elevator, reaching the ship bridge, sitting on the captain chair...
And waiting in boredom for the last three girls.
10 minutes pass before they manage to return back to the ship.
“Sorry White, the station is surprisingly packed with people.” Zu say and take her post on the radar station.
“*Sigh*How’s the new station Cold?” I ask with a sigh.
“Oh? It’s much better and interactive, but there is a bunch of missing interfaces and information's here.” Cold reply with a nod. “Sorry for the delay, as Zu said, the flow of people was... Too much.” Cold reply and goes silent as she prepare the ship for take off.
“What about you Shy? Like the new interface?” I ask Shy.
“Yes, I was tinkering with it for some time now and it is really good, I think this interface can make many warship consoles green with envy.” Shy say with a small smile.
It’s good to see that all my work was not in vain.
“Zu?” I say looking at her.
“Right, Tenacity is clear for take off, the rear is clear.” Zu say with a nod and we feel the ship lift off the ground.
I look at the ship camera and see the Slipstream ring expand out of the ship, making it levitate despite the station gravity and missing the rear maneuvering thrusters, the frontal ones, located on the intersection between the second and third modules burn brightly and strongly as the front stabilize and the ship is pushed outside the station, the station air shield deforming as the ship pass by it and return to deep space as the gravity lose it’s grip on Tenacity.
I watch as Cold spur the left side thrusters a little, Tenacity slowly steer right before it’s right side thrusters give burst stopping it’s side steering, the burning of the big rear engine bunker pull me into the chair as the ship speeds up fast away from the station, the free space besides the ship gets occupied by it’s big orange solar sails as it unfolds and spur the ship further forward.
“Calculating ship navigation course.” Cold say and start plotting the ship course to 'Exodia', a Gaia planet four solar system away from us.
“How’s it?” I ask Cold.
“Very great, the system helped a little but we got a peaceful route ahead, the problem is that we don’t have energy to get there in one warp, we can get two solar systems in and wait for the battery to fill and jump again, Slipstream itself won’t take much time but the wait can take a while, Shy, how long the reactor need to fill the battery again?” Cold say and ask Shy.
“About... 50 minutes with the current battery reserves, more than double of that if we got the entire battery racks filled up.” Shy reply back.
“That’s a one hour wait at most, good to know.” I say and nod. “Let’s slip off here.” I say with a grin.
“Heh, nice joke.” Peppy say with a chuckle.
I watch the ship Slipstream Ring expand more and spark, it’s spark travels to the front of the ship and converge before forming a rip in space which pulls the ship inside, disappearing from normal space.