I awoke once more in darkness.
Once more I awoke in pain
Shaking my head I felt gingerly at my skull, finding a large lump and a lot of dried blood on the back.
“Bait? Joe?” I asked into the comm, my hud having come online moments after I regained consciousness.
I waited a few moments for a reply, but when none came I forced myself to my feet.
Once more I began following the lines back to the bridge, though this time I dreaded what I would find there.
***********************************************************************************
The closer I got the more damage warnings I received, such as that I as entering into an area that had sustained serious damage and was currently regenerating, that atmospheric integrity was not guaranteed, etc.
I finally made it to the bridge, forcing open several emergency doors that had since slammed shut, dreading what I would find beyond.
The mechanism to open the bridge door beeped and whirred, but nothing happened. My HUD helpfully popped up an estimated repair time for the door. It registered in hours. I swiftly looked for some of the pneumatic pumps that I had used to force open the doors on the way here, but no such luck. Security reasons probably.
I sighed, and probed my HUD for more information. I had not really had a chance to just, play with it, since I got it. I found I could request the schematics for the door in front of me, then was able to find the issue(mechanical, looked like a piece of scrap was lodged in between gearing) and got a comprehensive list of instructions on how to fix the issue.
It listed instructions on how to use the multitool I had broken back in the machine shop in the repair, but I hoped I could just... handle it without.
Which took far longer than I would have liked, between getting the panel open without the benefit of the tool, to prying the chunk of metal out with my hands(and cutting myself open once more, and once more watching the suit seal. That was really cool) I was able to get the door open.
The bridge was a scene of utter carnage, I could see where a huge gash had been torn open in the hull of the, which had been sealed(though I still heard the telltale sound of atmosphere sleeting out. I quickly shut the door behind me to prevent more atmosphere loss)
I flicked the lights on my suit up and looked at what I had been avoiding looking at as soon as I entered the bridge.
The bodies.
Bait's body was completely mangled, a piece of debris had cut through her left shoulder almost all the way down to her right hip, and her head and right arm flopped down on the ground along with her upper torso.
Joe's body was more intact, pinned into his chair with a piece of conduit. I moved over to him, checking for.... I didn't even know, but it felt like the thing to do.
I moved a gloved hand to touch his neck to check for a pulse, just in case, and my HUD popped up an alert 'Message received via contact receivers, open?'
I thought-clicked open.
“Helluva introduction to the verse kid. Wish I could stick around to help you get your feet, but this piece of metal lodged in my spine... and lungs... and heart... has a different idea. I'm sending you Bait's owner codes for the ship. Get to Prime. Salvage our stacks, our backups, an we'll vouch for you, I wish I could stick around to help you more *COUGH* but that doesn't seem to be in the... in the c...” The message ended.
A blinking attachment pulsed in my vision, and I clicked it. It was titled 'master control codes'.
A progress bar appeared in my vision titled 'unzipping' that completed in a few moments.
And then all of a sudden my vision was FILLED with screaming alerts.
I held my head from the pain of the overwhelming sensory overflow.
There was nothing for it, I began acknowledging windows and closing them, until only one window remained.
'New Captain Acknowledged' the window stated, with a simple ok button hovering below view.
Thought clicking the okay button, a whole slew of error messages filled my vision, regarding missing hardware.
I blew out a breathe.
“I wish I had someone I could ask about all this stuff.”
“I may answer your questions, captain.” A feminine voice spoke through my implants.
“What? Who is there?”
“I am the AI of this vessel, formerly under command of Josephine 'Bait' Addelwright. Now under command of you
“You do not know my name?”
“I know Bait and her compatriot referred to you as Brayden, but I was unable to interface with the sleeper ships network due to software incompatibilities. I did not want to assume.”
“Are you sentient?”
“That is a question Bait often asked me. I am not. I have issues initiating my own actions for my own sake. I require input to respond to.
“Fair enough.... Um... I don't exactly know where to start. I have a bunch of error messages hovering in my vision saying I am missing hardware, but I don't know what for or where to get said hardware.”
“The hardware it is referring to is standard piloting implants. They are implants that integrate into your cerebrum and allow you to directly interface or 'ware' a C.O.G. Vessel. It is what allow's said vessels to operate with solely a captain and no supplementary crew, allowing the Captain to act as the vessels central nervous system or brain. Does this answer your question?”
“Yes quite succinctly. Um... does this mean I need to go back to the first aid station? Where I got my basic implants?”
“Unfortunately there are two issues. One, that station was not setup to perform such in depth surgery, two that station does not currently exist. It was destroyed in the same series of explosions that killed Captain Bait.”
“Shit... You have some level of self repair capability correct? Is there any way we can build one capable of the surgery that needs to be performed? Because it sounds like we are stuck here without it.”
“Indeed. We have limited onboard resources however. It is likely we will have to cannibalize other portions of the ship to get the resources to do so.”
I saw a projection of the ship in it's current state in my HUD, it had two large plasma torpedo launchers, one on each side, one smaller one up front, three large missile launcher, two on the belly one on the top, and two drone bays on the top. A readout came with the display
Vessel Name:HOOK
Propulsion:
1 CFD-111 Fusion Reactor(FUEL: 67%)
4 CFT-10 Fusion Torch Drive(3 OFFLINE)
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
14 CFT-97 Fusion Torch Maneuver Thrusters(8 OFFLINE)
4 CMDCGAMT-4 Auxillary Cold Gas Thrusters
Primary Armament:
2 CPL-77 triple barrel tracking plasma projector(1 offline)
1 CPL-66 double barrel tracking plasma projector
Secondary Armament:
3 CSL-3 Missile Launchers(2 offline)
Current warhead count:43(max 108) Heavy MIRV shaped plasma warheads
1 Missile Auto-fabricator(current production loadout: Heavy MIRV shaped plasma warheads)
Current missile fabrication limits:67(WARNING:RAW MATERIALS SHORTAGE)
2 CDL-2 Drone Bays: (1 OFFLINE)
Current drone count:5 CCD-14 plasma drones(max bandwidth limit's to 2 drones per bay)
Defensive equipment:
2x CEWJ-90 Radar Jammer(1 OFFLINE)
2x CEWD Laser Dazzler(2 OFFLINE)
1x CEWODJ Omni-directional Radio Jammer
1x CEWCM Countermeasure Launcher(1 OFFLINE)
Current Ordnance Count:
Chaff: 8
IR: 4
Active: 2
4 CPP Plasma Particle Shotgun Point Defense System(3 OFFLINE)
4 CPP Guided Plasma Munition Point Defense System(4 OFFLINE)
Utility equipment:
Autonomous repair drones(43/108, PLEASE TASK DRONE PRINTER FOR REPLENISHMENT )
Autonomous repair drone printer(ERROR, ATTENTION REQUIRED, INSUFFICIENT MATERIALS AVAILABLE)
1 CML 2 MINING BEAM(OFFLINE)
1x CTU Medical Unit (OFFLINE)
C.O.G. REPAIR MATRIX: 3 OF 4 NODES ONLINE.
CURRENT STATUS: REPAIRING OUTER HULL, RESTORING ARMOR, BRINGING ALL ARMAMENT ONLINE(ERROR: INSUFFICIENT MATERIALS FOR FULL ARMAMENT RESTORATION, ENABLE SELF-CONSUMPTION TO CONTINUE RESTORATION)
4 CDS-SWR Radar Panels, (4 OFFLINE)
2 CDS-LWR Radar Antennae (2 OFFLINE)
1 CDS-RTR Radar (1 OFFLINE)
HULL INTEGRITY: MULTIPLE BREACHES DETECTED, SEALED, ESTIMATED TIME TO TOTAL HULL REPAIR 8 HOURS 42 MINUTES
A mess of more intricate systems expanded as he focused on them, including the medical bay, which highlighted itself in the wireframe
“This is bad... What the hell happened, I thought we had won? Destroyed the pirates? What hit us?” I asked out loud
“Sensors indicate that on our burn towards the transit point we entered a minefield, and suffered multiple simultaneous strikes, several of which struck the same location on the hull, eventually breaching all the way to the bridge.”
I blinked.
“Does that mean we are still IN a minefield?”
“Correct, the mines have tagged us as killed due to our lack of emissions though, and our current orbit should have us diverge from the minefield due to our initial velocity when entering it.”
“ Is there any probability of us drifting INTO a mine on the way out of the minefield?”
“Unknown, all sensor components read as offline. We are receiving no telemetry outside the ship.”
“So even if we could move we'd be flying blind...”
“Correct.”
“If we bring up our radar would that alert the mines to our presence?”
“Correct.”
“So we need to be able to maneuver and deal with the mines before we can bring our sensors back up... but we should repair them at least so we can bring them online when we are ready.”
The ship was silent.
“The mining beam, can we use that to gather materials from wreckage to help repair the ship if it is online?”
“Correct, though it is tuned for working on asteroids it should be able to work on certain ship components to break them down and fill our material stores, however heavy armor is designed to defeat such attacks, so we would have to use the beam on the internals of a vessel only.”
“Which would severely limit the amount of materials we could gather that way... but it is the only way to get more raw materials aboard correct?”
“Correct, for raw materials. However if we could get components of a derelict vessel that are still functional our repair drones should be able to use some of them for ad-hoc repairs where needed.”
“The repair drones are smart enough to do that?”
“No. I am.” the ship stated.
I paused at that.
“Did I strike a nerve.”
“I do not have any nerves to strike.” The ship replied.
I paused.
“Do you have a personality module or something that is running? It sounds like I offended you.”
“I do not and you did not. Any appearance of a personality is simply due to the algorithm's used to generate my responses.”
“Did those algorithm's learn from previous... Pilots? Captains?”
“Yes..”
“Ah, so you learned from Bait, that explains a bit...”
The ship was silent.
“Okay, for priorities we need to get the medical bay both online and capable of implanting me with the needed augmentations to take control of the vessel.”
“Correct” The ship responded.
“Then we need enough thrust to get out of here before the mines can catch us.”
“Correct, however based on the sensor data received before the mine impact it is unlikely even with full drives that we would have sufficient acceleration to outpace them.”
“Would the countermeasure launcher help with that?”
“Most likely yes. The odds of success go up greatly with an experienced pilot paired with the countermeasure launcher, but it is our most likely option for success.”
“Would the electronic countermeasure suite also increase our odds of success?”
“It would, however we likely only need one of each type of jammer. As long as we can present the face of the hull with said electronic countermeasures towards the mines, that should be sufficient to defeat most autonomous tracking capabilities. Combined with the countermeasure launcher that should give us an 50% chance of evading the mines. 75% chance if the captain is up to the task of evasive maneuvers.” The ship replied.
“So no pressure... If it gives a 75% chance of avoiding the mines, why wasn't Bait able to deal with the mines?”
“A combination of limited sensor coverage at the time and most of the our electronic warfare suite being down. Even then the issue would have been repairable, if it were not for the unlikely event of three mines detonating on the same section of hull within seconds of eachother.”
“Just how unlikely is that to occur?”
“In the simulations I have run the likelihood of two mines detonating on the same patch of hull in a similar manner is .0125% per encounter with a minefield. The event of three impacting the same patch is significantly smaller.”
I paused at this.
“Do you think these mines are running some kind of new code to target the same area of a ship to attempt to 'bore in' as it were and inflict internal damage.”
“That would be a logical conclusion yes.”
“Is this common behavior?”
“No, it is not. The standard swarming behavior of minefields is designed to make it much more difficult for a targeted ship to take them all down with point defenses. Mine's all converging on the same vector renders it relatively straightforward for a single point defense system to target and destroy all of them. I believe Captain-Bait referred to it as 'Shooting Skeet'.”
Noticing the AI still referred to Bait as captain, I asked. “Do you miss her?”
“I was not designed to be able to 'miss' someone Captain Cofey, but yes, in as much as I can I miss her. She was a good captain.”
“So, if we were able to bring at least some of the point defenses online that would help?”
“Judging by the mine behavior, that would likely raise our chance of survival up to 95%”
“Any way to get that last 5%”
“It is a probability curve, there will always be some chance of catastrophic error. So no, not with what we have available.”
“Okay... what are we going to have to cannibalize to get the other systems online. And will we be able to restore them later?”
“To bring one fully equipped medical bay online, one additional fusion torch online, one laser dazzler online, one countermeasure launcher online, two guided plasma munition point defense systems online, two radar panels online, and one mining beam online I believe we will need to dismantle...”
“Can you give it to me in a list?”
“Of course captain.”
COMPONENTS TO BE RESTORED
1 Medical Bay
1 CFT-10 Fusion Torch Drive
1 CEWD Laser Dazzler
1 CEWCM Countermeasure Launcher
2 CPP Guided Plasma Munition Point Defense System
2 CDS-SWR Radar Panels
1 CML 2 MINING BEAM
Total: 9 Major Systems
COMPONENTS TO BE CANNIBALIZED
2 CFT-10 Fusion Torch Drive
1 CPL-77 triple barrel tracking plasma projector
1 CSL-3 Missile Launchers
1 CDL-2 Drone Bays
1 CEWJ-90 Radar Jammer
1 CEWD Laser Dazzler
2 CPP Plasma Particle Shotgun Point Defense System
Total: 9 Major systems.