Vessel Name:Hook
Propulsion:
1 CFD-111 Fusion Reactor(FUEL: 66%)
2 CFT-10 Fusion Torch Drive
14 CFT-97 Fusion Torch Maneuver Thrusters
4 CMDCGAMT-4 Auxillary Cold Gas Thrusters
Primary Armament:
1 CPL-77 triple barrel tracking plasma projector
1 CPL-66 double barrel tracking plasma projector
Secondary Armament:
2 CSL-3 Missile Launchers1
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)
1 CDL-2 Drone Bays:
Current drone count:5 CCD-14 plasma drones(max bandwidth limit's to 2 drones per bay)
Defensive equipment:
1x CEWJ-90 Radar Jammer
1x CEWD Laser Dazzler
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
2 CPP Guided Plasma Munition Point Defense System
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
1x CTU Medical Unit
C.O.G. REPAIR MATRIX: 3 OF 4 NODES ONLINE.
CURRENT STATUS: REPAIRING OUTER HULL, RESTORING ARMOR, BRINGING ALL ARMAMENT ONLINE
4 CDS-SWR Radar Panels,
2 CDS-LWR Radar Antennae
1 CDS-RTR Radar
“Were more components than planned repaired?”
“Some components were found to be in a reparable state and were not complete write offs, we also were able to use some of the detritus IN the ship as raw materials, but we are still not at one hundred percent.”
I brought up an image of the ship in my head, and it looked extremely different.
“Did we... shrink?”
The ship now looked like an elongated arrowhead, two of the plasma shotgun PDT's were mounted on the tips of the 'wings', the other two further forward, one on the topside and one on the bottom, dorsal and ventral. The guided plasma PDT's were spaced halfway down the wings. The two missile launchers were set in a dual rotary setup in the front of the arrowhead, just below a bit of armor that provided a bit of extra protection, it looked like the missiles were meant to launch and dart 'down' in relation to the hull. The drone bay was on the bottom of the hull, and the two main guns, the tracking plasma projectors were mounted on top, the large one near the rear of the arrowhead, the smaller one near the front. The countermeasure launcher was on the back, above the drive, and two jammers and dazzler were mounted on the front on the protrusion of armor above the missile launchers. The mining laser was set ventrally midships, that is on the bottom and in the middle.
“Excess material was consumed in repair process, all viable functional components were preserved, though moved to more ably balance the ship against the drives.
“So... we transformed the ship? Th big guns and small gun used to be arranged in a sort of triangle to each other on the ship, now the small is centerline in the prow and the large is in line with it further back... how?”
“I believe Captain-Hook and Joe explained, but COG self repair and fabrication abilities are leagues beyond what you are used to, and just as beyond the other major powers. The repair drones are capable of physically moving the components, and the nano-hull can consume and move itself virtually at will. With as many holes in the hull as their were, it was childs play to reshape the hull into a more viable arrangement befitting the current components.”
“So... could the nano-hull have replaced the components we consumed by eating the hull as it were? Sacrifice HP for capability to use gaming terms.”
“Oh no... you are gamer... just like Captain-Hook.”
“I feel like you have an issue with gamers.”
“Not the issue. No, they could not have. The issue is the high precision electronic components in most of the modules that required repair. Those require massive facilities to get the molecular scale circuitry mostly correct. The nano-hull could theoretically be programmed for it, but all attempts to use said hull for such activities has resulted in a 99% failure rate per batch of components. Large scale printers that can output enough to compensate for any failures are preferred, as that way if you spend four weeks processing a batch of microchips you can at least use some of them.”
“So we'd need to find some kind of factory ship for what we need?”
“Ideally, or any sufficiently advanced and industrious planet. We can buy the parts we cannot produce to sufficient accuracy ourselves, and build the rest of the components around them.”
“I thought the whole point of COG was self sufficiency, how can you be self sufficient if you need a factory to build most of the components that actually make a ship go.”
“Easy. You eat a rock and build a factory.”
I paused and blinked.
“You can do that?”
“Of course, that was the basic design principle behind every COG ship design. Technically the ships are only the mobile portion of any COG member's assets, most have auto-factories dotted throughout space that are working on various projects for them.”
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Oh... do you have the coordinates of any of Hook's factories that were near here?”
“Not any that are closer than prime would be.”
“Damn... okay so we are ready togo? I just need to go to the bridge and... sync with the ship or something?”
“The bridge provides a hardline connection that cannot be broken by jamming or disruption warheads like what we got hit by earlier, but you can technically control the ship from anywhere as long as you have a strong enough connection.”
“Alright... let's go.”
I made my way to the bridge, repair bots getting out of my way.
Once aboard the bridge a rush of memories hit me. The bodies of Hook and Joe were gone, but for an instant I saw both of them there, leaking blood. I felt sick to my stomach, and I hunched over, clenching down, images of the bridge slowly fading from my mind, while my muscles trembled and my guys felt like they were going to let everything out from both ends.
And alert pinged in my headware.
“You appear to be having a PTSD episode... Your headware can suppress those in an emergency situation but it is not recommended otherwise unless you are going to self harm.”
“You can detect PTSD?”
“It's all just brain chemistry.”
“Nifty... Let's get this over with.”
I shakily moved over to Hook's former char and inspected it with trepidation, there were still discolored spots where she had... leaked over everything, but Hook had assured me everything had been sanitized.
I let out a breath and sat back in the chair.
Immediately I felt a whirring behind me as the chair adjusted to me. It actually wound up being quite comfortable, and I felt something move up along my spine and rest at the metallic port I had discovered after my implantation.
A dialogue box opened in my HUD.
ENGAGE FULL LINK?
I thought clicked yes.
All of a sudden my world changed. I was no longer in a chair on the bridge, I was floating in space, looking out at... well right now a lot of debris that used to be US but were now drifting alongside us.
In my ear a little voice spoke. I could hear it plainly, but it no longer took up so much of my attention as before.
“You may feel a little disorientation, many first timers do.”
“I don't this is just... wow... So I am just the ship now basically.”
“You caught onto that very quickly.”
“It seems fairly straightforward... helps that I used to play a lot of sci-fi games.”
I focused on a piece of debris that looked odd to me, and my vision zoomed in, all of a sudden multiple points on it were highlighted, and I was scanning it through multiple spectrums.
“Uh... Hook? You didn't tell me were still in the minefield.”
“We are not. We drifted away from the projected paths of the mines, what you see around us is just debris from the battle and ourselves.”
“No, look.”
I 'sent' Hook the image I had scanned, which showed a mine that had gotten tucked into a piece of debris. As I scanned around us I found evidence of five more mines hiding in our debris.
“That is... That is troubling, and I must say no one in my records has taken to the full linkage this fast captain Cofey.”
“Nevermind the flattery Hook is this usual behavior for mines?”
“Standard mines no Captain Cofey, but, there is a class of mines that are programmed to stick close to debris and asteroids to hide their signatures. They are significantly more sophisticated, and therefore expensive, than normal mines however. So either the Pirates suddenly got access to a set of highly sophisticated mines, and decided to use them in an effort to catch two COG vessels which the could not hope to use and a five hundred year old ARK ship, or...”
“Or there is another player in this... Are there any other scans we could do to determine who built these?”
“That would require capturing one and dismantling it Captain Cofey. Considering the amount of damage they caused detonating outSIDE the hull, I do not recommend this course of action.”
“Could we send one of our drones to examine it? Maybe have a repair drone hitch a ride and try to cut it open without detonating it?”
“That is possible Captain Cofey, but... there is a high probability we would lose both the drone and the repair drone in the process, and it is likely the explosion would wake the other mines from their sleep mode, and if they activated their sensors they would quickly spot us and move to destroy us.”
“Sensors... SHIT did I turn them on? How havent they seen us?”
“You are using mostly passive sensors right not Captain Cofey. If you turn on active sensors you will get a significantly better view of the surrounding area, but I disabled that before you underwent full linkage. I admittedly thought it would be a long shot for you to be able to turn them on, but I would have been surprised. You seem to have achieved full synchronization with all ship systems.”
“Is that rare?”
“Captain-Hook generally maintained a fifty percent synchronization with the ship systems. Achieving one hundred percent is rare.”
“Probably something to do with my weird brain chemistry?”
“Probably.”
“Anything I should worry about? Will staying at 100% cook my brain or anything?”
“That is why most people DON'T achieve 100%. All of your vitals seem normal. However you should try frame-jacking to a faster frame of reference while I monitor your vitals. It is necessary in combat to keep up with running the ship.”
“Right, frame-jacking, that was a thing in sci-fi before I became a popsicle. That basically means accelerating my perception of time right?”
“And your ability to think yes. I believe in your time it was thought that a humans eyes and brain could only process 24 frames a second(this was wrong, by the way, but we will use it as an example.) Frame-jacking to 10x speed would, for example, let you process 240 frames per second, and 100x would let you process 2400 frames per second.”
“But from my perspective I would experience those frames 24 frames at a time each subjective second.”
“Correct.”
“And no brain melting?”
“The implants you had put in have several countermeasures to reduce the excess heat that will be produced by frame-jacking yes. You have several heat sinks built into your skull now that will help dump the heat, but without outside assistance you have a limited amount of time to be frame-jacked before the excess heat begins doing damage to your brain.”
“Oh...”
“Thankfully you are in the captain's chair of a COG vessel, which has several built in functions to help with this. If you raise your hand to your head, you will feel several armatures that have sealed to ports in the top of your skull. These will draw heat away from your skull and even flush coolant under your skin to help maintain body temperature.”
“Wait, I have ports in my head?”
I reached up to feel my head and the world started spinning.
In my minds eye as I reached up the main guided plasma turret turned, and maneuvering jets fired.
And then everything stopped.
Or at least slowed down.
“Sorry, I forced you into frame-jack because... I think things just went from bad to worse.”