Author Corner: Was going to do double release but when i saw both chaps were below 10 pgs i did it differently and merged the chap into one big one.
Enjoy!
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*Sigh*
I let out a sigh as I finish working on the door to the airlock. It was a main to do because it is a tedious work to but the door in place then replace the locks we cut but it wasn’t extensively difficult.
It was rather annoying the get the door back up here though, it had fallen down to the ground but thanks to its sturdy material it didn’t even dent.
To lift it up I had to use my robot to put it back on the hinges then came aligning and all that so that the pressure wouldn’t leak. Getting the door up was the least problematic though took the most resource since lifting such a heavy door, weighing almost 300 kilos, made taking off with the robot just as hard but it came with benefits.
Exterior Psi ManipulationRarity1.5Level 7A skill to efficiently control Psi outside the body. Makes it easier to manipulate Psi and to make it do what you want while it’s outside the body
Increases control of Psi outside the body by 3%
Lost of Psi while doing tasks has decreased by 8%
Yep, from the last time I checked, this skill was at level 4 but with all the flight training, building and moving the wings, then using the wings to an extent to lift heavy objects it kept pushing me leveling up faster than I noticed.
Right my level rose to 20 due to the monsters killed recently.
It's rather pressing because after we turned the power on the lights seem to have attracted the stations current residents.
We still have a final generator to bring online to power this area of the station and with me finished here we can safely seal the room and put it in a vacuum.
As for the job of moving our things, after searching a bit we found the hangar opens in two doors and the crane from the fifth floor drops all the way down to lift things up.
It made things easy as dad and Ernest moved things onto a platform the crane attaches to and lifts it up while the rest of the crew unloads into the lower deck.
Obviously dad brought all the barrels of ale that weren't destroyed while loading the partially broken ones so he can repair them.
Other cargo was also constantly being brought while water was still left.
For the ship's power, after a full night all the systems came online and the power rose to 20% in the generators power cores. The slow rise is attributed to the fact that the generator was slowly powering up auxiliary batteries in all the equipment and filling a small room next to the generator with power. The room contains twenty power cells all linked into the ship and were charged during the day and night and now the power cells was finally charged.
Even so we haven't started the engines on until the power reaches 50% so that the power cores inside the engine can be jump started safely.
For the rest of the day we move all our remaining things into the new ship.
Alex's fighter was the most difficult and dangerous to move due to the fact that we found out the scrapper probes were flying around.
We still succeeded but it was still dangerous.
At this moment we are walking through a side path on the side of the hangar port our ship was in. The reason is simple, this side path heads to the command center of the port. Strangely though the corridor and stairs have dim lights.
As we reach the top of the stairs we see a short path and finally enter a room.
What we saw was a grim sight.
All around were skeletons of different shapes and forms.
"My god!" Ernest said.
"I think I understand now why the other ships were destroyed and this one wasn't." Dad said.
It was only me, dad and Ernest here so when dad said that we looked at him.
"What do you think?" I asked.
"It simple, I can bet if we look at all the other ships we will find a similar sight. The station hands wanted to commandeer the ships and escape but the power probably failed by the time. This ship of ours these men didn't even have time to remove the ship locks, to our luck." Dad explained.
Thinking about it, it made sense. If the station had depressurized somewhere below or had a leak everyone would have space suits on. This area was separate and independent so removing the suits was possible which happened. The skeletons all had rotten suits but no helmets.
They probably entered and sealed the room before pressuring before the power failed and when it did they were locked inside and probably died of starvation.
"Such a god damned unlucky way to die really." Dad said.
We nod and walk in and begin searching the men but everything was rusted.
The room as well had rust infiltration.
I walk over to the consoles looking for an 'on' switch.
I then looked around and saw the power distribution panel board.
Walking over I opened and saw nearly half the switches off so I started to flip them all one.
One by one they were flipped on but nothing really changed until I noticed the main power switch was also off so pulling it one turned on the entire panel.
Tac!
A large number of switches dropped due to short circuit but the room we were in still came to life.
The dim lights grew brighter and the computers also began to blink.
"Security scan initiated! Unit registers considerable damage to power grid! Requesting maintenance team assistant! No signal detected, station power grid offline detected. Searching station grid for online systems. Sector B online one generator offline. Remote access acquired, generators turned on."
The robotic voice said and we noticed how the lights flickered again before growing stronger.
"Whats going on?" I asked.
"This is an AI. Must be a utility AI for emergency or to take over when no one is left in control." Lia said.
"Generator 1-4 online, damage to generator 3 detected, power cell 2 unconnected. Placing active mission to repair for detected crew.
Attempting to acquire Remote access to offline sectors. Sectors A and D acquired. Sector C is powerlines offline and cannot connect. Attempting alternative route...
Access acquired. Turning on all generators of Sectors A, B, C and D.
Power reserven Insufficient, Venturi Battle Frigate detected. Generators power at 23%. Battery reserves 100%. Calculating power quantity...
Energy capable of jump start. Commence reserve battery siphon and Jumpstart of all generators."
"Hey!" Dad suddenly shouted but it was too late.
The lights and computers all dropped for a few seconds and the cables attached to the ship all lit up as the power from the cells were drained out.
After a minute everything came back online.
"Sectors A 50% online, Sector B 95% online, Sector C 25% online, Sector D 70% online.
Damage to over 40 generators, Sector C requires immediate repairs to all generators. Sector generators all functioning with only 1 or 2 power cells. Damage to generators detected. Updating active mission for present crew."
At this it finally went silent.
"Fuck! It drew from our ship to power the station!" Dad cursed.
"This is actually good!" Ernest said.
We looked at him confused.
"It's like this, the AI already recognizes that we are the only ones here and have put up agency missions. Station AI can automatically deposit credits for work and have a huge stock of money. Not only that but with station we can get a map of the station and if the cameras are online we can have the AI track the movements of the monsters that got in and aid us from that. Also with power running, other systems like air filtration and water distribution will naturally go and since it isolates leaks the plumbing will flow and block off areas of water leakage." Ernest said.
"So we gain an aide now?" I asked.
"Partially only, this thing isn't like us and has no free will. It functions on commands and has no intelligence. Though it's inferior to us, their security protocols are the best and keep intelligent AI from hacking since any change in the codes will alert them." Dad's AI, Olivia, said.
The secretary AI appeared and explained.
I looked at the computers and walked over and saw a mic.
Before trying that I said.
"AI please bring up a map of the station marking all the generator locations. Also include any obstructed paths and please show the location of all lifeforms in the station." I said but nothing.
Looking at the mic and the button next to it to turn it on I said the same.
In an instant the screen changed to a map of several sectors which are the several dozen areas around the floor we are and below.
In corridors in red were the ones blocked and blue dots were lifeforms.
I pressed the mic button.
"Register the eight life forms within this room and hangar as friend and make as a color green while all other lifeforms are in blue." I said
"Only six lifeforms located. Two robot entities detected." the AI replied.
"Those are friendly." I said.
After saying so the eight dots representing us turned green.
"Good, now we have a map." Dad said.
"Hey noah, see if the AI can't connect to us and forward the maps constantly." Lia asked.
I nod and ask.
"Long and Short range communication impossible. If direct link is made then this unit can accomplish the command." the AI replied.
"So if someone remains here and uploads the map for the rest of us." Dad said.
"Are we going to explore the station?" I asked.
Ernest nods and walks over.
"Please mark all weapon deposits. Also please tell make if there are any psi generators or locations for parts for repairs. Mark all objectives as green" Ernest said.
I looked at him started. Psi generators, what is that?
"Your face says it all, one of the machines I was incapable of repairing is a psi generator. It gathers psi and stores it for use. I already had it transported into the ship since I saw you had a fighter robot." He said.
I smiled and thanked him.
On the map were several green dots on the lower floor.
"Please show us where ship class weaponry is located." Ernest said.
"Location classified. Authorized personnel only may know." it replied.
"The station has collapsed and all authorized personnel are dead." He said.
"Scanning for authorized personnel.
None located, badges locates near skeletal remains. Scans show all station personnel. Rewriting security codes. Current friendly personnel aboard station has been given highest degree of authorization." the AI said and on the map several dots appeared but the biggest one was outside the lit up area.
"What's in that area with the biggest dot?" I asked.
"Vacuum sealed deport located next to production hangars and production plants.
This is within sectors E, F and G. Unable to access area due to damages. Requires minimal repairs in the following locations." the AI said and made five dark green dots appear.
"Minimal requirement of one spot for me to extend my connection outward." it said.
"I see. So there are sector connection conduits every four letters. This means that there are 26 sectors in the station at the most but there are also regions within each sector. Do you have images from before the crash of the storage depot?” Ernest asked.
A image appeared with a huge warehouse with thousands of things shelved and held by magnetic shelves in separate containment areas.
“This will definitely need power to retrieve. We need something to deactivate the magnetic locks if they are active as well as open the door.” Ernest said.
“Let’s do something different then.” I said.
The two looked at me.
“Bring up the official mission made.” I said to the AI.
Urgent Mission: Generator RepairsDifficulty3Venturi Station has crash landed and power is low. Ugent mission made by AI unit 1. Mission details the requirement of all generators be up online to 100%.
Reward: 20, 000 credit to crew
Objective: Repair completely all power generators in sectors A, B, C and D. 3/16
Sector A 50% online: Gen: 1 2/5, Gen 2: 2/5, Gen 3: 0/5, Gen: 4 2/5.
Sector B 95% online: Gen: 1 5/5, Gen 2: 5/5, Gen: 3 4/5, Gen: 4 5/5.
Sector C 25% online: Gen: 1 2/5, Gen 2: 1/5, Gen: 3 1/5, Gen: 4 1/5.
Sector D 70% online: Gen: 1 4/5, Gen 2: 3/5, Gen 3: 4/5, Gen: 4 3/5.
Success: All Generators are functioning
Failure: Generators are destroyed
Seeing the failure conditions we looked at the other life signs.
"Shit! Those rats are going to attack!" Dad cursed.
"How much of the security system is online? Show on the map functioning defense weapons." Ernest asked the AI said.
"Due to low power reserve, defense system functioning at 20% and there is damage to 15% of the weapons." it said.
"Activate the defense system all sectors and focus on defense of the generators. As power is restored activate more functioning weapons." Ernest said.
"Request follows mission objectives. Activating defense systems." it said.
Mission Accepted
Moment later the calls from the others came.
We told them about the mission.
"Alex, come up here, we need someone to keep us updated with the map. The rest of you get armed. We need to clear out the rats." Dad shouted.
In a few minutes Alex came in and we exit and get ready for the fight to clear out all the monster rat beasts that have nowhere to hide anymore in the now lit up corridors and rooms.
Leaving Alex to find a way to connect her communicator, we ran down and into the ship.
“Guys, I'm going to the generator in this floor that still needs the final pillar to work. You guys head down stairs to the other sectors.” I tell the two running next to me.
“Got it! We will meet up with you later on, make sure not to fire pure psi rounds inside so that you don’t destroy the corridors.” Dad said.
“Yeah I know. I’ll first go to fix the A sector which is one floor above and seems to have only around 10 of those monsters. I can take them by myself while you guys take the crowded floors below. If I can fix all the floors above and this one the power to the station will allow more security weapons to activate.” I said.
The two nodded and we climbed onto the ship through the hangar lift.
I go to the hangar where all my workshop gear was placed. When I enter the hangar, Alex’s ship, my robot, lots of repair tools and a strange machine was placed all over.
The machine looked like a ale container combined with a psi container. The hangar that was over 6 meters high showed this machine was around 4 meters tall.
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“So that is the psi generator.” I mutter but shake my head to get focused.
I run to my robot and jump in before looking around and grabbing my sword. With the wide corridors of this station I can easily fight .
I put it on my back between the closed wings which had a locking mechanism there and it held the sword.
Then I grab a case of shotgun shells and store it in my inventory and see that the shells have already loaded so I run towards the door which is sealed by an energy gate and pass through before spreading my wings and flying off the ship and down to the ground.
The others had already left when I received a call.
”Guys, I finally connected to the console, Xeno is downloading the map and it will be forwarded to you live. I already asked the AI to make full floor maps for each sector.” Alex said.
We all thank him, while Havic compliments him like a fangirl, and we all head out.
I quickly reinforced my robot to run at full speed and eventually reached the generator room. I noticed a laser machine gun turret near the door but it didn’t shoot. There was also the corpse of a rat beast 20 meters away but it had been made into swiss cheese by the turret.
”That turret seems strong, maybe we can get it later on.” I thought but pushed it back as I walked inside.
One look at the room and I understood what was wrong.
All the pillars have a thick 20 cm long cable connecting the power cell to the main one. This one on the other hand had fallen off and now was on the ground.
“Is that powered?” I asked.
“Doesn’t seem like it… though there is 3% of energy still in the cell. Best thing you can do is turn off the pillar before you connect.” Lia said.
I nod and look at the pillar but suddenly a circle appeared in my display.
“This circle is will electrocute me won’t it?” I said.
“Not 100% but there so something between 40-50% chance, yep. Good luck~!” Lia said.
I sigh and walk to the border of the line and open the chest cover and remove my arms from the robot.
Spreading out my psi I move it to grab the lever and pulled it down which did nothing since the generator was turned on automatically by the AI. This was hard since the level naturally goes upward as a precaution.
After five minutes of pushing it finally goes down completely. Take a breath I put my left hand into my robot and recharge my psi. This is by far one of the best benefits of the robot since it’s like a walking battery for me.
Sticking my hands out I pull the lever and it quickly jumps up shutting off the pillar with it.
The circle in the display vanishes and I close the robot and walk forward.
“Seems it’s safe now, let’s get this working.” I said and spread my wings as I grab near the top of the power line and take off.
Surprisingly the wire is very heavy and after a struggle reach the outlet on the big core but when I did it was simple to find the correct side to insert it in and properly lock the cable in place so that it wouldn’t fall again.
After checking around a bit and asking Alex to check with the AI if it was only the cable I went and turned on the pillar and pressed blinking button and moved back.
After a moment I saw the cable turn blue as power flooded the core and the pillar started up and reversed the flow of energy back into the main core before the energy began to stabilize and rise quicker.
Mission Updated
”Sector B is clear!” Alex’s voice quickly calls through the communicators.
When the others connect the sound of gunfire came in as well.
”Noah! Get moving! We need a tank to take the hits here! Ernest, Roktar and Hilda are doing that but Ernest is vanguard and Uncle is tanking at the moment but he isn’t as sturdy as your robot!” Jessica said.
“I’ll go to Sector A first, it has one power generator completely off so I need to see that!” I said.
”Alright but hurry!” She replied.
I turned my back and ran out and headed to the nearest stair way.
As I reach it I spot a rat beast sticking his head out.
I frown and bend forward and lift my wings just up enough and activate them to give me a boost as I reinforce my fist.
When the rat finally noticed were the noise was coming from I was on top of him and my fist descended onto its head breaking its skull and neck were my fist landed crushing it under the weight of my fist.
“Nice sneak attack, good use of the wings as well!” Lia compliments me.
“Which is the way to the offline generator?” I asked.
“First go up then right. Then after ten branching paths, take a right and after 2 take a left and it should be on the right after 2 blocks and 2 doors.” She said.
I quickly rush up and start to follow her instructions. On the map she had highlighted the path but it also intersected with four enemy dots which I had to fight through them.
Shooting only the shotgun without psi and punching was enough to fight the level 30+ rats thanks to my robot's reinforced defense.
When I finally reached the generator room what I found made me frown deeply.
Looking at the power cells they were all cracked and the main one was shattered and all over the floor.
“Damn it, the power cores are all broken in this generator.” I cursed through the communicator.
A moment later Alex replied.
[i]”There should be a storage room on the left side of the room. There should be spare power core’s inside for when there are accidents.” Alex replied.
I look around and find the door and pass through and when I enter I find the cores all over the room. It was really a storage room, sadly more than 75% of the cores were shattered from being poorly held in place. Still there were over twenty cores still remaining and so I went and shut all the pillars off and pulled the cores off, more like pushed them off, and put the new ones on.
The main cores were unlike the small ones and were very well stored and had not a single scratch on it.
I pushed that one into place and then went to the old cores and removed the power cable and connected one at a time until all four them had connected.
Then pushing the old cores into the storage I start to move to power it up.
“Clean up the room first, the shards will attract the energy making the room an electric minefield.” Lia said.
I frown when I heard her.
“What do you expect me to do huh?” I said.
A moment later the map changed and a yellow dot appeared on the map.
“This room should have utility drones inside. If we are lucky we can find some security robot's as well.” Lia said.
I cursed all the delaying work I needed to do but ran over anyway and found the room.
Like she said there were utility drones which were circular and yellow with two small lights in the front and back.
Many were tossed around. The room turned on when I entered. Alex told me the AI had passed some power to charge the robot's and so I simply put them all to charge.
Looking around more I also found what I think are security drones.
What surprised me was how ‘rough’ it looked. It had two tank treads for legs and feet with a humanoid upper body but the arms stuck out and were two laser miniguns.
I go and connect the charging cable to them and in a few minutes all the robot's turn on and are ejected out and start to move.
The security drones move first and instantly start to go through the corridors.
Then I hear gun fire and I see the dots on the floor vanish.
“Those rusty bots are something.” Lia said.
“Yeah, seems their condition wasn’t as bad as we thought.” I said and she nodded in my view.
The utility bots all head to the generator room and clean up the floor of debris and leave to clean the station as is their job.
For me I go and turn on the pillars and then the main core and move out. A minute later a message appeared
Mission Updated
I go to the other generators and connect the disconnected cable or replace a broken core. One of them I had to enter the generator the repair several gears and parts which took a long while but I finally did the top floor.
After a few hours both top floors were cleared out. I found out that the station AI had taken the initiative in releasing the security drones still connected to the charging cable to aid in fighting the rats.
With the top two floors clear the power was slowly gathering quicker and slowly the station was getting a bit more active.
I ran downstairs and soon join the others taking the weight of tanking off them and bulldoze our way through the bottom floors clearing them with the help of the security drones.
With the sectors cleared we could take a good look and it was easy to understand why the lower floors are much more damaged. Being closest to the area of impact more damage was done inside with more cave in and blocked paths. It's surprising the generators on Sector D which was the lowest survived so well while Sector C took damage to both the cores and the generator itself.
Once the beasts were cleared, everyone returned to the ship while I took my time in Sector D which was simpler to repair and got it working. Throughout all this, my mechanics skill rose two levels to level 13 and my parts repair gained one level going to level 11. The fighting got me to level 23. Dad got level 26, Jessica reached 20, Hilda 22, Lisa 18, Havic I discovered was already level 32 and Ernest was 45.
It was surprising to hear the levels of the two beta testers.
After everything had happened so quickly we all returned a bit exhausted and decided to get rest. Besides Alex who kept relaying information to use, the ones that fought had a gone though a lot of fighting and so we went to sleep.
The next morning I went to the lower floors. All the floors had been surprisingly clean but that was because the utility drones had removed the corpses and were cleaning the corridors.
We went to all the drone rooms and put all the drones to charge and soon the place was crawling with them. Surprisingly they gathered at the collapsed corridors and were slowly opening them. As for damaged machines, they had no way to repair them but it was interesting to watch them crawl on the ceiling and walls as they cleaned the station.
I went to the lower sectors and began repairing the generators but not before making the connection to the next four sectors and allowing the AI to transfer power to open the doors. We told it not to active the generators because it would cause more trouble than it's worth and we would take our time repairing them before activating.
I had asked myself half of the time 'why were we repairing a destroyed station but thinking of the loot to be found hidden here was a valid enough reason.
While I worked on the generators for over a week the others sorted through all the deposits of goods and with Ernests own mechanic skill he repaired a kind of fork lift and brought back ship weaponry, from cannons to machine guns and more.
Soon with power being stored, and me finding the power cell room and replacing all the damaged ones, eventually the hangars machinery.
By the end of the second week I had finally finished repairing the damaged generators and they were all operating at 100%.
The reward, money, after that mission came one for total restoration of the power of the stations power which we were really reluctant to do.
We actually wanted to leave sooner but Ernest wanted to repair it. His reason was that if we ever needed it, we could hide out on this planet since even the biggest scrappers couldn't crack the stations outer shell. He led us to a cave at the bottom floors and showed us how he entered and as we reach the end we noticed how there was a number of scraper probes around.
"The scrappers may eventually find this but if we cover up and seal the holes the station will be sealed well enough and can be a secret base if we can get out and seal the station before they notice.
Since the station has energy fields they can be set to stop others from entering when we exit and close up the station after we leave. As long as we set ourselves as the owner of the station and make a way for the AI to open up we can use this as a hide away. It will give us a good reason to repair this station and seal all exits." Ernest said.
It was then that we got the urge to repair this. In the future we would definitely form a large crew and having a place to house them and build ships and our forces will be needed.
After a while we all agreed that we would repair the station, at the very least we will get the power running and get the utility and security drones working and sealing the station up so that rats don't return or other 'rats' don't get in.
So we did what would work best, originally the prize for turning all the power back on was 150k credits but we said that due to the owner's death if we repair the station it will belong to us. Since there has been intergalactic laws that stated similar things for centuries the station AI altered the mission and accepted the reward change. Now we have this.
Urgent Mission: Generator RepairsDifficulty4Venturi Station has begun to be restored. Power to four sectors restored.
1. Mission details the requirement of all generators be up online to 100%.
Reward: Ownership of the station to the crew.
Objective: Repair completely all power generators in the station. 16/106
Success: All Generators are functioning
Failure: Generators are destroyed
The mission began and we started slowly to clear it one sector at a time while equipping our ship and organizing the interior making all the seperate rooms needed and finding more equipment for our ship within each sector.
2 months later
In space above Venturi, the planet where the crew crashlanded.
Slowly space distorted as suddenly a ship broke out of FTL travel speeds.
It was a large warship. Following it moments later three large carriers appears.
Within the warship, Cleave was stilling and looked at the planet.
"Report! How is the planet surface?" He asked.
"The planet Venturi, also known as the home of scrapers, is the main base for every scrapper overlord. They control all traffic in the surrounding systems and everyone has to pay protection fees unless they have enough fire power to make them think otherwise." Someone reported.
"Boss, one of the overlords once had dealings with Big Boss once, we may be able to get their help to find those bastards!" Another man said.
"Oh? It would definitely help, still, send out a search party and try to locate the ship but get in contact with them so we can search without obstruction." Cleave said.
""Yes Sir!"" The men said and got to work.
Cleave stared at the planet as a vicious smile appeared on his face.
"No escape this time you fuckers!" he thought looking at the grey continent and green oceans.
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Psi generator more or less
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/8obPtEnmJQQ/maxresdefault.jpg
Security robot
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-yw4jACIH_6M/VzuoNmSMbAI/AAAAAAAAA2I/14DqsY0OoGgYJntmFTRlig5cPVleQ5_BgCK8B/s512/2016-05-17.png