I stared at the door to my prison trying to ignore the mountain of corpses and hardware Apollo keeps warping in.
>Praetorian Panoptes: Guys, I’m full, like actually seriously full! Don’t warp anything else in here without warping something out!
>Straingineer Zazathur: Oh shit! You have biomass!
>Straingineer Zazathur: need my lings back Apollo
>Terran Apollo: aight, we’re hunkered down anyways. Need ammo. Can factories produce power cells?
I tap directly into the nanofactory’s software, unsure how it’s possible but going with what my memories suggest. Tulverian weapons are already scanned and coded into the database with suitable modifications for power cells and possible adaptations on how to integrate them into Juggernaut systems. Some are ingenious, like the modification to replace a power cell with a solarium reactor which grants increased firepower per shot at the cost of additional weight and having to wait for a reactor to recharge your cell instead of reloading.
“Where am I going to get Solarium?”
Another of the Azhurai sculpted-battle-bots warps into the heap, eyes ablaze with yellow light. Claws on one paw extend, ready to tear into my flesh. My body reacts before I can, a simple psionic burst disassembles the bot by ripping out its reactor. Golden light fills the room as raw solarium tempers a fusion reaction. By -nameless- standards the design is cruder than getting power from a shake-weight or treadmill, but to Apollo this small reactor could power a country. It follows a standardized design as well, one popular among the Novan Technocracy.
“Lucky bastard.” I mutter, tossing the solarium reactor into the nanofactory.
>Praetorian Panoptes: How many scouts have you destroyed? Oh, they happen to have solarium reactors. Standardized reactors. We can power just about anything you want.
>Terran Apollo: Reactors? Wait. REACTORS!
>Terran Apollo: CLOAK GIVE ME CLOAKING DEVICES111!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Ah, yeah, shoulda guessed that’s what he wants.” I mutter, searching the database for solarium cloaking devices.
The options that appear make my heart flop. These devices are cruder than dick jokes and flaccid more often.
>Praetorian Panoptes: Bullets or cloak first? Cloak is bad version, very limited.
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>Terran Apollo: … fucking hell. Bullets first. If you can send us a reactor to recharge the cells without warping them out that would be best. How long will a cloak take? Please, pretty please with a cherry on top tell me you have human portable cloaking.
I wince. Our shared vision of what cloaking devices are is based off ghosts in starcraft. While in reality they're piss poor shower curtains.
>Praetorian Panoptes: cloak will take 24 hours to cook. Is 200 pounds, and has 10% uptime. Thermals detect it. To get a worthwhile cloak I’ll need a week and no weight limit.
Maybe it was my imagination, but I could swear to hearing distant screaming.
>Terran Apollo: Fine. I’ll think about it. Can you upgrade our guns first?
>Praetorian Panoptes: Bro, I'll give you the interface. Merry Christmas.
With a thought I pass access codes to Athena’s warp HUD, granting her full access to the nanofactories. A minute later one begins retrofitting a plasma rifle with a solarium reactor and thrice reinforced coils. While the other starts making a general purpose solarium reactor. In practice that general purpose reactor is just ten individual reactors stuck together and connected with various ports and induction coils for charging various devices.
>Straingineer Zazathur: hey
>Straingineer Zazathur: we landed but the hive mind got scrambled
>Straingineer Zazathur: NO BIOFORMS ARE FRIENDLY
>Straingineer Zazathur: plz send biomass
>Straingineer Zazathur: got an engineer with no legos
A laugh escapes my lips, vibrating through the room as psychic waves convert to sound. This body is going to take some getting used to. I turn my attention to escaping this prison. Scrolling through my memories Panoptes guides me, explaining how Kaalra locked the door.
As far as locking methods go, it’s a simple psionic riddle, like playing a game of flappy bird. There is a crystal maze I must move an orb through without obliterating it. Air jets and varying gravity add variables to the lock.
“This ought to be easy.”
I point a claw at the crystal orb and psychically order it forward-
-the ball explodes into dust. Crushed by excessive force. Repair systems automatically warp the dust away replacing it with another orb.
“That’s cute you sonofabitch!”
Until I escape this room I’ll be limited to the local warp engine, the -nameless- castes’ version of a microwave. As plant based organisms we need little immediate sustenance, but a warp engine is included in each residential room of our ship. Even the stasis chambers.
On the other side of that door lies an entire ship full of technology I am authorized to use. If only I can get through the lock! A chime interrupts my thoughts. The solarium railgun is complete and ready for combat. Before I can second guess myself the rifle is in my arms and aimed at the door. A shot of yellow energy burns the atmosphere, splashing across the door as shielding negates the blast.
Of course it wouldn’t be that easy.
>Praetorian Panoptes: Hey Apollo, got a new toy for you.
The infinite pulsar warps out of my hands, across the stars to my other third.
While I sit, beginning the long process of training my psychic powers, one crushed ball at a time.