Ice slowly left the factory trying to come up with a plan on how to farm a lot of the Theriope enzymes quickly. He tapped the side of his face with one neon pink finger as he leaned against the wall next to the factory door smiling to himself. "Well, I haven't done any resource farming yet. This should be fun"
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Ice drew his pistol, staring at it for a second before looking up at the Nano Forge. So far, it had been basically useless against any Theriopes he had come across.
"Raven, I need a better personal weapon. Got any ideas?"
"Finally. Here, I was worried you were only going to use drones! Let's see; a rifle? A Sword? Powerfists? Dronesuit? Body modification? With your videogame memories we have a large portion of the armory in the store open to us!" Raven's voice was extremely excited.
Ice went up the ramp and into the common area near the cabins. He sat on one of the couches in the room before he responded. "I have a few thoughts…Why don't you tell me about the Dronesuit?"
"Well, it's a unique armory option with some customizable features such as color and weapons availability. Since you have primarily used drones in combat, you were offered it as a choice. The standard Tier 1 package is a titanium alloy chassis with a nano steel alloy armor package rated up to Class IV ballistic threats. The undersuit is a nano tech self-repairing membrane.” Raven reeled off. “It is stab-resistant and can provide limited medical utilities to stop bleeding from cuts and dispersal of kinetic energy from blunt weapons. It comes with various combat computational systems from full assistance to targeting only. The basic weapons package is a nano sword and a wrist mounted 9mm pistol but can be scaled up to a wrist mounted micro rail capable of firing ninety projectiles a minute. It has a micro matter conversion ammunition factory in the backplate as an option for automatic reloading."
"Well, that all sounds impressive but it sounds like it needs power?"
"Yes, depending on setup its regenerative diamond batteries are good for up to twelve hours of combat or a week of non-combat operations. Depending on loadout of course."
"And repairs?"
"The suit can handle most repairs by itself. Our nano printers being able to supply any extra parts or technology as necessary."
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"Ok, how much does it cost with all the options?"
"Five thousand points with two wrist mounted railguns and a full combat assist computer…. I think we could get away with three thousand points if we used a targeting assist system in the helmet and a single railgun with the nano weaponry package for the other arm."
Ice shrugged. "Final question! Does it come in black?"
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As Ice and Raven finished customizing the dronesuit Ice heard a *ding* from his pocket where he had stored the point containers. When he reached into his pocket to touch them a screen popped up.
*Ding*
50 POINTS GAINED.
50 POINTS GAINED.
"Well, that is convenient. Raven, add in the purple highlights we talked about."
“And done. Ready to purchase?”
“I feel like a kid at Christmas, Raven! Do it!” Ice practically shouted.
A few seconds later a large red box sat in the middle of the room… It was giftwrapped.
“What the fuck Raven?”
“I thought it would be funny.”
Ice sighed. “Okay it is funny… but still.” He walked over and ripped off the wrapping paper to reveal a large steel crate with a keypad on one side. “Uhm, Raven what's the code?”
“7-1-8-9-3-X-0-1-8-7-2.”
“Really? You paid extra for the crate didn’t you?”
“Ten points.”
He sighed again as he entered the numbers. The crate opened with a hiss to reveal his new armor in all of its glory.
It was facing the back of the crate so all he could see was its slightly humped back. After a few fruitless attempts to drag it out, Ice sighed and asked Raven how he was supposed to get the damn thing out of the crate.
“You put it on… it opens from the back.” She answered like this was the most obvious thing in the world.
Ice stepped back as Raven sent a command to the armor causing it to open revealing an all black interior. He reached out to touch it and his finger sank into it like it was memory foam. "Raven, this looks like it's going to be, umm, a tight fit?"
"Well, yeah, you're supposed to get into these naked." Raven stated matter of factly.
Ice stared at the crate for a moment before stripping out of his coveralls. He took a moment to look at his aqua blue arm and candy apple red leg. He smiled as he flexed the arm a bit. He climbed into the armor and felt the undersuit conform to his body and seal behind him. He panicked for a moment thinking he wouldn't be able to get back out of it. "Ughm, Raven? How do I.."
"You just tell it to release. It's calibrating, give it a second."
As he relaxed into the suit he felt it tighten for a few moments before relaxing and becoming comfortable. Then the suit closed over him and he saw a heads-up display appear with a battery showing as fully charged. Written in the lower right hand corner was 90/90 and on the left side he slowly saw symbols for each drone type appear then disappear. After the hud finished loading Ice felt the servos on the armor twitch lightly. He flinched backwards as did the armor, causing him to step back, falling flat on his ass..
"Looks like I might take a while to acclimate to the suit.”."
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Some hours later, Ice left the ship; his footsteps steady and certain. "Raven, any thoughts on the direction I should go to find some Theriope?"
"We could head back to the beach and grab the supplies off the ship. Even the metal would enable us to do numerous things. And we could feed it to the Matter Eater micro factories for ammunition, if nothing else."
"Ah, how would we move it?"
"Ask Francis to send a few squads of automatons with us and leave your Tier 1 D.O.Gs here. The automatons can move it."
Ice nodded and went to ask Francis; his steps remarkably quiet thanks to the nano treads on his boots.