chapter 42
We were about to reach the dropout location. My fingers hovered over the command button that had been programmed to cut thrust in a controlled manner, so the exit from the FDL dimension would be as smooth as possible.
There was a slight tremble in my fingers, with the events of the pirate fight that nearly cost me this ship and my life flashing constantly through my mind. I took a deep breath in and focused on this fear of mine.
Many things in my life have brought me fear. I still remember how long it took me to get over the sight of boiling water, as it so reminded me of that acid. And now, once again, I did the exercise that allowed me to get over every fear I have had.
I immersed myself in my fear. It will never leave me. It would be something I would live with for the rest of my life, but it didn’t have to control me.
So I accepted the fact that I could die. When I drop out of FTL, it might be my last moment in life.
It was like getting in a car. The chances were low, but every time you sat in one, there was the possibility of your death. So once again, I simply accepted the fact that there might be enemies where we exit, and there was nothing I could do about it, as you can't predict the unpredictable.
I let out my breath and accepted all of that.
Immediately, the trembling disappeared. No longer was I so anxious that it could control me, and precisely at the right moment, I pressed the button. The acceleration lowered, the gravity generator wound down, and the FTL device’s bubble started to collapse, bringing us back to regular space.
The ship’s AI and Lola immediately got to work. Visual data was the first that we could gather, as the light had already been reflected long ago from objects nearby, allowing us to gather data on our surroundings, even if it was seconds or minutes old depending on how far it was from us.
We were over 15 million miles away from the refuelling station. It did look a bit different from the ones I was used to, as we were now in a different section of the galaxy. These looked more rounded and less natural.
It seemed to be the correct model, as Lola painstakingly compared it to the data we have on this station.
Even she didn't like that it took her so long to notice the trap the pirates had set. It took a while longer to confirm our identities and the refuelling stations, as our computers needed more time to communicate with each other because of the distance. Eventually, we were able to start manoeuvres to approach the station to refuel our tanks.
We would need to slow down with our manoeuvres so that the station could catch up to us, and because we were further away than normal everything would take longer. Afterwards we would need to accelerate once again to FTL speed.
“I have gone through everything. If this is a trap, it is an excellent one,” Lola informed me, and the ship’s AI confirmed.
“If it’s a trap, then it’s a trap. We’re now a lot more survivable than before. No longer are we flying around in a tin can.”
I sensed acceptance and understanding from my connections. It was nice to see everyone accepting and understanding that slowly we were getting stronger, and eventually any traps laid against us we could possibly turn in our favour.
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Now that we were out of FTL, I could focus on gathering mana to improve myself. It was interesting because my core was generating mana, but I couldn’t use that to improve myself. As soon as I would pull that mana out of my core, it would be tainted by my affinities, and that couldn’t be used to strengthen my core, it needed to be outside mana to do so.
It was a bit difficult to understand, as both of them were such similar substances to my mana sense, but it seems if we're talking about mana, even the tiniest of changes seem to affect the outcome tremendously.
This fortunately allowed me to still train my skills during FTL, which was a nice surprise, but I would always be the same rank no matter what.
Right now, with every passing minute, I was slowly increasing my strength. The changes were so minute that it would take me weeks and months to make improvements that I could see, but it was still excellent training, and there was always a faster way to improve.
The faster way was to fight. Killing others helped improve yourself if they were mana-reborn, and anything made inside the portal that was living would help you get stronger if you kill it. Lola had been able to confirm that most adventurers started out clearing planet-side portals to grow stronger, so that was also going to be our plan.
Our destination planets seemed to have these spawning portals. Hopefully they won’t be too dangerous for my current strength level. That way I could grow stronger and also understand my innate ability better while earning some credits and hopefully getting some skills that I could use. But that would probably require some extreme luck.
There should be some auctions and stuff like that, and skill shops with many more skills to hopefully find the ones that would work for me and my future build. Whatever that might be.
There was still so much we didn’t know, but hopefully my mechanist affinity will allow me to empower, if not my ship, then at least my AIs, to make my journey in this galaxy easier and not as lonely.
We were close to the station when Lola informed me of something she learned from the adventurer quantum computer.
“It seems that our ship’s profile has completed missions listed on it. We seem to have three completed quests confirmed by the Adventurer Association.”
“Three? What could they possibly be?”
“First, seems to be the reporting of the pirate attack and their fleet composition. The second is the report and the subsequent attack on Crivordid Pirates on the Haver Station. And last, an attack on the Crivordid Pirate fleet and a Black Fleet.”
“Wait, so they actually fell for it and the station’s military acted?”
“Give me a moment.”
I waited for nearly four minutes before she finally started to speak again.
“Yes, it seems the Black Fleet was fully destroyed with only one ship from the pirates escaping. It’s listed as successfully completed.”
“Any reward numbers?”
“Not that I could find, but there wasn’t one listed for the other two quests either. I think we need a big enough location to get more information.”
“Well, this is good enough. Hopefully, we’ll have a good payday waiting for us.”
“Agreed.”
Before we left Haver station, we had transferred credits to many different refueling corporations, so we didn't need to exchange anything when we finally reached the station. Everything went smoothly, like we had done this a thousand times before.
Refueling cost us 2,100 mana credits, and our tanks were full, ready for another nearly month-long stay in FTL.
To get back into FTL, we pushed the acceleration to 15G. It was difficult to endure without any help, but my body had now acclimated to the cybernetics, allowing me to still function under this acceleration, even if it was still limited.
Entering the FTL and soon being under zero gravity was nice. Unfortunately, during this trip, we wouldn't be able to use the second gravity generator to get the downwards gravity to simulate being back on Earth.
The device needed to be inside the floor for the gravity fields to work properly, and unfortunately, there just simply wasn't enough room with all the things crammed between the inner and outer hull.
This was definitely something I was going to fix in the Mark II.
Lola brought up a problem with my current design. She didn't like the living quarters and the command centre being on the 4th floor, so close to the hull. I could see why that would be a problem, but I had run on the thinking that if the armour was pierced, we would already be dead.
Of course, we could armour up the insides as well, but that would mean adding a lot of weight, which would mean more fuel usage to move and would make us more sluggish.
If we moved the workshop to the top floor, it would also cause problems, as some of the machines I have arguably need as much protection as they are the lifeblood of this ship.
This will take some thinking. Perhaps a bridge of a sort could be on the third floor.
This would also mean that the original plan of having a passthrough hole between the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd floor would also need to include the 4th one. Lots to think about.
Perhaps a mix of the two. I have enough space that the workshop could be cut in half, the bridge and the living quarters lowered more into the third floor, giving extra strengthening only to it.
“Yes, I like that idea more. That way we could defend that section better without over-armouring too much of the insides. It would make transferring materials a bit annoying, but the heavier workshop machines could go to the back half, which would also help aid weight distribution.
Although, if we were going to try to make this ship capable of landing on planets, we would need even better weight distribution.
Currently, the plan to help with that was the power core. It being made out of nano machines meant it could be used to shift the centre of mass of the ship, which should help quite a lot.
It would be a difficult job to design all of this. The only thing this revelation made me do was smile in happiness.
This was going to be so much fun.