chapter 125
We flew towards the second research outpost. It seems that this mana detection device I was constantly using also seems to attract monsters. Every so often, when some of those fliers got close, our turrets opened up, killing them.
Other than that, it was a pretty nice time as I was learning so much about the planet below. It really was a crazy place. There wasn’t as much fighting down below as I expected, but that was because the stronger monsters seemed to have territories they owned, controlling them with their overwhelming might.
Whenever a portal broke, which I had witnessed two times now, those places really were war zones.
Whenever monsters broke out of the portal, they weren't fully themselves yet, just an echo of what they used to be. That meant that they had patterns to their actions, but the longer they stayed out, the more real they became.
I tried to use that to my advantage in finding the monster that we were after. They were mole-like creatures, but these were gigantic compared to the small ones back on Earth. They would come up to about chest height with humans, but they were a lot longer.
The thing about this species was that they liked to collect metal and precious gems. They collected them inside skin pouches. None of the reports we managed to get explained why they liked to do that, but their physiology and wants have made it so that their innate ability often allowed them a way to store more of their favourite things.
We were about two-thirds of the way towards our target when, in a more hilly area, there seemed to be plenty of caves about. Plenty of monsters seemed to have made their home there. There were way too many caves for them to be natural. If I didn’t find anything better, this would be our destination.
This research outpost didn’t seem so nice, and it was soon clear why.
“I don’t talk to soulless objects. If your captain wants to offload this cargo, he better stop using you as a workforce. It’s disrespectful,” the leader of this outpost’s security forces said while pointing a gun towards Bob.
In my mind, I immediately commanded all the ship’s AIs to acquire targets. The turrets moved swiftly. Most aimed at the large cannons that provided defensive positions inside the outpost, the rest towards anyone that had large mana concentrations in their body.
“I suggest you lower your weapon, or my captain might decide to flatten this place,” Bob said to the security forces leader, who didn't seem as confident as before. There was still a rage burning in his eyes, but I didn’t give a shit.
They still didn't seem to want to back down, so with a simple thought, the four giant combat droids started decoupling procedures. Those four were surprisingly fast and powerful, but more importantly, they were intimidating.
The defence forces of this place took a step back as these four giants started walking towards them, their weapons charged and ready to fire.
With each step they took, the defence forces backed further away until my heavy droids were outside, making a small perimeter around the ramp on which Bob was standing.
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While we were showing a lot of firepower, the defences of this place were not something we could take lightly, but we did have one advantage. At a moment’s notice, our shields could be deployed, something that they wouldn’t have, as this outpost seemed even more primitive than the last. Most likely, whoever stabilized the mana around here wasn’t that good.
We held this standoff for quite a while, nearly a minute, before anything changed. It seemed that the leader of this place finally decided to show up. They talked with the security forces leader in a language we didn’t know, but eventually, they all lowered their weapons.
“I apologise for this behaviour. Please offload everything; your payment is here,” she said as she pointed towards four of her subordinates who were holding chests.
After that, things went smoothly, although we never lowered our guard. Most everyone seemed to dislike our presence here immensely, but we got our payment as everything was offloaded, and we quickly took off.
“FH, please flag everyone associated with that organisation as unfriendly. If possible, it's better if we don't take jobs associated with them.”
“Understood, Captain. Updating the database now.”
No point in making further problems if we could avoid them. It was still weird to me that prejudice existed, as there were so many species intermixing, but I guess some of it is just the nature of life.
“Let's go into silent mode,” I said, watching the ship’s AI adjust parameters and stop active sensors. Even our thermal bloom was reduced so that every form of tracking would now have a harder time detecting us.
There really was no need to broadcast where we were going and what we were doing. I would guess that it wouldn’t take too long for the authority of this system to contact us to make sure that we wouldn't try to hide away during the battle inside the A-rank space portal.
Apparently, quite a few have tried to slip away, which made sense because that battle was going to be dangerous. But there was a reason why that space portal was categorised as black, because if those things got a beachhead in our galaxy, they could consume it all, only leaving empty, broken worlds behind.
The number of ships coming to this system spiked quite a lot, as everyone who was close enough made their way here for the battle that was about a month and a half away. No one wanted it to be a fight where we would lose significant numbers of ships; no, everyone wanted overwhelming firepower. But right now, we were far from that.
The list of registered ships grew every day, but most of them were as small as mine, and while we were important to handle the millions upon millions of fighters that hive ship had, there was still nothing in this system that could actually contend with the hive ship itself. As its size was truly gigantic, and its armaments powerful.
As we made it to our destination, scout drones were sent out who started to map our surroundings. As we were only about 200 metres away from the surface, we had made our presence known to the surrounding monsters, and they answered quite violently.
It seemed that plenty had ranged attacks, and every flyer nearby seemed to have come to check us out. I think the fact that we were basically hovering and moving slowly was what was throwing them off, and of course, whenever something got nearer, it was quickly destroyed.
It took about 10 minutes to find a natural cave on the side of one of the bigger hills that our ship would actually fit in decently well.
“Take us there, FH.” The ship started to lower even further. A few more shots rang out as some of the more stealthy monsters had gotten quite close as we neared the ground. It was a tight fit, and all the AI’s were nervous, but we managed well enough, putting the ship onto its belly.
The turrets were still ready to fire at a moment’s notice. As the back ramp lowered, our troops rushed out and almost immediately had to engage some smaller monsters that had been able to hide up to this point.
We lost quite a few of our droids, but the four heavies started to make their presence known, and soon silence reigned in this cave that was more just a large overhang, where the rock above formed a ceiling covering a large area.
We were still too exposed, but we had the materials and the workforce to quickly make this place into a fortress. Over the following hours, the large opening was filled in by a strong wall, closing us in.
The work continued as we were reinforcing the floor and ceiling. We were also mounting large weapons all over the place, but also making specific kill corridors, as we couldn't rely on the protection of the ship because we didn’t know what functions would remain operational during its rebirth.
We had also lost quite a lot of scout drones, but they had been able to confirm that the monsters we were after did indeed inhabit this area and were responsible for a lot of the caves. They seemed to mainly live underground, but they still hunted near the surface as they were carnivores.
If needed, we had a way to destroy the wall that was blocking us in, just in case we needed to get out fast. We would still need some time to properly secure everything before I felt confident enough to add the necessary amount of neural net to make the ship’s flame completely stable. I could already feel FH’s excitement and worry. I guess we will see what will happen.