chapter 133
We were flying faster than we should, in fact, about 25% faster. This wasn’t just added speed that we could get by using more power, no, this was something else. Our engine did not exert more to gain this speed; this was all because me, Sam and Dean were currently being influenced by FH’s innate ability.
This pulling effect when we sat in our stations while FH used her innate ability to tap into our affinities to improve herself, wasn’t like anything else I felt up to this point. I believe the reason is that we weren’t using our own mana to sustain this effect. It was FH who needed to supply it.
It took a pretty decent amount, but she could keep it going for quite a while. If I needed to supply it, I would be out in less than 5 minutes. The size difference between our mana pools was simply massive. I guess the size of the core really did matter a lot in how much mana you had.
“You can stop it now, FH,” I said, and then felt the pull stop.
“Here are the updated parameters, Captain,” she said, and information started to appear on my screens.
During the flight to the outpost, we have been testing everything quite thoroughly, as we really needed to adjust all alarm settings, as those alerts really were meant for emergencies. I’m not sure when we used magic to make the ship even better.
We even tested it having some of the turrets shoot the ship itself. Bob’s bulwark affinity improved our defences quite a lot, not just our shields but our armour as well. Lola’s healing affinity also helped our damage control systems do their job better, which was quite wonderful.
Not only that, but her precision affinity helped with the shooting. All of this gave incredible benefits. This really excited me about the future. We also found out that, fortunately, FH didn’t feel it when she was hit. We all think that her outer shell acts like human nails or hair, as damaging them wouldn’t hurt.
The rest of the trip went by quite fast as all of us were absorbed in our own tasks.
When we finally arrived, I realised that calling this place an outpost did it a huge disservice. It was a massive walled city that probably housed 10,000 people, if not more. The entire place was covered in towers, all of which had weapons mounted on the top.
“Captain, this place is run by multiple corporations and adventure parties. Our client today is one of the adventure parties,” FH said and forwarded even more information about this place and our client.
We needed to circle the city a couple of times before we got permission to land. Bob was already controlling his old body. As soon as we landed, the loading of cargo started.
These people didn't seem worried at all about robots doing the loading or that Bob was handling everything. Almost 380 tons of cargo were loaded. We still had plenty of space available, as a lot of the things loaded were quite heavy.
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“I would say to be careful with that, but pretty sure most of the bones and natural armour would survive crashing into the planet,” the person in charge of loading cargo on the adventure party side said to Bob.
A moment later, he rapidly started to talk. “Not that I’m expecting you to crash. I even won 20,000 credits thanks to you all surviving. So, I’m confident that you all can safely get this to Paradise City,” he ended with a bright smile.
That smile looked nothing like a nice smile because his species didn't have individual teeth. More like his jawbone extended into a sharp edge. He looked quite humanoid, but there were weird features that most definitely made him quite uncanny to look at.
“Not to worry, we will have all of this in Paradise City in less than a day,” Bob confidently said as the last of the cargo was tightened down. As soon as Bob stepped on, the cargo ramps started to close.
It was obvious that they were still worried about their cargo, as it was worth quite a lot, easily 2 billion if not more. We would only be getting a small portion of that, around 40 million for this trip, but it took time, quite a lot of it, to get this quality of materials while farming the portals and the rest of the wildlife on this planet.
Like every other outpost, there was a runway here as well that was also outside the city. This one, however, was quite well protected with no wildlife to be seen anywhere near it. We didn’t use it as it would be a hassle. Lifting off vertically was just so much easier.
Once again, we were flying, climbing higher and higher. While technically we could escape the atmosphere while only using our side engines, especially now if we boosted the ship, it was just easier to ignite the main engines.
When we were far enough away from the city and high enough, the main engines kicked in, and we truly started to accelerate to quickly get enough speed to escape the gravity well of this planet.
We needed to circle the planet once anyways to be able to get to the moon, as even we couldn't escape orbital mechanics. Getting permission to land in Paradise City was easy enough as we got priority because we were doing supply runs to and from the planet.
Unloading the cargo was easy. We got our payment in hard currency, then refuelled, checked everything, and then took another supply mission. It seems that our last run had become quite legendary, especially with the gambling community.
FH received quite a lot of offers from some less-than-reputable individuals to manipulate our next landing to either be longer or shorter and absolutely everything else someone could bet upon.
I could have let FH deal with it and perhaps make us some more credits, but it seemed like a waste of time, and who knows if we would ever see those credits.
It didn't take long for us to be loaded up again, as there were so many contracts available. Especially now, because some bigger ships had shown up, even two adventurer-run battleships. But even those wouldn’t be enough to handle that mothership.
We once again did our flash descent, and fighting off the monsters this time was even easier. FH’s capabilities had risen quite a lot, even without us having to use her innate ability. The advancement we got from all those kills was small, but it did make a difference in advancing FH toward the next rank.
Like this, time passed fast as we continued to make run after run, picking up some better materials along the way to continue to produce as much ammunition as possible. We were using our flashy descents as cover to be able to purchase a lot more material than we were actually using up, so slowly we were building up quite a nice stockpile of ammunition.
During this time I also finished making my second hard light rifle, this one looking a lot cleaner and more stable. It will still take me plenty of practise before I would be confident enough in changing some of the turrets over to this weapon type, and we would also need some specific hard-to-get materials to actually make bigger versions of this firing solution.
The countdown towards the A-ranked space portal breaking moved steadily downwards. More and more ships arrived. Finally, when a huge battleship arrived that was classified as a Battle Barge named the Fourth Colosseum, which was mainly for entertainment, but it seems to have really strong defences.
The order to evacuate was rescinded, and we were most definitely going to have to go and clear that portal.
As soon as I heard of that, adrenaline shot through me. I was excited and nervous at the same time.
This fight was going to be nothing like we've experienced before, but we have worked hard to get to a point where we should be able to survive even that battle. There was still two weeks left, so another week of work, after that a week of preparation, and then it would start.