chapter 156
POV: Remi
We hadn’t even launched the crystal Lola grew, and already the wreck roaches were approaching. Not all of them, but still a decent number. The turrets didn’t fire on full auto. No, they picked their targets carefully, only using a few shots to take down these roaches.
They really did look like roaches, although they had more legs, and their backside looked more like a fin than anything else. It was what they were using to move through space.
Technically, these creatures are classified as space monsters. For that classification, you only needed two features: being able to survive in outer space and being able to move without using propellant. Other than that, they were incredibly weak compared to other space monsters.
The projectiles were hard to see as they flew towards the roaches, that was all except one. The hard-light turret was still somehow firing.
We had pushed it beyond every limit, and it had suffered because of that, and while I don’t like to praise myself, I did do a goddamn fine job with it. Despite our best efforts, instead of completely melting the gun, it was now only capable of shooting about once every three to five seconds.
It was unexpected; all of us thought that all of the important parts would eventually melt when we pushed it too hard—and to an extent it did—but eventually it just broke enough that overheating would no longer be a problem while still being able to fire.
Already, my nanobots had made scans of its current state, and while there are some things I can do to improve, especially taking into account the new prototype, which is a bit different, the overall situation stays the same: even if we pushed these new weapons beyond their limits, they would survive to an extent.
The value of that was incredible. This, however, meant that we weren’t going to get proper battle data from this fight, although what it’s looking more like is target practice. In the end, it didn’t matter because the aiming components of the turret were still completely fine, so accuracy and tracking data would still be usable.
“Lola, FH, are you ready?” I asked, getting a nod and a positive beep in return.
The next moment, FH opened a doorway to the outside, and from her deep storage, a very simple drone emerged. Its main structure was made of the crystal Lola made. It was also supplying the crystal with a bit of power, which should amplify the roaches’ ability to sense it.
I would barely call this a drone, but that’s what we needed to do to help FH rank up her Expansive Swarm skill. Inventory-type skills were strange and really hard to rank up, as you needed to push against their very boundaries of what they accepted inside the storage.
FH’s regular inventory skill was even harder, as it basically accepted everything. My own inventory skill wasn’t as bad, but it was still a bit annoying. Overall, it was difficult to advance your skills, as it needed time and dedication to do so.
The crystal had been out there for less than a minute, but the situation on board the wreck had gotten quite chaotic. Already all the turrets were firing at a more rapid pace as more and more roaches emerged. Their numbers were greater than we expected.
Perhaps I would have been worried if our accuracy wasn’t so great that even the fastest roaches barely made it one-tenth of the way towards the crystal that was floating quite close to our ship.
This battle never got past the point of target practice, which I was glad of. After having killed off about 400 of the creatures, the flood of them finally ceased. That doesn’t mean that there were no longer any of them on the ship; it just meant that they weren’t that interested in the crystal, probably because they already had food close by.
“Estimated 95% of the wreck roaches have been eliminated,” FH finally announced, which meant.
“Sam, Dean, ready up. You know your entrance points, let’s move.”
We had already made preparations just in case we were going in. I really hoped that those hidden compartments wouldn’t be empty, as I really wanted some loot right about now. Speaking of loot.
“Bob, you handle collecting all the coins and remnants of the roaches while we're in there.”
“Of course, captain, already on it,” Bob answered while dozens of drones left the ship, heading towards the loot outside.
My innate ability was now quite easy to handle after that swarm battle. There wasn’t much to keep on these roaches, but a few parts I still left that would be valuable to turn into materials.
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All of us were in the cargo bay that we were going to leave from, putting on the space suits. Most of the bulkiness of these suits was because they were meant to handle cosmic radiation. In regular solar systems, you didn’t need that much protection, and in this particular solar system, we would have basically only needed thermal isolation from the cold space outside.
“Leave when ready,” I said when I noticed Dean and his squad were ready while we were still preparing.
“Understood, captain,” he said and left using the convenient opening FH could make thanks to her inventory skill.
Sam left a bit after that, leaving me with two squads of combat drones capable of zero-atmosphere combat. Technically, I was ready to go, but the bulkiness of the suit was really throwing off my ability to aim and my overall feel of confidence to actually fight properly.
So, I took a few extra minutes to get comfortable enough with my current limited feel to safely enter a possible fight.
“Let’s move,” I said to the drones, who started to follow behind me. As always, stepping into deep storage came with a little bit of resistance, but once inside, the opening to outer space was just to the left, and with a small jump, I was floating into outer space.
Grabbing hold of a drone, it started to pull me towards our entrance location. The sun was quite warm, but with the visor I had that automatically darkened, I could look at it without any problems.
This sun felt quite peaceful. Too bad there weren’t any resorts in this system; a bit of relaxation would be quite nice. We were getting close to the ship now, so I focused on the current mission.
“Engaging target,” I heard from Dean’s channel. We all had different channels, but I was still listening in to both of theirs. It seemed like Dean ran into a couple of roaches.
I noticed that I was holding my breath and only relaxed when Dean gave the all clear. It seemed that they had killed those roaches without taking any damage. That was good to hear. We needed this practice.
The ship itself still looked quite grand. My eyes easily picked up old battle damage; some of it seemed to be patched, but some were shallow enough that no one bothered. It obviously had a long history, and I wondered what eventually ended her. Most likely something devastating happened to her front, but that was gone, salvaged a long time ago.
We finally made it to an airlock that was opened. My magnetic boots clamped onto the surface as I sent drones into the hallway to start scouting. Getting told “clear” from the scouts, I moved in.
There was damage from roaches scrambling about inside, but otherwise, nothing that would indicate why this ship was abandoned. We had quite a ways to move, but fortunately, this wasn’t a battleship that was a kilometre or more long.
While that kilometre didn’t sound like a long distance—it would only take ten minutes or so to walk that distance—inside the ship, the maze of hallways stretched that time out quite a bit.
My rifle was ready, but as I was moving, the bulkiness of the suit once again started to annoy me. It wasn’t that this suit was bad—it was actually good—just not for this situation. If we were in a place with more radiation, I would want nothing else but this suit, no matter how bulky it was, but right now, being more limber would be a definite advantage.
Rapid beeps came from one of the scouts, alerting us to a roach nearby. It turned around immediately as the roach was already scrambling toward it. My mind quickly looked over the current map of the surrounding hallways.
Immediately I started to run toward an intersection, commanding the drones with me to take up defensive positions. As we made it to the intersection, we already saw the scout drone that was retreating.
My rifle pressed against my shoulder, I took a knee and waited. Mentally, I commanded the scout to hug the right wall, the roach scrambling toward us using the left wall. As soon as the scout was clear enough, I commanded everyone to fire.
There wasn't that much room, so only three other drones could use their weapons. It was overkill as my own rifle barked when I pulled the trigger. Of course, I couldn’t hear it firing, but I could still feel it through my hands and shoulder.
The Roach was dead moments later, while I updated the ship on our current situation. We continued to move inwards toward the location of the first of two hidden compartments.
Now that the excitement was ready, my mind returned to the problem of equipment. Right now, I had focused on general equipment good for a lot of environments and situations. But was that the right way to go about it?
From this solar system, it’s easy to see that environments can be quite different from what they normally should be, especially inside red zones. Planetary environments would most likely be even more varied.
With our manufacturing capabilities, it should be possible to make equipment specially designed for a specific environment. It would take a lot of designing to make machinery that could, in hours, create the specific equipment needed.
Another alert came, but it was soon rescinded as the scout had only found a dead body of a roach, not a living one. This made me focus back on the mission, but I still made myself a file to figure out if the idea I had, had merit or not, and if it was even feasible to make something like that.
It didn’t take long after that before we reached our first hidden compartment. Already two drones were cutting into it, but it would take a bit of time. Two minutes later, we were inside the hidden compartment, but it was empty.
When I looked at the feed that drone gave me, I could understand why. There was already a hole in this compartment, basically the same as the one we made, but on the other side.
“Hidden compartment designated A is empty, moving on to B,” I informed everyone.
As we were moving toward B, Dean also gave an update.
“Compartment designated as C empty, withdrawing from the wreck.”
That was unlucky. Most likely, all of them were going to be empty. Sam should have also made it to his compartment by now. From the log, I could see that he also reported making it to his location, but it seemed it was taking longer to breach that hidden compartment.
When I made it to the next hidden compartment, it was quite easy to see that it was already opened and empty. I reported my findings back, but before I could start moving out of the wreck, a fast beeping came from a scout.
This time, it had found a living roach and was quickly making its way back, barely keeping itself from being eaten. There were differences between roaches, as basically every species has variation, but this one was particularly large. It was also fast.
“Push yourself,” I sent out, because if it didn’t, it was going to get eaten.
It was easy to command my drones, as I just had to think about what I wanted, and they would follow. We set up a similar defensive position, but this time there would be one difference.
The rifle I was holding started to slightly glow a crimson colour, as for the first time I was using Crimson Empowerment in an actual fight. I couldn’t push a lot of power into the rifle, as I felt it would damage it if I were to fire when it was too empowered.
While we could not hear the roach coming, we could certainly feel the vibrations of its massive bulk as it pulled itself along the hallway. While the other roaches weren’t much bigger than humans, this one filled half the hallway.
As soon as I saw it, I fired, seeing that the bullets left a crimson trail. Not the best for stealth, but as soon as the first bullet hit, it easily penetrated, leaving behind a wound that was darkened and cracked as if lightning had hit it. For a moment, I also noticed crimson flames on the wound, but they disappeared almost immediately.
The way its mouth opened, I believed it was screaming. More and more bullets hit it, and when the scout drone was clear, everyone else opened up as well. It still had enough bulk to absorb quite a lot of damage, and it made it to about five metres away from us before it stopped moving.
While it wasn’t moving, it also wasn’t dead, as my innate ability didn’t trigger. So I continued to fire until it finally did. This one had a core, but unfortunately, it didn’t turn into a skill stone. Collecting it and the coins left behind, it was time to head out. It was unfortunate that we didn’t get anything.
“Compartment C has five ingots of some unknown metal. Backing it up and bringing it back,” I heard Sam inform.
Hell yes, so it wasn’t a complete bust. It should be good stuff if it was kept in a hidden compartment. Time to get out of here and back to the ship to see what we got.