Derelict: Book 2, Counterattack (A LitRPG Dungeon Core Adventure) Read online

  “Good thinking, Captain,” Illissa said, “but I seriously doubt the gnomes will deviate. They are likely fleeing toward the nearest jump point leading toward gnomish territory. We should endeavor to capture the gnomes’ mothership intact, if possible. They will likely have data showing us the nearest jump points and a star map to help plot our course back to human territory.” She walked over to the completed helm console and tried to access it, realizing quickly that she was locked out. She gave a smile and a nod of understanding; at least that was what Slater hoped she was doing.

  Ordering the kobold captain and a squad of MOBS into his core room for added protection, Slater began his slumber. He felt disconnected from the ship as he watched his core improve. Inefficiencies were removed, and his mind became sharper and more focused. He could feel the core power increase, and—more importantly—he felt like himself. In the back of his mind, Slater always feared that when he upgraded, something would happen to him, similar to the time he fought Pixi for control. After an indeterminate amount of time passed, he felt himself reconnecting to his ship.

  “I’m back. How long was I out?” Slater asked a startled Doctor Cheng.

  “An hour has passed, Captain. Everything here on the Franklin is running smooth,” the doctor replied. Slater watched the soldiers hanging out in the residence module, keeping an eye on the elf and their weapons close at hand. Illissa had not tried to betray his trust, and he felt a bit more confident she was truly an ally in this whole ordeal.

  The scanners showed that they were closing the gap to the mothership and should catch it before too long. The raider was almost completely salvaged; only the cockpit and the boarding section remained. His drones would make short work of the remaining salvage and be ready for their other tasks momentarily. The main battery was repaired and ready to fire, and his missile tubes were reloaded. The USS Franklin was geared for a fight; the only question was whether the gnomes would need to be fought or if they could be convinced to surrender.

  Several research items had completed while he was out. The jump drive was finally done, and he immediately pulled ten drones from salvage operations to begin crafting the unit. The drive itself was self-contained, and once charged, it would allow him to pass through a jump gate. Sadly, using his nanobots to jump from anywhere in a system was no longer an option. His only problem was finding a jump gate. Gates gave off a small energy bleed that was unique to the anomaly. With his scanners, Slater could eventually track down a gate, but it was a slow and cumbersome process. His best bet was to recover the gnomish mothership and tap into its star charts. Unfortunately, the raider vessels didn’t have star charts; they relied on the mothership to get them near the enemy. They did, however, have tech that Slater didn’t possess, and much of that was now available to him.

  His research on orcs, grenades, and body armor had also completed. Slater assigned a pair of drones to begin upgrading the gear for his MOBS, giving all of them effective human-style armor and a single grenade. The taskmasters and captains received two grenades, as befitted their station. The orc schematic was complete, but Slater could see where it wasn’t yet optimal. There were still some residual inefficiencies that could be corrected with another round of research, and his new orc MOBS still wouldn’t be quite as good as the average orc specimen. He didn’t have the time for another round of research, so he would have to wait on optimizing them.

  Slater sifted through the data he had received while his drones took apart the raider. He now had a good enough understanding of the strange device that unlocked hatches and could begin research on it. He also found information on an emergency hood that each gnome carried in one of their many pouches. In the case of a loss of atmosphere, each gnome would pull over a hood, allowing him to breathe for a few hours. Pumping out the atmosphere as a defense didn’t look like it would be a viable tactic against the gnomes unless he could figure some way to trigger an explosive decompression that would pull the boarders out into space. Of course, if he blew boarders out of his ship, he would lose out on the salvage and biomass they represented.

  “Lieutenant Camden, I was wondering what would happen if we opened a compartment up and tried to suck out any boarders we don’t think we can beat,” Slater asked.

  “Well, if they’re a spacefaring race, most of their boots will have mag clamps or some other method to keep them on the deck in the event of loss of gravity or decompression. If you catch them by surprise, you might get a few, but enemies boarding a ship will likely anticipate that tactic, as it was once quite common,” Camden said, pointing to the small modules buried in the tread of his boots. After a panicked check, Slater realized his kobolds already had them installed in their boots, a simple and standard feature that didn’t require any additional research, thankfully.

  Other schematics unlocked from the gnomes’ raider included a basic design for their ship-based laser weapon and the gnomish creatures themselves. There were also several minor items like new foodstuffs and some simple medical devices. He now had three races of MOBS available to him, though he was pretty sure the gnomes weren’t as powerful as his current kobold forces. Slater also had several ideas for new traps and internal weapons, but those would have to wait until the research he was committed to was complete. It was still strange that he had never unlocked the elf schematic. Perhaps Illissa would have some insight into that.

  “Illissa, I was wondering about the various schematics I’m acquiring for MOBS. Sorry if this is a touchy subject, but do you know why the elf template was never unlocked for me?” Slater asked.

  Illissa sat there for a moment, staring down at the screen she was working on with Doctor Cheng. He could see thinly suppressed emotion trying to bubble up, but the elf contained it before replying. While he didn’t want to upset her by essentially asking, Why can’t I make copies of your dead friends, he did need to understand the reason.

  “My race is a bit different, and I would suspect your humans might be as well. The same quirk of our makeup that allows us to be turned into a derelict and not be easily consumed by a parasite prevents us from being made into effective MOBS. Should you unlock human MOBS, I think you would find them suboptimal as well as difficult to research,” Illissa said.

  “But you said two of the elves that boarded the ship with you were MOBS. They seemed very effective,” Slater replied.

  “They were MOBS, but not in the way you think. They weren’t printed up by a derelict—they were live elves that had their minds altered. The parts of their mind that made them individuals, that made them unique, were stripped out and some other thing was inserted instead. They had no will of their own and were slaves to the council but still retained their impressive skills and a ghost of their prior personality. It was a fate I would wish upon no being,” Illissa said.

  “Thank you, Illissa. I know that wasn’t a pleasant memory to bring up,” Slater told her.

  “Excuse me, Captain,” Doctor Cheng cut in. “A moment of your time, please. Illissa and I have been working on various research topics, and I wanted to upload the results for you to review. We started with something simple: in this case, the gnomish devices that can open doors. My theory is that our preliminary work will reduce the time you need to research a new item or design. Care to give it a try?”

  Slater was up for anything that could cut down his research time. “Let’s give it a shot, Doctor,” he replied.

  Doctor Cheng walked into the core room and gazed at his core for a moment before connecting her device to his data port. Slater pulled the selected data that, when combined with his current knowledge, allowed him to duplicate the gnomish hatch-breaching device. He had a working schematic, and it didn’t take him valuable research resources.

  “That’s great, Doctor Cheng! What were you planning on working on next?” Slater asked.

  “I suppose it can be whatever you need help with, though I suggest we start with fairly simple items before moving onto things like a jump drive,” Cheng suggested.

>   “How about some drone research? I would like to duplicate the drones the soldiers use as well as their claymore mines, if you can.”

  “Not a problem, Captain Slater. We’ll work on that whenever we can,” Doctor Cheng told him.

  “Sir, how long until we catch up with that gnomish ship?” Private Harris asked.

  “At our current speeds, just over an hour before we’re in range,” Slater said.

  The private looked a bit bored as he nodded, then began to check over his gear once more. There wasn’t a whole lot to do on board yet, and Slater hadn’t had the excess resources to design new entertainment for the humans. Well, there was one thing he needed to do, and there was no reason not to include the others.

  “Private, I’m about to test out the upgrades for my new MOBS. Interested in watching a little mini Slaterdome before we catch up to those gnomes?” Slater asked.

  “Roger that, sir! We’re always up for some Slaterdome,” Harris replied. He high-fived private Long and they put away their gear.

  “Pardon my ignorance. What is a Slaterdome?” Illissa asked.

  “Only the best thing ever invented to test out our new MOBS,” Private Long added. Slater felt a bit of pride in hearing Long say “our” MOBS; they were claiming him and his vessel as part of the group. Realizing he hadn’t set up a testing area yet, Slater quickly converted a nearly empty storage room into the appropriate arena and added the video feed to the rec room display.

  It was time to see if the orcs were worth the research he’d spent on them, and if he was honest with himself, Slater also liked watching the fights. Assuming the orcs performed well, there should be enough time to print up new MOBS before the Franklin closed the gap with the gnomes. Before the games began, he took a moment to tweak his research allocation, prioritizing his drives and sensors while also trying to upgrade missiles and shields. If he somehow failed to recover the gnomish star charts, he would need improved sensors to sniff out jump points more quickly than he could now. After the confrontation with the gnomes, he could reassess what he needed and set new priorities.

  Research Allocation:

  Shields: 20%

  Sensor Array: 30%

  Missiles: 20%

  Drive Systems: 30%

  Worries about research could wait for a bit—it was time for Slaterdome.

  — 9 —

  The Slaterdome arena was a basic buildout, given the limited time he had to prepare; it was just a nearly empty storage compartment with a few stacks of salvage bricks scattered here and there. While the others tuned into the video feed in their recreation area, Slater printed up a squad of orcs to compete against a squad of kobold warriors. All were equipped with rifles and body armor. Grenades weren’t needed for this test, as each side could just lob a few and kill everyone in the small space. His audience was ready, and his first contestants were ready. He lined up the orcs on one side of the compartment and the kobolds on the other before announcing the fight.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, tonight’s bout is a fight between two squads of MOBS. In this corner, we have the new and improved kobold warriors!” Slater told them. Private Long cheered and Private Harris booed; they had picked their favorites for the fight already, and Slater suspected they had some bets going as well. Lieutenant Camden and Doctor Cheng looked on, engrossed but not as animated as the two privates. Illissa just looked confused by the whole thing.

  “In the other corner, we have our newest contender: the orcs!” Slater announced, and this time Long booed as Harris cheered.

  “Fight!” Slater shouted, and the two groups began to blaze away at each other. The orcs charged as they fired; aggression looked to be hardwired into the creatures. The kobold warriors made hits almost immediately, the human-style body armor proving effective against the rifles and saving several orcs from certain death. One orc dropped as his head exploded from a lucky hit, and then a second fell when his leg was blown off at the knee.

  The orcs were fearless fighters, and the wounded orc continued to snarl and fire at his foes even as he bled out on the deck. In their reckless charge, the orcs only scored a couple of hits, one of which was fatal to the kobold it struck. Better accuracy won the day as the rest of the orcs were cut down with only two casualties on the part of the kobold warriors.

  “Take that, Harris. My little kobold buddies are the best,” Private Long gloated.

  “This is barbaric. How can you stomach such slaughter? I thought you humans were civilized creatures,” Illissa said, aghast at what she was watching.

  “Cool down, lady. These are just MOBS. You know, no pain, not really alive, and powered by the derelict core voodoo stuff,” Private Harris replied in annoyance.

  “Lock it up, Private! You’ll be respectful to the civilians,” Lieutenant Camden ordered.

  “Thank you, Lieutenant, but what Harris crudely said is correct,” Slater added. “These are not real beings, and though they may have flesh and blood, they are simply constructs. It’s no different than if I built robots to fight against each other. In addition to being entertaining, the fights help me determine the optimal MOBS to choose for us to defend ourselves.”

  Illissa looked like she was thinking about what had been said. “Very well, I can see that I’m not able to dissuade you from this ‘entertainment,’ but I’m not required to watch, am I?”

  “Not at all. You can get back to work if the Slaterdome offends you,” Slater replied, a bit annoyed at the prudish and perhaps hypocritical views of an elf that had killed an unknown number of sapient beings over her long life. Illissa went back to her research, ignoring the rest of the humans and sulking a bit.

  “All right, back to the action, my viewers. Perhaps now we need to change things up a bit. Let’s see how the orcs and kobolds perform when led by their superiors,” Slater said, gathering another four of each MOBS type and adding a kobold taskmaster to lead each group. The fight was different this time, both the orcs and kobolds scurrying to find what little cover was available in the compartment once ordered to do so by their taskmasters.

  The orcs’ accuracy was improved over the previous fight, but the kobolds still held the edge. Seeing the fight was turning against them, the taskmaster in charge of the orcs ordered a wounded member of his squad to provide cover fire while the others charged. The two healthy orcs avoided the sparse fire directed toward them and reached the small pile of salvage bricks the nearest kobold was hiding behind. One orc was taken down at point-blank range while the other dropped his rifle and grabbed the kobold in his meaty fists. The kobold extended his wrist blade and began stabbing at the orc but was unable to get much leverage while being held up in the air. With a sickening pop, the small kobold was torn in half by the powerful orc, who then threw both halves at another kobold and continued his charge.

  The charging orc was taken down by the other kobolds, and by the time the last orc was finished, three kobolds had been killed. It was a better performance on the orcs’ part, but the kobolds were still superior, at least until Slater researched further upgrades on the orcs. Their power and ferocity had won the orcs some points in Slater’s book, but he would keep the kobolds as the main MOBS for the time being. Ordering his drones to clean up the mess, Slater printed replacements, finding he could now control a total of eight squads of MOBS with his newly expanded power output and the improved efficiency of the kobold warriors after their upgrade.

  “You lose, Harris. My kobolds are victorious,” Long said, rubbing his victory in Private Harris’s face.

  “Yeah, once Captain Slater upgrades my orcs, you’ll be singing a different tune,” Harris replied. Slater felt Harris just might be correct, and it was something he would have to test out in the not-too-distant future. Turning his attention to the scanners, he found he was nearly in range of the gnomish mothership, and it was time to make his demands known.

  “I’m about to contact the gnomes. Does anyone have any suggestions about how I should approach it?” Slater asked the others.
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br />   “From what I understand, the gnomes never communicate with humans, just try to kill us or run away,” Lieutenant Camden replied.

  “The lieutenant is correct. The gnomes are not inclined to speak with other races if they can avoid it,” Illissa added.

  “Well, they’re going to have to speak with me or they’re going to have a very bad day,” Slater said as he attempted communication over all known frequencies.

  “Attention, gnomish vessel. This is the USS Franklin. Heave to or be destroyed. Reply immediately or I will fire upon your ship,” Slater ordered. As he suspected, no reply was forthcoming.

  “You mentioned, Illissa, that these motherships were the home of their clans. If I fire on them, will I be killing innocent children and noncombatants?” Slater asked.

  “No, these represent a clan, but typically the clan’s builders and noncombatants are holed up somewhere in gnomish space. When a raid is complete or the ship needs replenishment, they head back home. There won’t be any children on board. Everyone left on the mothership should be a crew member,” Illissa advised.

  “Very well, how many do you think might still be aboard? From what I understand, the gnomes stuffed each of the raiders full of as many warriors as they could,” Slater asked.

  “I really can’t tell you. Their motherships typically carry more than they can board in one load, as they tend to stay out on patrol until they capture a prize. Could be they’re on a skeleton crew from losses on previous attacks, or they could have a sizeable force remaining,” Illissa said. Her answer wasn’t much help, but before he could worry about how many defenders were on the ship, he had to figure out how to stop it.

  He was now within missile range, but hitting the mothership with a missile might be catastrophic to the vessel. He wanted to make sure the data core was intact and he could steal as much information as possible. As he closed to within main battery range, Slater began to carefully examine the enemy ship. It was roughly rectangular in design and held six docking ports for raiders. The docking ports were arranged with three at the bow and three near the stern of the vessel. Other than comm antennas and a shield generator, the middle of the ship was bare.