Chapter 69. Move to Intercept.

  Watkins sent the order for his drones, MOBS, and the few verminkin out hauling debris to return to the ship. Carter re-tasked half his drones to take over the repairs on the station’s point defense lasers, and the other half to continue working on the internal weapon hardpoints. If that was a void creature out there, it was undoubtedly heading toward them.

  “I should cast off and make contact with whatever is out there. If it’s something I can’t handle on my own, I’ll fall back to the station. Hopefully, by then, you’ll have enough defenses in place to help us fight this thing off,” Watkins ordered.

  “You got it, Captain, we’ll do all we can here, and we should be able to keep in touch through the sensor buoy network,” Carter said.

  Watkins reviewed his ship, noting that the maneuver drive research had completed, and he started the torpedo tube level one research like he planned on. It was unlikely that he would finish the research and then be able to upgrade before they tussled with the void creature, but there was always a chance this would devolve into a long, running battle.

  He kept the research going on the fabricator, even though it was just at 10%. It was doubtful that he could research something else in the time they had, and losing all the progress on the fabricator would hurt them in the long run. Of course, that assumed he survived the encounter with whatever was out there. With his research settled in, Watkins organized the work on his ship. Sadly, when he sailed from the station, he was going to have to recover all his drones and leave the remaining work on the station up to just Carter’s limited drone team.

  His drones were going to be busy, but he still tasked a pair to begin the process of upgrading the four maneuver thrusters to the new, level one versions. He would only have one drive upgrading at a time since they would have to be offline briefly while the upgrades were made. The last thing he wanted was to be stuck without multiple maneuver thrusters when he needed them the most.

  Watkins organized the drones further, breaking them into teams. One team was tasked with finishing up the hull upgrades. Another team began the process of upgrading the compartment bulkheads now that he’d unlocked that research from the station’s data. There was also a pair building out torpedoes, and Watkins was having them risk loading the torpedoes before the fight since he didn’t want to give up any missiles from his magazine to replace them with torpedoes. A final team was working on the defensive turrets inside the ship.

  Those drones that were working on the defensive turrets and strengthening the interior compartments were ordered to begin their tasks in the shuttle bay. That was where any boarding attempt was most likely to occur. From there, they work back into the ship, along the most likely path of advance for any invaders. Watkins didn’t think that everything would be completed before they made contact, but short of jumping right into battle, Watkins believed that he could draw out the time it took before any enemy could get into striking distance.

  Once clear of the station, his main drives lit up, and he was off on an intercept course with the last position of the destroyed buoy. He cycled through his systems, checking to make sure everything was ready for a fight. As he looked internally, Watkins was pleasantly surprised to see the verminkin working with the drones on installing the defensive turrets.

  “Lani, do you think the crew is actually helping the drones?” Watkins asked, noticing several verminkin trying to work with each drone.

  “Let me see,” Lani said, taking a moment to calculate the results of the effort. Her time helping to boost the productivity of the drones enabled her to figure it out the data in seconds.

  “Hm, they’re not exactly helping, and I estimate they’re hampering the drones by 2-5%. Their training has given them the right idea, but they lack proper tools to work with. If you can take some of the fabricator’s time to print them up proper gear, I believe that instead of delaying the work, they’ll actually boost the installation time by 3-5%.” Lani explained.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Watkins looked over his production queue, a section of a torpedo was almost complete, and after that, he estimated that manufacturing enough tools would take twenty minutes and seventeen seconds of his fabricator’s time. Having the verminkin crew properly equipped to help with any ship repairs or upgrades seemed like a valid reason to take up some of the fabricator’s time. The torpedoes were going to be of limited effectiveness if the attacker had any kind of competent point defenses, and Watkins was still hopeful he could keep away from any attacker, at least for some time, given his previous experience with a void creature.

  “Chief Skitterbach, I’m having some tools printed up for your teams. Leave the drones to their work for now and bring one team into the fabrication room at a time so they can collect their new gear,” Watkins said. That would give the verminkin a task and keep them out of the drone’s way until they were properly equipped to help.

  “I hear-obey, Captain,” Skitterbach replied, quickly organizing the crew and getting them where they needed to be. While he waited for the torpedo section to finish up, Watkins designed a tool belt for his crew. They would also have small, rolling tool chests, but the most commonly used hand tools could be easily carried on the belt.

  The tool belt attached to their body armor with a quick release, so they could drop the tools if an unexpected fight broke out. For now, he just had them carry their holstered sidearms attached to their body armor. They would leave the bulkier rifles and power pack bandoliers back in the armory. Lani had done a good job with her training modules, and Watkins was happy to see that the verminkin were taking initiative to make themselves useful.

  “Chief Skitterbach, who do you think among your people is ready for a promotion?” Watkins asked.

  “Spacekin Srak. He’s some-good leader.

  “Okay, we’ll promote him to an E4, which is a Chief Petty Officer 3rd Class. Let him know of the promotion and that Lani will have some additional training modules for him to go through soon. For now, I want him to gather the newest crew and put them though their paces with firearms in the training compartment,” Watkins ordered.

  “Aye, Captain, will Srak get-receive a new rank tab for his uniform?” Skitterbach asked. The verminkin were highly motivated by any recognition that Watkins could dole out, but he wasn’t going to fall into the trap of handing out promotions willy-nilly like some commander’s he’d served under.

  “Of course, it may take a bit to print one up, since the fabricator is going to be busy for a while, but I’ll get Srak some updated rank tabs as soon as we can,” I assured him.

  Six of the verminkin, those they had taken prisoner from the forces aboard the station, had opted to join the crew. They weren’t trained yet, so while the others worked to assist the drones. Watkins had them begin training with the plasma weapons. He might not have them up to speed on ship related duties, but by the time they found the target, his newest crewmembers could at least handle the weapons safely.

  As they traveled, another of the station’s sensor buoys went offline. Watkins adjusted his course slightly, intending to intercept whatever was out there before it degraded any more of their sensor network. They traveled for another hour before the reached the last sensor buoy between them and the station. Given its approach, whatever had exited from the void was on a direct course to the station, only detouring slightly to intercept the buoy’s, which it somehow seemed able to sense.

  Slowing his approach and taking up position between the buoy and the station, Watkins waited. Two of the maneuver thrusters had already been upgraded, and the crew had all been issued tools. The internal defense turrets were installed in the shuttle bay, and three more in the main passageway. They had also finished the exterior armor refit, but the internal compartment upgrades had a long way to go, with just the shuttle bay, and a small portion of the main passageway completed so far.

  “Contact, something’s approaching. Let’s see what’s heading our way,” Watkins said as he felt a contact being picked up by his sensors. The Canon linked with the nearby buoy, and with its assistance, they had a slightly longer detection range than usual.

  The object was larger than any of the ships they’d encountered so far. A quick calculation showed it was nearly triple the size of the Canon. Whatever it was out there was still to far away to determine anything other than the most basic of information on the object. What he could tell was that it was moving at a pace that was similar to what the drives on the converted cargo ships that the kobolds and halflings used were able to achieve.

  While there wasn’t much detail on their target yet, one thing Watkins could see from the sensor returns was that this object wasn’t using a traditional drive of any type in his database. There was no drive plume whatsoever, and whatever it was out there, it wasn’t a normal starship. Watkins was pretty sure he was dealing with a mammoth void creature of some kind.

  He was confident in his ship but was admittedly a bit worried that the Canon might not be enough to stop something so huge.