Chapter 64. Second Assault.

  “Here’s what we’ll do,” Watkins said, deciding on their plan of attack. “We’ll have a small force move in and secure the station’s cargo hold. The drones will start building defenses again, but if they’re interrupted, our forces will move back aboard Canon to help defend the ship.

  “Chief Skitterbach, you’ll have the crew man the defenses here aboard our ship. If the MOBS are forced to fall back to the Canon, you’ll move to the rearmost defenses or back down the passageway to act as a reserve force. The MOBS are replaceable, your people are not, so I want them out of the fighting if we can arrange it,” Watkins ordered.

  “I’m assuming we’re not just defending and will also launch an assault?” Lani asked.

  “Correct, our defensive force of MOBS will cap out at eight, and the rest of our forces will move through the station, following the path that the verminkin prisoners described. From the number of things that attacked us, I have to assume that Petty Officer Carter has run out or is at least running low on defenders.

  “There will still be the turrets to deal with, and I’m sure he has some other surprises waiting for us, but he’s got his back against the wall now. Let’s get everyone into position and get to work,” Watkins ordered.

  A couple of Skitterbach’s people were in the med pods getting treated for injuries in the fight, but they’d be out soon and would join the rest of the crew at the shuttle bay’s barricades. They had taken a total of three casualties among the crew during the previous fight, leaving only eleven verminkin remaining. If the others ended up joining, that would bring him up to seventeen, but it was far fewer than his ship could support.

  The defensive team of eight MOBS charged across the boarding collar and into the station. Watkins still had a drone hidden inside the compartment, and confirmed things were clear for now. The team covered the two open hatches in the compartment as they waited for the drones to build their defenses. A pair of drones, along with a work team from the crew, began to haul bodies to the reprocessor.

  Watkins held back the assault team until the cargo hold was secure. He kept an eye on everything, splitting his consciousness in a way that would have been impossible for a human. One thing caught his attention, a large chunk of one of the mutated creatures being hauled to the reprocessor seemed to magically levitate up into the air. He was just about to call for some MOBS to defend the compartment when he recognized what was going on.

  It was one of the clear web strands from the spider living in the corner of the compartment. The verminkin work team seemed terrified and a few went for their weapons, but Watkins ordered them to stand down before anything unfortunate happened. He observed the chunk of mutant rise to the spider which began to feed on the carcass. As it ate, the spider became visible, and Watkins could see that it had grown slightly from the last time he had examined it.

  The spider had been the size of a large dog, but now he calculated it had grown 12.23% larger. Somehow recognizing his attention, the spider sent another odd message through the connection it had with his core.

  “This one was interesting, needed a taste,” the spider said.

  “That’s fine, just don’t feed on any of my crew. You’re more than welcome to stay as long as you follow the rules,” Watkins had a drone transmit to the spider.

  “Agreed.” Was all the spider replied.

  “Are you talking to spiders again?” Lani asked.

  “Yes, just making sure we have an understanding of what expected of her if she wants to stay aboard. I thought it was going to sustain itself on just my core energy, but something about that creature made it find its appetite again,” Watkins said.

  “Fair enough, but we’ve got a station to conquer and more important things on our plates right now,” Lani said. Watkins could sense her nervousness and impatience to get things rolling.

  “I haven’t forgotten, and I can focus on more than one thing at a time. Don’t worry, Lani, we’re going to finish this soon,” Watkins said, trying to reassure her.

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  The barricades in the cargo hold were going up quickly, and as soon as the first of the three he had planned there was built, the assault team made their move. A total of 22 MOBS charged through the open hatchway on the port side of the compartment, which was where most of the verminkin horde had come from.

  His troops moved quickly and efficiently but had to deal with a single turret in each compartment. The turrets were all placed in approximately the same location, so they were able to take them out without too many losses. Each compartment was exactly as the verminkin prisoners had described. The first was empty, but the next two held more of the gurneys that the strange mutants had been strapped to.

  When they reached the compartment the verminkin had been housed in, the MOBS dealt with the turret and encountered a locked hatchway leading further into the station. The drone assigned to the attack force had some trouble overriding the code, and Watkins could feel Carter trying to thwart his efforts. Whatever Carter had become, his processing power wasn’t up to the task of stopping Watkins’ core.

  The distance between his core and the drone weakened his connection somewhat, but as long as the drone didn’t stay away from his core for too long, he was still able to interact with it well enough. When the hatch final succumbed to his efforts, the MOBS were greeted by a hail of laser blasts as a half-dozen turrets opened up on them.

  Taking cover behind the hatchway, the MOBS returned fire. He started taking casualties from the sheer volume of fire directed at them. One turret was disabled by a plasma blast, but then another dropped down from a hidden compartment and took up the slack. Three MOBS were down, but replacements were being constructed, and Watkins wasn’t going to back down yet.

  Losses piled up, but the turrets were also being knocked out. After four turrets were destroyed, no new ones began to appear, and as the incoming fire began to abate, the MOBS began to score more kills. By the time the last turret was blasted into scrap, the assault force was down to nine MOBS.

  “We’ll check out that compartment but then hold until we have more reinforcements before going further,” Watkins ordered. The compartment they had just cleared of defenses turned out to be another large cargo hold. This one wasn’t completely empty as several devices and piles of ship components were organized on the deck. Attached to the cargo hold through another boarding collar was the partially disassembled kobold ship.

  Watkins could see they were almost halfway around the ring of the station now. Including what they’d previously cleared in the other direction, he had explored all but four of the station compartments. There was still some activity in the cargo hold, as his MOBS sniped a few of Carter’s drones that were going about their pre-programmed tasks. Since they didn’t make any attempt to attack or interfere with his forces, Watkins ordered one of the station drones to be captured intact.

  Watkins’ drone that accompanied the assault force proved to be the best choice for the job, and it quickly snagged its smaller counterpart. A few swipes of the cutting torch rendered the captured drone immobile, and a quick examination showed the drone to be similar, but inferior to the drones Watkins was using. If he had to gauge its effectiveness, Watkins would say its effectiveness was below the level zero units he had first started with.

  Despite being inferior, Watkins wondered how Carter managed to control them and the horde of creatures it had attacked with earlier. Either he had a much higher command limit, which Watkins didn’t think was possible, or the creatures were acting through some other means. It was possible that once the mindless abominations had been awakened, they attacked in the only direction they could reach. With the rest of the station closed off, they were effectively herded toward Watkins’ ship.

  It was an interesting defensive measure, keeping the creatures in hibernation until needed. Against something like the kobold vessel that was being stripped down, it would be rather effective, but against the Canon and Watkins’ forces, it wasn’t going to be enough. The now-immobile drone was sent back for reprocessing and Watkins ordered one of the drones working on the barricades to move onto the kobold ship and see if there were any threats hidden aboard.

  Up close, it looked like the station’s drones had strip mined the top half of the ship. Only a sizeable portion of the aft that contained the ship’s drives was still practically untouched. There were no defenders lurking aboard, and only a pair of Carter’s small drones seemed to be actively harvesting parts of the ship.

  When his drone moved aft, it made a discovery. In a larger sized compartment adjacent to the ship’s main reactor there was a massive device that was unpowered, but intact.

  “Watkins, what you’re looking at there is a rather ragged, but seemingly operational, jump drive, even better, this one seems to have already had some modifications on it different from the other one we found on the halfling ship.” Lani explained.

  “It’s exactly what we need, the more examples we have to work with, the better my chances of developing one that can mesh with my systems,” Watkins said, though he was still keenly aware of the limitations the council had put on him as far as jump drive research went.

  “It’s not a very good one, but it’s important. Maybe have one of your drones watch over it so the station doesn’t try to dismantle it or something,” Lani suggested.

  He did exactly that, having a drone guard it and disable any station drones that lurked too close to the drive. This was their ticket out of the system, but he had a feeling there was going to be a lot of work before he could integrate it into the Canon. There was still Petty Officer Carter and the rest of the station to deal with. Both his and Lani’s memories might be stored here, and there was the fading chance that more of his crew were alive, but not twisted like Carter had been.