Chapter 70. Torpedoes Away.

  “I’m going to close in until we get some better data on that thing. Lani, help me keep an eye on any course adjustments it makes. That will probably indicate the range it can detect us at,” Watkins said.

  He took stock of his ship and was happy to see that while the drones still had work to do, all his major system were ready for a fight. Two torpedoes were loaded in the tubes and the magazines were also full with a total of six missiles for his follow up shots. Both main batteries were ready to fire, as well as all four point defense weapons.

  The Canon now had a total of fourteen of the beehive defensive systems. If that ship out there fired any type of missile at the Canon, he was ready. He had a total of fifteen drones working around the ship, and thirty MOBS were armed, armored, and ready for a fight. He’d been able to equip them all with the latest plasma rifles as well as the laser pistols taken from the kobolds. Watkins still wanted some better sidearms for his troops at some point, but it would have to wait until other system upgrades were researched and implemented.

  His crew, the verminkin, were going to have to go without the extra magazine capacity of the laser pistols and would just have the single shot plasma pistols as a sidearm to supplement the rifles they carried. If things went as planned, the verminkin crew wouldn’t be stuck in the middle of combat. Every minute that passed allowed his drones to improve their internal defenses, which would, in turn, help to protect his living crew. A test of the defensive turrets mounted on top of each compartment showed they were functioning as expected.

  Each completed turret was equipped with a plasma rifle, though their internal batteries would take time to recharge after the initial supply of energy was used up. Enough power for an additional shot would take just under a minute to accumulate. With the turrets also taking part of his command limit, Watkins could alternate them, allowing some turrets to go inactive and recharge while he operated the others. That would reduce his ability to land a big first volley on any boarders but would keep the guns firing for longer.

  “The contact has changed its course, it’s heading toward us and accelerating,” Lani warned. It looked like they had an idea of the range the monster could detect them, even if its method of sensing them was a mystery.

  Watkins focussed on the oncoming vessel, it had increased its thrust, but the creature’s thrust profile was still weaker than the power that Watkins’ engines could generate. He allowed the ship to close, but kept the Canon at a heading that would allow him to pour on the thrust and escape if he needed. If he had to escape, the only place to escape to was Barracuda Station, and even with Carson organizing the efforts there, Watkins doubted they had the station ready for a fight.

  He needed to buy time as well as test this foe to see what it was capable of. More data appeared as the distance between them decreased. He was reading the strange, addled sensor returns of a void beast. Not only that, but he was also getting the returns for some metallic structures along the creature’s body. Remembering the partial creature that he’d fought before, Watkins knew these void creatures could incorporate parts of a ship into its body.

  “Lani, do you think it somehow absorbed the sensor buoys, or do these things arrive here with some metallic parts?” Watkins asked.

  “I don’t know for sure; I didn’t prioritize void creature research when we were pulling data from the station. We’ve never witnessed one actually entering our system, so much of our information was gleaned from fighting with one of the creatures, as well as the partial sample we used to have aboard the research station,” Lani said.

  “Well, I think we’re going to get a lot more data on them soon. This one is starting to pour on the steam,” Watkins said as the creature somehow began to generate more thrust, outdoing what the drives on Canon could provide. Without a way to slow it down, the thing was going to catch them long before they could hope to link up with the station.

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  “Here we go, it’s entered torpedo range,” Watkins said, letting the void creature close in a bit more before firing. The doors over the torpedo tubes swung open as the weapons inside ignited their drives and flew from the Canon. Since his ship was heading directly away from the creature, the torpedoes had to come about before they were on the right course.

  “Captain, maybe we should alternate our course a bit, I know the void beasts don’t have railguns, but they did have a way to fire off that acidic slime and we should do all we can to avoid damage early in the fight,” Lani suggested.

  “You’re right, thanks for bringing it up, we need to assume this thing has capabilities we haven’t seen yet. I’m going to run an evasive pattern. It’ll allow that thing to close in faster, but the course changes should prevent any nasty surprises,” Watkins replied, glad to have someone watching his back that was willing to offer suggestions when he needed them.

  “Captain Watkins. Can we see-watch space battle like before?” Skitterbach asked. The crew were all hard at work, each spacekin now had its own set of tools was assisting in the installation of the defensive turrets. According to Lani, their efforts were helping more than expected, and she had updated her original estimate and now was certain the crew were boosting the installation efforts by 11%.

  “Chief Skitterbach, I’m going to send video of our sensor feeds once you’re done with the work, but for now, I want you to focus on the task at hand,” Watkins ordered.

  “Aye, Captain. We hear-obey. We work hard,” Skitterbach tired to assure him. The chief didn’t need to tell Watkins they were working hard, he could see their efforts for himself. It would have made things so much easier when he was a human in command of a ship if he could always see everything that his crew were up to, like he was able to now.

  “Torpedoes are tracking the target, missiles loading for a follow-up volley,” Watkins said. He adjusted their course so the Canon would pass close to the next sensor buoy in line. That should help sort out the details on what they were up against as the buoy got a solid look at the void creature that was hot on their tail.

  “Look, there it goes, the void creature must have spotted the torpedoes and is trying to evade,” Lani said.

  She was right, the creature was jinxing like the Canon was, but their movements were more than a bit sluggish. It looked like that while the enemy was faster than they were, it wasn’t quite as nimble. The upgrades to the Canon’s maneuver thrusters were evident, even if the drones hadn’t quite finished up the work on all four yet.

  Watkins and Lani were glued to the sensors as the torpedoes neared their target. A last-minute juke by the void creature caused the first torpedo to miss, but the second hit home. The weapon penetrated the exterior of the creature and exploded, hurling chunks of the void beast into space. Like before, the interior of the creature began to dissolve wherever the tough exterior hide was breached.

  “I’m measuring a decrease of 1.54% in the overall mass of the creature,” Lani explained as they looked over the data.

  “At least the pieces blown from the monster aren’t moving,” Watkins added, remembering how the creature that boarded his ship had eventually stopped moving and died once enough of its mass was eliminated. He hoped whatever was out there was truly dead and he hadn’t scattered small but deadly pieces that would resurface to cause trouble later.

  “It’s point defense is either horrible, or non-existent,” Lani said.

  “I’m going to volley off the other missiles as fast as I can load them. We need to cut that thing down to size before it gets close,” Watkins decided.

  The two missiles in the tubes fired, and the next pair loaded. While the process wasn’t exactly rapid, they did manage to volley off all six missiles before they reached main gun range. Just like the torpedoes, the missiles had little trouble tracking and striking the void creature.

  One after another the missiles exploded against the toughened hide of the monster. Unlike the larger torpedoes, the missiles lacked the ability to penetrate the hull of the creature before detonating. For these attacks, each blast ripped open a small portion of the protective layer and exposed the creature’s vulnerable insides to the vacuum of space. While all six missiles hit, they each held an explosive payload that was less than a third of what the torpedoes were able to carry.

  By the time the last missile had exploded, the beast had lost a total of 7.88% of its mass for the accumulated attacks. Another pair of torpedoes was under construction, but the fabricator had other items to focus on as well, so it was going to be a while before they could fire again.

  “There is some good news, it seems the void creature slowed a bit after the damage it took. We still don’t know how its drives work, but apparently, they are affected by the loss of body mass,” Lani explained.

  “We’ll see how the main battery does. Even with the loss of thrust, that thing is still closing the distance with us. If we can hurt it badly enough with the guns, we might slow it down to the point that we can pick it apart at our leisure,” Watkins said.

  While he was hopeful that would be the outcome, he somehow knew this fight wasn’t going to be quite that easy for them.