Chapter 15

Round Two Fight!

I sat in my command chair with my feet up, taking a well-deserved rest. The Wargarg had fallen for it. They were so wired for all-out combat that it didn’t take much to push them to the offensive. Their second fleet lasted less time than the first. Tee had control of the battleship, so the moment they were all destroyed, he backed it away from the station. Any time a mech left, the R1s took it out. Without backup, I’d quickly cleared the station, and then I’d done my own boarding action to find a mech.

After I’d found it, I’d spent half the credits I’d received from my achievement to buy the upgrade for reprocessing facility so it could dismantle the vessels and harvest their technology, then I had Tee upgraded the one we currently had. I didn’t have nearly enough time to pull their technology out of their ships myself. It was a huge job.

And the station was an absolute wreck.

There was massive structural damage. A third of the weapon systems were offline. Most of the internal systems were offline. A full quarter of the central station was gone. My regeneration trait had a lot of work ahead of it.

“Well, that’s unfortunate,” Tee said.

“What’s unfortunate?”

“The Horde has also amassed a fleet and are about to attack. We’ve got maybe 15 minutes. I’m rotating the station so the undamaged side is pointing towards their transit ring.”

“How big?”

“It’s smaller in number but bigger in class. It must be several of their systems' offensive forces. They have 3 carriers, 7 battleships, 18 heavy destroyers, and 750 heavy frigates. The frigates won’t be too much trouble. And the destroyers will take some time to pummel, but we still have the numbers to do that. The battleships are concerning. They aren’t as heavily upgraded as the Wargarg’s battleship, but there are more of them.”

“What have we got to work with that can hurt them?”

“You’ve got 2 R9s and the particle cannon. Before you ask, yes, you can spend path point to buy R9s, but the recoil of that many heavy railguns will tear the station apart. We are already going to take damage every time these ones fire.”

“What’s the biggest value RP wise?”

“The carriers, but they aren’t as big of a threat as the battleships.”

“Target the battleship’s weapons with the R5s, but point the R9s at the carriers, and take out the first one that comes through with the particle cannon a minute after they appear.”

Tee sighed. “I’m not even going to bother asking why you want to do something so stupid.”

“They were watching us. It means they saw exactly what happened. They think we crippled ourselves to draw in the Wargarg fleet.”

“Which we did.”

“Exactly, they saw us use a trap. They think the trap harmed us. They think we are vulnerable. So they expect us to fight like someone vulnerable. But if we behave like someone who is farming them for RP, what message does that send?”

“That we’re a trap, and we expected them to attack us, and aren’t as damaged as they think we are.”

“Exactly.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“Obviously.”

“What if they call your bluff?”

“Then we have to figure out how to fight off 7 battleships with only enough weapons for 3. I’m assuming you can take control of one of their battleships in that equation.”

“Would you stop grinning!”

I laughed. “When this stops being fun. Now, what would happen if I invested station points into the R9s damage?”

“The recoil would tear the station apart, but you can’t upgrade them until you’ve built one, remember. Your station tech upgrades don’t count, and you said you wanted to replace the R9s with something better when you gained access to it which is why we didn’t build them.”

“I completely forgot about that. I could upgrade the emitters to compensate for the extra R9s.”

“Subsystems are a lot more expensive for you to upgrade than weapons. You’ll have to pay 1,000 station points for a 10% increase in output, and you need a 50% increase for the level 1 emitter to cancel out the recoil for the R9s. Subsystems are late-game upgrades. You’re still playing in the kiddie pool.”

“Gotcha. You know this would probably be a good time for the Octorin to launch an early attack. We should watch out for that.”

“Funny you should mention that. Their drone swarm has begun making its way to their ring. It’s still several hours out.”

That was annoying. Building bigger weapons was currently out. Missile batteries took 6 hours, R9s took 8, and hangar bays took 12. Even if I completed the quest, their construction time made it pointless. It looked like today was my crucible.

“Contact the station masters, priority one request for all those currently unoccupied. Send their AIs our current situation and request tactical assistance. Put them on the viewscreen.”

In ten seconds, the first responder appeared.

It was Daniel. “What do you need?”

“Read the request,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I’m experiencing a three-wave faction attack.”

He started reading. “You have how many R5s! Why the hell are you worrying? Just buy the armor-piercing ammunition blueprint. I’ve been getting really interested in all the different ammunitions we can use, and those are pretty decent.”

“Keep reading.”

“Holy shit! Battleships. That’s awesome. Buy the corrosive nano ammunition blueprint as well. Using them won’t eat through the hull, but it will take out enough of the armor around main guns that you can use armor-piercing rounds to take them out, which is the same thing as destroying them.”

“Tee, are the ammunition fabricators functional?”

“One is. It’s not going to be able to work at full capacity, but it could do what he suggested if you bought level 10 ammunition blueprints. They would cost you 3,500,000 credits.”

“Cancel the request for assistance and buy the blueprints and start making ammunition. Thanks, Daniel.”

“Can I stay and watch?”

I groaned. “Why didn’t I think of that? Tee invite the other station masters to watch my engagement. We should be watching each other’s battles as a way of training and developing our skills.”

“Does that mean yes?”

“Yeah, it does.”

“Awesome, I’m going to get ice cream, don’t blow anything up while I’m gone.” He disappeared from the screen.

“Tee, send them the data from the earlier battle and make sure you mute everyone. I don’t want any backseat drivers. Leave Daniel with chat privileges. The kid saved my ass. Why didn’t you suggest an ammunition change?”

“I’ve had to deal with this idiot at work all day, and he’s left me a little too irritable to concentrate on my job.”

“That sounds like a you problem. I just had an idea.”

“The answer is no.”

“Can we cheat production and make R5-Ms that are already loaded with the required ammunition?”

“No. You could if the R5-Ms were the same level as the ammunition, but they are currently level 2, and the ammunition is level 10. The higher level ammunition is going to damage the weapon systems. They will fire four of five rounds off before they malfunction.”

“We need more R5-Ms, don’t we?”

“After we send the Horde running, it would be better to be safe than sorry, but they’re ten minutes away from their ring, so I wouldn’t recommend it.”

I nodded and then frowned, realizing I’d overlooked something, and pulled up my R5-M upgrades. I’d doubled my upgrade points. That meant my R5 upgrade points should have doubled too.

You have 1,000 Station Points that are only available to be spent on this weapon.

R5 Upgrades

Description

Effect

Available

Cost

Internal Reactor

+5E

0/10

100

Point Defense

N/A

0/10

10

Burst Fire

N/A

0/1

1000

Burst Fire was awesome, five shots in quick succession, what wasn’t to love. However, it also required so much juice my station couldn’t keep up. I’d need a major upgrade to the main reactor. The internal reactor the R5's had would only produce 50E when it was fully upgraded, which wasn’t enough to cover their current power consumption.

I could afford to buy the point defense upgrade, though. It would cost 550 upgrade points, but once it reached level 10, it added an R1 to the top of the R5s to cover them from missiles and fighters. It was the kind of upgrade you needed to take on a drone swarm.

“Tee, the R1s are already inside the R5s, right? So, when I activate the upgrade, they will pop up as a big old surprise?”

Tee chuckled. “Yep.”

“How’s the R5-Ms battery reserves looking?”

“They’re only at 50% charge. Your secondary reactor is significantly better than the one your station has and the one your station tech supplied, but it’s still not enough considering the number of R5s you're fielding.”

I sighed.

You have spent 5,500 Station Points to buy the R5 Internal Reactor upgrade from level 0-10. (Maxed) You now have access to R5 internal reactor blueprints.

My only hope for this upgrade was that I’d be able to connect the internal reactors to the station at some point. That or gain access to another faction's internal reactor tech, which was significantly better than ours.

I closed my interface, unhappy that I’d needed to spend so much on my R5-Ms.

About 30 station masters had joined Daniel since I’d gotten distracted, and they needed to know what was happening. “Good evening everyone, it’s come to my attention that we should be watching each other’s battles for the learning experience it provides. We have so little actual combat time with our stations that this is a valuable experience. I’ve had Tee send you all the recordings of the first engagement I had with the Wargarg faction earlier today. I’m about to be attacked by the Horde faction and, in a few hours, will likely be attacked by the Octorin. They have seen my weakened state and are pre-emptively attacking. I expect them to fully commit to this engagement. Octorin do not like interference, and despite the fact that I’m surrounded by factions that have attacked me, they won’t trust the Kilocksin not to attack them for the pure fun of it.”

“Speaking of the Kilocksin,” Tee said.

I rolled my eyes. “They’re not.”

“They are. I just received a ring proximity alert. The fact that Kilocksin managed to sneak up on me is absurd. So I’m 100% certain the Wargarg invested in counter tech. They’ve probably been messing with my scanners through the transit ring all day. That’s why we keep getting surprises.”

“How big is their fleet?”

“They have 1 carrier, 2 battleships, and 84 cruisers.”

I groaned. “They are going to try to hit the Horde.”

“They’re not attacking you,” Daniel said, surprised.

“They know that their fleet isn’t big enough to do that successfully, and their transit ring is right next to the Hordes. The Horde don’t build up stationary defenses near their ring. Without their main fleet, they're system is vulnerable. The Kilocksin are going to try to hit the Hordes fleet from behind and make a run on their system. They’re risking their fleet to help me and chase credits.”

“Tell them to stop then.”

The Horde fleet began passing through the transit ring.

“The Horde will intercept the message and the Kilocksin just made this easier for me,” I said. “Tee, hail the Horde.”

Half a minute passed. “They’ve accepted. Would you like me to put them on the viewscreen?”

“Yes, please.”

An ugly pig-skinned minotaur appeared on the viewscreen. He looked like he hadn’t eaten in months. The name Commander Corburg appeared under the image. “You are in our territory, human. Leave now or suffer the consequences.”

“Do you taste like steak or pork?”

Corburg seemed baffled by my question. “What?”

“I mean, you look like a cow, but you’ve kind of got pigskin, so I figure it could go either way.”

“You are trying to annoy me. It will not work.”

“Don’t tell me you taste like chicken. Too many things taste like chicken.”

Corburg ignored me.

“BBQ them, Tee.”

The particle cannon fired.

Their heavy frigates were trying to use the same tactic as the Wargarg faction, so they were hiding behind their larger vessels, like the carrier that the particle cannon tore through. The particle cannon was a precise weapon until it hit something, then the beam tended to shotgun. The carrier was shredded. The frigates weren’t destroyed, but they took damage. Well, that wasn’t true, one of them vaporized. It was right behind the carrier.

The minotaur on the screen scowled. “That was foolish.”

“You know someone recently said something similar to that to me. You’re about to lose those heavy frigates, by the way. Also, that other carrier is looking a bit rough.”

The R5-Ms hit a second later. The small weapons along the hulls of the battleships tried to engage the rounds, but there were so many rounds that even though they hit most of them, the remainder that got through still made their point defense vanish. The same thing happened to the destroyers, and the carriers, except one of the carriers also received two rounds from the R9s since it couldn’t maneuver without exposing the frigates. It didn’t like that.

All but the battleships Tee was trying to take over had been hit with corrosive rounds and were currently losing the armor around their weapon systems.

I gave Corburg a less than friendly smile. “You should check on that.”

The minotaur snorted the way bulls do before they charge the matador. It was the human equivalent to an eye twitch. “You are pathetic. This is barely an annoyance.”

“Don’t worry, give it a minute.”

“No, you have been in our territory long enough.”

The battleships fired their main guns. They looked sort of strange on the 3D display.

“What’s that?”

“Plasma wave cannons,” Tee said. “The waves move slow, but they do substantial damage. And there are 63 of them.”

“Target the waves with the R5s that can’t target the fleet and fire. Detonate the rounds in front of the waves.”

“That won’t work.”

“Just do it. Fire everything.”

The minotaur chuckled. “You should listen to your advisor.”

“And you should take your fleet home before you don’t have it anymore.”

The R5 rounds began to explode in front of the waves. The waves kept coming, so did the R5 rounds. The Minotaur continued to laugh as his fleet took fire. Right up until the waves struck the main station and did significantly less damage than he thought they would. It was still a lot of damage, though. There weren’t weapons attached to that side of the main station anymore. It was a good thing most of my weapons were on the ring.

“How did that work?” Tee asked.

“The matter in the rounds absorbed enough of the heat in the plasma wave to weaken them. We threw a hundred thin walls of metal against it. It didn’t stop it, but it weakened the effect. Honestly, don’t you understand basic physics?”

The fifth wave of R5-M fire struck the fleet. A few of the frigates took damage this time, and the heavy destroyers discovered that their main guns had taken damage.

I smiled at the minotaur. “Do you feel lucky? I do. What’s the cooldown on those cannons? I’m betting my ammunition eats through your armor before they're ready to fire again.”

“That was clever,” Corburg said. “But I can also be clever.”

Their formations changed. The destroyers moved ahead of the fleet and became a wall in front of the battleships, shielding them the way they had shielded the frigates. There wasn’t enough to cover all of them, so two of the battleships were left exposed.

“Okay, nice. That could be a real problem, if I couldn’t do this.”

Ten seconds passed.

Corburg chuckled. “I’m waiting.”

“Sorry about this. He has performance anxiety.”

Another six seconds passed, and then the undamaged battleship turned its guns and fired at the two battleships next to it, destroying their main guns. The ship then turned and rammed another battleship before detonating its entire payload. Both ships vanished.

The minotaur scowled.

“Damn, I bet you’re asking yourself ‘Will my weapons be ready before he does that again?’ I bet you’re also asking yourself if you’ve fallen for the same trap as the last guy. Whatever you do, don’t let that signal telling you that the Kilocksin are making a run on your ring distract you. Because that would be an amateur mistake.”

The Kilocksin fleet began to appear through the ring. They pivoted and then did a full burn headed for the Horde transit ring. Their weapons weren’t pointed towards the ring, though. They were pointed at the Horde’s fleet.

“This has to be the first space-based drive-by witnessed by humanity in our entire history. You should feel proud of being part of that while you watch the Kilocksin ransack your territory for credits.”

Corburg roared at his crew, shouting orders as the Kilocksin’s weapons ripped through his fleet.

I’d taken out the majority of their mid-weight weapons and all their smaller weapons, so they couldn’t counter effectively. And their new formation had left the majority of their frigates exposed, so they only got off one volley before most of them vanished, under the next wave of fire from my station.

The Kilocksin knew how to play the game. By skirting the back of the range and not firing on the station, I could prioritize the Horde fleet over them and let them pass unmolested. They weren’t coming back. They weren’t here to lose their fleet. They were lending a hand and then pillaging an undefended enemy. They were going to lose this fleet, but not before they earned a lot of credits.

The Horde battleships lost their primary weapons, leaving them little better than barges. The carriers deployed their fighters and prepared their bombers, trying to intercept the Kilocksin fleet.

That was the moment Tee made his second move. He took over the weapons systems on a handful of undamaged frigates and fired right into the open bomber launch bays. It wasn’t crippling, but the debris made launching bombers impossible. The fighters couldn’t hit hard enough to cripple the Kilocksin fleet without the bombers.

Not that that would have worked. The Kilocksin were firing everything they had as they continued the drive-by.

I was grinning the entire time I watched Corburg try to salvage his attack. “Now, since you’ve lost, let me clear up something you seem to be confused about. You are in my territory. And I am not talking about this side of the transit ring. That system, on the other side, is mine. And if you don’t want me to send my faction through to take it back, you are going to give my station 10% of that system's production as tribute, trading those resources and credits through my station. I don’t care who you trade with or if you make or lose on the deal. If you don’t want me taking back what’s mine, you are going to do it.”

I pressed the button on the arm of my command chair, dropping the conversation. The moment his face disappeared, I laughed.

“Why did you do that?” Daniel asked.

“To piss him off or scare him. If he’s pissed off, he’ll come back with a bigger fleet, and I’ll grow my station. If he’s scared, he might convince his superiors to do what I demanded. Or he’ll ignore me, in which case I spent five seconds of my life to take a shot I missed. You can’t succeed unless you try, kid.”

“Oh, I thought you were trying to get him even more tilted.”

I laughed harder, happy to see he understood. “Yeah, I was doing that too. Tee, when the Horde fleet turns to follow the Kilocksin, take out their engines.”

“They’re not turning. They’re speeding up. They’re forming a wall in front of the carriers and the last of the frigates. They look like they are going to ram us.”

“Well, that’s dumb of them. They just gave the Kilocksin a perfect view of their engines.”

“The Kilocksin aren’t firing on them.”

“Those Kilocksin dickheads,” I shouted, fighting the urge to laugh again. “Destroy half their cruisers. If they don’t fire on the Horde’s engines within 25 seconds of that, take out the rest.”

Half the station masters were suddenly yelling at me, judging by the images on the viewscreen. It was a good thing I muted them. It took a while for the rounds the R5-Ms fired to reach the outer edge. But it only took a few seconds after losing half his cruisers for the Kilocksin to hail me.

A reptilian face appeared on my viewscreen. The name Commander Harosso sat under it. “What is the meaning of this, Ma’Lock Morgan?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing, Commander Harosso. And it’s Ma’Lock Morgan Mars now. Look into the history of my new last name before we speak again. Now explain why are you treating me like an enemy?”

The Kilocksin inhaled and then started shouting. “You just destroyed half my cruisers! How dare you say that to me.”

“Cruisers that had an open shot at the Hordes engines and didn’t take it,” I shouted back. “An ally would take the shot. An opportunistic enemy would have hit the Horde fleet enough to cripple them and then have left them to cause another enemy a headache. I’ve worked out those cruisers I destroyed were in the latter group. I’m trying to work out whether or not the rest of your cruisers fit into the former or need to be treated similarly.”

The Kilocksin suddenly hiss roared with laughter.

I grinned back. I loved understanding how their people thought.

“You are a true Ma’Lock! My nephew was right.” He turned to someone off-screen. “Order our commanders to destroy their engines if you want a fleet left to raid with.”

The Kilocksin fleet resumed firing on the Horde, targeting their engines.

My grin grew. “Good hunting, and thank you for your assistance Commander Harosso. My dungeon will be ready the cycle after the next. I would like the honor of fighting you when it is convenient.” I gave the ritual gesture requesting a spar with a respected ally.

The Kilocksin continued to roar with laughter. “I will come to your dungeon and take your station from you. Enjoy your hunt Ma’Lock Morgan Mars.”

He ended the communication.

“Tee threat assessment on the Horde fleet?”

“They have a 1% chance of destroying the station.”

“Good, finish them off for me and start activating R5-M construction quests. Send the dungeon master and Tumpa to complete them for me. I think I need to explain my actions, or some of these people are going to burst a blood vessel.”