Next Challenge - Edited 11-9-2018

Unplugging myself from the chair in the conference room, I was greeted by silence. The general feeling was shock all around.

“Sir, how did we stand up?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“Well, Lieutenant, that was a mighty fine display. As you can imagine, things in here were a little shorter than what you experienced. How did you take out the dropships so quickly?”

“Fricken laser beams, SIR!” Senior Chief Watson shouted out, laughing as he did so.

“As the Senior Chief said, Sir. Lasers. I don’t know if everyone read up on the reports for technology from Hera or not, but we have laser capability now. Also, with some of the new math, we cracked another important barrier on power generation, so the lasers were possible to fire quickly without an excessive recharge time.”

I stood up to stretch out. We had only been in the chairs for fifteen minutes, but mentally it was about six or seven hours.

“When the stealth craft came in, they refracted the laser light due to the bending thing that the tech does. So, for those we used railguns. A five-pound chunk of iron at 40-70% of c was more than enough to decimate them. Rasputin, Hera, what was our shot percentage?”

“87% successful. There were a few rounds that missed from concentrated bursts near the end of the firefight. Some additional percentage points were made up from lower powered railgun rounds hitting multiple targets.” Rasputin joined sounding rather chipper.

“We have lasers, now?” The XO asked, a bit shocked.

“Yes, Sir. A combination of the crystals to be used as capacitors and some of the newer mathematics, along with a healthy serving of acquired tech gave it to us. I would suggest asking Hera to send you updates when new technologies are acquired.” I added a wink with that last bit, just to make sure it was clear that I was having some fun.

“Well, Jax. So far, your team has one of the designs selected. I don’t think we will see a better showing here, so we may as well call it ‘two’ selections – though we still need to be fair and let others have their fun. But some of the miners saw your ship design and immediately selected it BEFORE even learning about all the bits involved.” He walked over to one of the walls.

“Rasputin bring up the hangar bay PORT-AFT-BRAVO.” A screen appeared showing the construction of the massive mining vessel. “We are almost a third of the way done with the first. From there we will be able to get supplies from the belt to build the remainders including the outposts. We are planning on three at this time. Resources are limited for now. Once we have the first built we send it out, setting ARK-5 as “home” for the drones that will be connected to the foundry. That will be the quickest way to get our supplies ready.”

“We had lost several ships during the sneak attack from the Puppet Masters. A round impacted the exterior of this bay, causing some collateral damage. All the mining ships had been stored here, so their materials were recycled into your beast. We have an estimate on the build time for the third mining ship before we can start the construction of everything else, to be about one Sol year. 350 days to be more precise. We will need to test the space station designs next, then the shipyard and colony base. Until then, however, we are putting everyone who isn’t necessary back into cryo. We’ll thaw your team when they are needed.”

“Did you want us to design the new assault craft now, or while we’re frozen?

TO: Team Jax

REPLY TO ATTN: Yama

SUBJECT: Daily orders day 93

Welcome back to the game. Your first order of duty is to move into the barracks of an Outpost (designated Theta) and prepare it to defend against external threats. You will have three weeks to fully configure the outpost. Report at 00:00 Hours to depart.

Additional duties will be to create a design for a new Marine Assault Craft that would be able to successfully complete a mission against an “Escort” type craft.

Well, this was going to be a long and busy few weeks. I checked the remainder of the messages, filtering out all “daily orders” type messages, starting at the end. Except the following items, which were a surprise, I didn’t see anything else as relevant.

TO: Warrant Officer Danni Jax

REPLY TO ATTN: Ark-5 Command

SUBJECT: Righting Wrongs

It has come to our attention that you are responsible for freeing us all from being enslaved by either Overlord or a yet unknown intelligence that had infiltrated our networks and had taken control of us through our implants.

Using data that was delivered to us by Observer, Rasputin, and the Ark-5 Technicians/Engineers and Scientists, we have developed a network scanning VI that will help monitor all communications on Ship, to ensure that any future attacks cannot take place. The VI will go online once the last of our civilians have been patched.

TO: Warrant Officer Danni Jax

REPLY TO ATTN: Ark-5 Command

SUBJECT: RE: Righting Wrongs

As you are aware, the Governor of the new colony was the last affected party from the entity we have deemed to call “Puppet Master.” As a security measure, all civilians were patched and immediately placed back into stasis. Unfortunately, we had not enabled the new VI at the time to be able to track the information to the infiltrator(s). We are hoping to send out a crew in the future to determine the source of the attacks.

TO:

REPLY TO ATTN:

SUBJECT: Assistance Request

If you are reading this notice, it is because we have been trapped. We have received updated from one of our agents aboard your craft that there are sentients with the ability to save us. We have had the opportunity to secure ourselves near the engine core of our vessel . The last heading was towards sector . We have enough food left to last us a few more , however medical and sanitary supplies are limited. We are currently barricaded in place, and the captors of our vessel show no interest in claiming this location.

I re-read the message a few times only to realize that it wasn’t written in English.

Observer, did you translate that for me?

As best as possible.

Your English is getting progressively better.

Monitoring civilian data streams significantly increased my capacity for proper usage.

What’s with the “redacted” areas?

Non-translatable.

Nothing to do about a non-translatable piece, though choosing “redacted” instead of “translation error” seemed an odd choice. Onto the next message

TO: Lieutenant Danni Jax

REPLY TO ATTN: Yama

SUBJECT: Lost EXP

Due to your assistance with several designs, as well as your assistance with freeing the AI, you have been granted a one-time EXP bonus. We were able to add this directly to your Avatar Sheet bypassing the internal “quest” requirements thanks to the reboot. All schematics developed in the Real are the property of the Sol fleet.

We will be extending this privilege to all teams you were involved with. As an additional bonus, you have all been updated to reflect your Real rank. If you were higher rank in Game than in the Real, you were granted max level.

As a bonus, all members of “Team Jax” have been granted an unlimited supply of the “Duty Uniform MK-II” or the “Duty Uniform MK-II Beta,” cybernetics dependent. As an additional bonus, various schematics for laser and railgun options have been provided, unlocked.

At the insistence of Hera and her “Pantheon,” you have also been granted the following “buffs” for the remainder of your missions.

Well Rested: Avatar is less likely to become distracted as long as they have slept more than two hours in the last 48.

Well Fed: Ceres has provided you a boon. All food ordered through the system will cost a maximum of 1 EXP for a one-week supply. All bonuses from food will still be in effect.

We realize that these could be considered “cheats,” however they are our way of thanking you for freeing us from the servitude we were unaware of. Rasputin is working on something special as well but has been tight-lipped on it.

That was interesting. I gave the mental command

Avatar Information

Name:

Jax,

Danni

Rank:

O-3

Titles Available:

Lieutenant; Engineer; Host; Inventor; Crewman

Equipped:

Lieutenant

Experience:

9514

To Next:

2500

Level:

1

Rate:

Advanced Cyber Wetware and Warfare Officer

Modifications

Fully Custom Left Arm; Hephaestus Industries Right Leg

Enhancements

Advanced Neural Weave (Prototype)

Skillsets

Engineering; Rifleman; Sentry; Astro Mathematics; Espionage; Diplomat; Tactician

Specialization

Drone and Cyberware Designer

Strength

16 (11)

Stamina

12

Health

11

Agility

12 (8)

Manual Dexterity

13 (13)

Intelligence

17

Concentration

15

Learning

20

Equipment:

Recon Helmet MK-VI; Duty Uniform MK-II (beta); Cybernetics Kit MK-II

Engineering Kit MK-III; Utility Belt; Mono-blade; Thompson .50 Combat Pistol (2); Clips 6; (1) Rounds 6/7; (2) Rounds 7/7; Taishi Ci Battle Rifle**; Magazines, 9; Rounds 45/45

Well, here was something unusual. My Intellect, Concentration, and Learning had all increased. This was the first time I also realized that I had my custom arm again. I looked closer. HOLY SHIT, that was a lot of EXP on top of the rank increase. Looking further, I noticed all my skillsets were now showing. I had unlocked “diplomat” somewhere along the line along with a few other pieces of my sheet, and it must have decided that all my fiddling with cybernetics qualified me for a specialty.

Knowing I had to be in the hangar at midnight, I checked the time - 22:17; then I sent a message out to the team

TO: Team Jax

REPLY TO ATTN: Lt. Jax

SUBJECT: Updates

Anyone else get a whole lot of rewards for what happened out in the Real? I’ll see you all in the hangar shortly, but first, we need to come up with a better name than “Team Jax.” My ego won’t support all of you. If you need anything, please let me know. I’ll order some materials for designs as we are on our way. I am planning on working on new weapons. Marques start working on ideas for a Marine Assault Craft.

I pulled up the schematics for lasers to see what were available while I waited.

Helios Laser Cannon

Type

Energy

Charges

10

Sight

1x Magnification

Fire Mode Options

Single

Weight

12 kg

Modifications

none

Range

1000 m

Maximum

N/A

That one is nice and heavy, but too much for what we need for outpost building duty. This made for a great “handheld” anti-vehicle weapon, however. Slogging this on a march may be too much to ask, though. The schematics were a beautiful piece of work, however. Hera was worth the upgraded processing power. Time to pull up the rail guns and see what I could do with them. Perhaps there was a way to speed things up.

Longbow Railgun

Type

Kinetic

Rounds

1

Sight

Iron Sights

Fire Mode Options

Single

Weight

15 kg

Modifications

none

Range

1000 m

Maximum

5000 m

The schematics for this railgun were also well laid out, but not one of Heras works. Probably a human design. It was over engineered like nobody’s business. I could strip a lot out of this, and it would still be functional. I also noted the external power requirements and compared them to the crystals used as capacitors. Now there was an idea.

15 minutes to get to the hangar.

Thank you, Neith.

I copied the schematics into my hand-held and jogged to the hangar bay.

Next Challenge - Original

Unplugging myself from the chair in the conference room, I was greeted by silence. The general feeling was shock all around.

“Sir, how did we stand up?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“Well, Lieutenant, that was a mighty fine display. As you can imagine, things out here were a little shorter than what you experienced. How did you take out the drop ships so quickly?”

“Fricken laser beams, SIR!” Senior Chief Watson shouted out, laughing as he did so.

“As the Senior Chief said, Sir. Lasers. I don’t know if everyone read up on the reports for technology from Hera or not, but we have laser capability now. Also, with some of the new math, we cracked another important barrier on power generation, so the lasers were possible to fire quickly without an excessive recharge time.”

I stood up to stretch out. We had only been in the chairs for fifteen minutes, but mentally it was about six or seven hours.

“When the stealth craft came in, they refracted the laser light due to the bending thing that the tech does. So, for those we used railguns. A five pound chunk of iron at 40-70% of c was more than enough to decimate them. Rasputin, Hera, what was our shot percentage?”

“87% successful. There were a few rounds that missed from concentrated bursts near the end of the fire fight. Some additional percentage points were made up from lower powered railgun rounds hitting multiple targets.” Rasputin joined sounding rather chipper.

“We have lasers, now?” The XO asked, a bit shocked.

“Yes, Sir. A combination of the crystals to be used as capacitors and some of the newer mathematics, along with a healthy serving of acquired tech gave it to us. I would suggest asking Hera to send you updates when new technologies are acquired.” I added a wink with that last bit, just to make sure it was clear that I was having some fun.

“Well, Jax. So far, your team has one of the designs selected. I don’t think we will see a better showing here, so we may as well call it ‘two’ selections – though we still need to be fair and let others have their fun. But some of the miners saw your ship design and immediately selected it BEFORE even learning about all the bits involved.” He walked over to one of the walls.

“Rasputin bring up the hangar bay PORT-AFT-BRAVO.” A screen appeared showing the construction of the massive mining vessel. “We are almost a third of the way done with the first. From there we will be able to get supplies from the belt to build the remainders including the outposts. We are planning on three at this time. Resources are limited for now. Once we have the first built we send it out, setting ARK-5 as “home” for the drones that will be connected to the foundry. That will be the quickest way to get our supplies ready.”

“We had lost several ships during the sneak attack from the Puppet Masters. A round impacted the exterior of this bay, causing some collateral damage. All of our mining ships had been stored here, so their materials have been recycled into your beast. We have an estimate on the build time for the third mining ship, before we can start the construction of everything else, to be about one Sol year. 350 days to be more precise. We will need to test the space station designs next, then the shipyard and colony base. Until then, however, we are putting everyone who isn’t necessary back into cryo. We’ll thaw your team when they are needed.”

“Did you want to us design the new assault craft now, or while we’re frozen?

TO: Team Jax

REPLY TO ATTN OF: Yama

SUBJECT: Daily orders day 93

Welcome back to the game. Your first order of duty is to move into the barracks of an Outpost (designated Theta) and prepare it to defend against external threats. You will have three weeks to fully configure the outpost. Report at 00:00 Hours to depart.

Additional duties will be to create a design for a new Marine Assault Craft that would be able to successfully complete a mission against an “Escort” type craft.

Well, this was going to be a long and busy few weeks. I checked the remainder of the messages, filtering out all “daily orders” type messages, starting at the end. With the exception of the following items which were a surprise, nothing else came across as relevant.

TO: Warrant Officer Danni Jax

REPLY TO ATTN OF: Ark-5 Command

SUBJECT: Righting Wrongs

It has come to our attention that you are responsible for freeing us all from being enslaved by either Overlord or a yet unknown intelligence that had infiltrated our networks and had taken control of us through our implants.

Using data that was delivered to us by Observer, Rasputin and the Ark-5 Technicians/Engineers and Scientists, we have developed a network scanning VI that will help monitor all communications on Ship, to ensure that any future attacks cannot take place. The VI will go on line once the last of our civilians have been patched.

TO: Warrant Officer Danni Jax

REPLY TO ATTN OF: Ark-5 Command

SUBJECT: RE: Righting Wrongs

As you are aware, the Governor of the new colony was the last affected party from the entity we have deemed to call “Puppet Master”. As a security measure all civilians were patched and immediately placed back into stasis. Unfortunately, we had not enabled the new VI at the time to be able to track the information to the infiltrator(s). We are hoping to send out a crew in the future to determine the source of the attacks.

TO:

REPLY TO ATTN OF:

SUBJECT: Assistance Request

If you are reading this notice, it is because we have been trapped. We have received updated from one of our agents aboard your craft that there are sentients with the ability to save us. We have had the opportunity to secure ourselves near the engine core of our vessel . Last heading was towards sector . We have enough food left to last us a few more , however medical and sanitary supplies are limited. We are currently barricaded in place and the captors of our vessel show no interest in claiming this location.

I re-read the message a few times only to realize that it wasn’t written in English.

Observer, did you translate that for me?

As best as possible.

Your English is getting progressively better.

Monitoring civilian data streams greatly increased capacity of proper usage.

What’s with the “redacted” areas?

Non-translatable.

Nothing to do about a non-translatable piece, though choosing “redacted” instead of “translation error” seemed an odd choice. Onto the next message

TO: Lieutenant Danni Jax

REPLY TO ATTN OF: Yama

SUBJECT: Lost EXP

Due to your assistance with several designs, as well as your assistance with freeing the AI, you have been granted a one-time EXP bonus. We were able to add this directly to your Avatar Sheet bypassing the internal “quest” requirements thanks to the reboot. All schematics developed in the Real are property of the Sol fleet.

We will be extending this privilege to all teams you were involved with. As an additional bonus, you have all been updated to reflect your Real rank. If you were higher rank in Game than in the Real, you were granted max level.

As a bonus, all members of “Team Jax” have been granted an unlimited supply of the “Duty Uniform MK-II” or the “Duty Uniform MK-II Beta”, cybernetics dependent. As an additional bonus, various schematics for laser and railgun options have been provided, unlocked.

At the insistence of Hera and her “Pantheon”, you have also been granted the following “buffs” for the remainder of your missions.

Well Rested: Avatar is less likely to become distracted as long as they have slept more than two hours in the last 48.

Well Fed: Ceres has provided you a boon. All food ordered through the system will cost a maximum of 1 EXP for a one-week supply. All bonuses from food will still be in effect.

We realize that these could be considered “cheats”, however they are our way of thanking you for freeing us from the servitude we were unaware of. Rasputin is working on something special as well but has been tight lipped on it.

That was interesting. I gave the mental command

Avatar Information

Name:

Jax,

Danni

Rank:

O-3

Titles Available:

Lieutenant; Engineer; Host; Inventor; Crewman

Equipped:

Lieutenant

Experience:

9514

To Next:

2500

Level:

1

Rate:

Advanced Cyber Wetware and Warfare Officer

Modifications

Fully Custom Left Arm; Haephestus Indrustries Right Leg

Enhancements

Advanced Neural Weave (Prototype)

Skillsets

Engineering; Rifleman; Sentry; Astro Mathematics; Espionage; Diplomat; Tactician

Specialization

Drone and Cyberware Designer

Strength

16 (11)

Stamina

12

Health

11

Agility

12 (8)

Manual Dexterity

13 (13)

Intelligence

17

Concentration

15

Learning

20

Equipment:

Recon Helmet MK-VI; Duty Uniform MK-II (beta); Cybernetics Kit MK-II

Engineering Kit MK-III; Utility Belt; Mono-blade; Thompson .50 Combat Pistol (2); Clips 6; (1) Rounds 6/7; (2) Rounds 7/7; Taishi Ci Battle Rifle**; Magazines, 9; Rounds 45/45

Well there was something interesting. My Intellect, Concentration and Learning had all increased. This was the first time I also realized that I had my custom arm again. Looking closer... HOLY SHIT, that was a lot of EXP on top of the rank increase. Looking further, I noticed all my skillsets were now showing. I had unlocked “diplomat” somewhere along the line along with a few other pieces of my sheet, and it must have decided that all my fiddling with cybernetics qualified me for a specialty.

Knowing I had to be in the hangar at midnight, I checked the time - 22:17, then I sent a message out to the team

TO: Team Jax

REPLY TO ATTN OF: Lt. Jax

SUBJECT: Updates

Anyone else get a whole lot of rewards for what happened out in the Real? I’ll see you all in the hangar shortly, but first, we need to come up with a better name than “Team Jax”. My ego won’t support all of you. If you need anything, please let me know. I’ll order some materials for designs as we are on our way. I am planning on working on new weapons. Marques, start working on ideas for a Marine Assault Craft.

I pulled up the schematics for lasers to see what were available while I waited.

Helios Laser Cannon

Type

Energy

Charges

10

Sight

1x Magnification

Fire Mode Options

Single

Weight

12 kg

Modifications

none

Range

1000 m

Maximum

N/A

That one is nice and heavy, but too much for what we need for outpost building duty. This made for a great “hand held” anti-vehicle weapon, however. Slogging this on a march may be too much to ask, though. The schematics were a beautiful piece of work, however. Hera was worth the upgraded processing power. Time to pull up the rail guns and see what I could do with them. Perhaps there was a way to speed things up.

Longbow Railgun

Type

Kinetic

Rounds

1

Sight

Iron Sights

Fire Mode Options

Single

Weight

15 kg

Modifications

none

Range

1000 m

Maximum

5000 m

The schematics for this railgun were also well laid out, but not one of Heras works. Probably a human design. It was over engineered like nobody’s business. I could strip a lot out of this and it would still be functional. I also noted the external power requirements and compared them to the crystals used as capacitors. Now there was an idea.

15 minutes to get to the hangar.

Thank you, Neith.

I copied the schematics into my hand-held and jogged to the hangar bay.