Chapter 99: The Grind

Okay, we really could have done this ourselves. Also come up with it, and designed it to boot …

Basically, all the navy engineers had done was build deployable ablative shields that would cover weapons and sensors for a brief moment. It’d help a little, but unless you’d run into the thinnest wall of macrons on record, it’d only mitigate damage rather than preventing it.

Not to mention the real issue was going to be whichever way the enemy adapted their tactics.

Throwing up walls of high-velocity explosive particles was highly effective when everyone involved was moving through normal space, where they had to go through in order to reach energy range.

When everyone involved had at least a couple of short-range FTL maneuvers up their sleeve, less so.

Here’s to hoping only having one person’s worth of creativity undercuts the planning …

However many brains their foe had, in theory, they all worked the same. In theory, the ungodly levels of coordination their foe had demonstrated should be at least somewhat limited by the fact that, ultimately, it was only one personality doing everything. Only one perspective to work from.

Their enemy might be limited.

Or they might be about to throw down with the ultimate polymath, capable of effectively infinite potential for cross-discipline projects, and a budget that blew anything humanity was willing to spend on scientific advancement out of the water.

Either way, we’re not going to know for quite a bit longer …

Derek tried to slide the last chunk of armor into place, banging on it a couple of times when it wouldn’t fit, then stopped.

“Yeah, so much for ‘oh, don’t worry, the fabricators can make the gear for a non-standard ship, you won’t have to worry about a thing’,” he muttered. “Should have done this ourselves …”

Muttering curses under his breath, he withdrew the armor plate and inspected the damage. It had been built in just barely the wrong shape, so simply bending it wouldn’t do the trick.

“Well. Shit.”

Derek shifted his fingernail into the claw of a Void Dragon, [Variable Weapon Empowerment] coating it in impossibly sharp energy as he began to slice into the metal, shaving off the offending chunk piece by piece, slowly melting the edge of the larger chunk and re-fusing what he’d removed bit by bit until everything was back in place.

He’d also mostly mangled the original enchantments and makers’ [Skill] boosts in the process, so he spent the next few minutes using prodigious mana and [Starship Upkeep] to restore those before finally slotting it into pla- …

“AHEM!”

The sheer volume of the throat clearing, and the pure annoyance it had been laden with, left him thinking that wasn’t the first time the speaker had tried to get his attention.

Looking around quickly revealed a lieutenant-commander with the insignia of a logistics officer standing near the entrance of the dry dock.

“Sorry,” Derek called over, launching himself off the hull with a simple jump before he slid into the gravity field of the gantries that rang around the outside of the cavernous hall the Dragonfly was currently within.

Landing lightly, he marched over towards where the navy officer was waiting.

“I have a delivery for your captain.”

“That’d be me,” Derek answered, moving to offer his hand only to realize that he’d managed to get himself quite dirty over the course of the last few hours. Well, dirty and slightly scorched from where sparks had landed in his clothing during the various occasions during which he’d had to weld something.

A couple of quick spells took care of that, but there was no way he knew to magic away a bad first impression.

“I’m Derek Thoma, Captain of the Dragonfly.”

The lieutenant-commander still took a couple of seconds to look him up and down before glancing at his tablet.

“I see. According to our records, your ship is equipped with eight single-shot missile tubes of the standard naval configuration?”

Derek nodded. “There really wasn’t a reason to deviate.”

“Then take possession of this delivery of naval missiles; any presently-loaded civilian weaponry that is displaced can be delivered to the supply depot on Deck C.”

“Sure … navy missiles are nuclear-tipped … is everyone getting them?”

It wasn’t like nukes were that hard to make, but military-grade weaponry being handed out was still one hell of an escalation.

“Yes, you’re getting nuclear missiles. As is anyone else with the capability to use them who can be trusted to use them responsibly.”

“Can I ask why I qualify?” Derek asked. Sure, this might be him shooting himself in the foot here, but he did want to know.

“You have a commendation on file.”

Oh, right, that thing.

“Huh,” Derek nodded. “Actually, we’ve got a pocket dimension that can carry two spares for each tube. Any chance we could get enough missiles for those too?”

“You will have to demonstrate their use, but that can be arranged.”

In other words, “prove you’re not trying to get your hands on missiles to sell.” Understandable sentiment, insulting question.

Derek jumped off the catwalk, feeling the gravity field fall away behind him, though he’d long since mastered aiming those kinds of motion even through a transition between different gravity zones.

He landed lightly on the Dragonfly’s hull, just above the closest missile tube, and after hitting a couple of the external overrides, pulled the weapon out. On another ship, being able to extract the munitions that easily might have proven to be a security issue, but on a small escort like his vessel, it would be nearly as easy for a determined boarder to rip it out.

Besides, it wasn’t like the overrides would open for anyone except the four of them without some serious finagling.

Finding the manual activation for extracting another missile from the pocket dimension took him a couple more seconds, but just like that, a new missile thunked into place in the tube.

The logistics officer didn’t even bother commenting, and one wave of the man’s hand later, six massive crates of four missiles each floated in the dock around the Dragonfly.

And a second wave called Derek back down onto the catwalk, where he was promptly given … a thing.

A thing that looked like a vaguely golden, rounded cube-thing, that felt like it weighed nothing yet dragged down his hand like an anchor, magical but feeling useless, brimming with potential yet utterly dormant …

And the [System]-window wasn’t exactly helpful either.

??? (?)

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Yeah.

“So, what’s in this?”

“No clue. Half the high-threat armory is encased in these things, and when you wind up needing one of those things, your cube is going to crack open, and it’s going to turn out that what you needed most was packed away on your ship the entire time.”

Huh.

“So … teleportation, time travel, or quantum uncertainty?” Derek wondered.

“How should I know? Ask the fleet admiral; it’s her [Skill].”

Part of Derek wanted to make a joke along the lines of “oh, I’ll be sure to ask her when we meet for tea” … until he remembered that, if he abused his connections, he might actually be able to make that happen. Yeah, that wouldn’t go over well.

So instead, he kept his trap shut, and sent the lieutenant-commander on his way, then began cursing as he realized he had to pack the missiles away himself.