Gunboat (A LitRPG Adventure), page 24
Watkins watched the rapidly approaching halfling ship. It hadn’t been deterred by the heavy blow that had just struck. It moved even closer as a pair of point defense lasers burned through the thin hull of the enemy ship, adding to its woes. Bright flashes erupted all along the ship’s hull, and for a moment, Watkins was worried it was about to have a catastrophic reactor explosion like the first ship had experienced.
He realized what had really happened a second later, and he threw all the power he could manage into the maneuvering thrusters, desperately trying to bring his ship out of the line of fire. Those explosions weren’t from ship damage; they were from the halflings firing off every beehive point defense weapon they could aim in his direction.
With the distance between the two ships narrowed, Watkins had little time to maneuver the Canon out of the path of all those projectiles. He succeeded for the most part, but a sound like hail hitting the roof of a car was heard as hundreds of the pellets from the beehive weapon struck.
Chapter 44
Defend the Ship
The scattered pellets from the beehive weapon had no hope of breaching Watkins’ hull, and they didn’t even hurt much when they impacted. What they could do was damage one of the point defense mounts and take out two of his maneuvering thrusters. With his ability to outmaneuver the halfling ship taken away, it seemed like his decision on whether or not to let the enemy board had been decided for him.
Watkins could still keep the halflings at bay for a time, or probably destroy them, but another railgun round hit, and this one hurt. It took out the forward deck gun even as his second battery fired into the mangled bow of the enemy ship once again. Checking his scanners, Watkins still couldn’t tell where the railgun was mounted. The halflings had camouflaged it well, and the weapon didn’t leave a telltale energy signature like his lasers to highlight where it was located.
It was getting hard to keep his guns on target as the enemy drew closer. He only got the occasional angle on the bow of the enemy ship, but his shots there no longer seemed to be doing much. Only a few showed the telltale signs of a fresh hull breach, and Watkins began to wonder if the ship had lost all its atmosphere.
“We’ll let them board, and then, after we kill off most of their crew, we’ll take what’s left of their ship intact,” Watkins finally decided. He had some time and pulled all his drones off other duties to begin adding additional defenses aboard the ship. All he could build were more of the retractable barricades, but he had a few tricks in mind for those.
Powering down his guns, he tried to look as harmless as he could while the halflings maneuvered into a position to board. They either weren’t fooled or were taking no chances and sent a railgun round into the second main battery, disabling the laser. He also began to distribute his forces to do the most damage and delay the enemy for as long as possible.
Every minute he could delay the boarders meant more time for reinforcements to be fabricated. While he worked, Watkins finally read the messages in his core interface that he had put off looking at. They flashed by quickly, but the last one caught his attention.
You have engaged in combat and disabled a hostile vessel.
Twenty-five core points have been awarded.
You have disabled the weapons on a hostile station.
Ten core points have been awarded.
Your MOBS have boarded a hostile station and engaged in combat with the defenders.
Twenty-five core points have been awarded.
You have destroyed an enemy vessel in combat.
Twenty-five core points have been awarded.
Your core is now ready to upgrade to level 1.
“Lani, my core’s ready to upgrade,” Watkins said. “Any idea how long that will take? Is it something I should attempt before we’re boarded?”
“It should be about ten minutes per level, and yes, you should do so immediately. If you advance to level 1, you’ll become more powerful and improve your command limit.”
Looking at the ship closing in on him, Watkins estimated it would take around fifteen minutes for the halflings to get into position to board. That was if he continued to try and hamper their movements as much as he could with limited propulsion. Programming in some pre-planned evasion routes so he wouldn’t stop maneuvering while upgrading his core, he also issued orders to his drones, having them work on the defensive upgrades he wanted, as well as a bit of subterfuge. With that handled, he focused inward.
It was like closing his eyes as his vision of the ship dimmed and something called out to him. There, the call was coming from a glowing orb that had appeared in front of him. Somehow, he knew this was his core. He could see it roil with energy as it powered his mind and his vessel. Small green threads of a different sort of power ran through the core, and after concentrating on one, he realized these were his autonomous systems in action.
His other energy appeared as an orange, almost liquid light. Occasionally, this main portion of his energy erupted with small flares like the surface of the sun. It was telling him that he was ready to expand if he wished to harness the unruly power. Watkins wasn’t quite sure what to do, but at least part of the process must have been instinctual.
He found that he could manipulate his core directly; it was similar to the process he had used to exert control over the ship. He focused on the boundaries of his core and began to stretch them outward. It was hard to do at first—and a bit painful. The ache it generated reminded him of a pulled muscle from his human body.
Bit by bit, the borders of his core expanded. It wasn’t much, as far as distance went, but he could tell that there was more going on beneath his vision. His energy wasn’t just expanding; it was also being refined and improved. He was going to be more powerful, not just because of a larger core but also because the energy in his core was more potent.
Watkins did fumble a bit as a concern hit him. What would happen when he needed to level and his core housing wasn’t large enough to accommodate his new body? No, he would worry about that when the time came. For now, he pushed his concerns aside and finished the task in front of him.
When the core expanded to its new dimensions, Watkins felt a wave of relief hit him. It was like loosening your belt another notch after a big holiday meal. When the core expansion was complete, his focus returned to the ship around him. His sensors revealed that the halfling ship was on its final approach, and he was out of tricks to maneuver away from it.
A quick check of his status, and Watkins was happy to find that Lani was right. He now had additional command limit points waiting for him to use. He ordered up as many halfling MOBS as he could, watching the slow process of the fabricator as it did its job.
Status
Vessel class: Gunboat
Vessel name: Canon
Vessel core: Jesse Watkins
Hull durability: 89%
Core processing power: 100%
Core durability: 100%
Core level: 1
Core points 105/250
Units
Command limit: 30/40
1. Simple repair drone, level 1: 12
2. Halfling shipmate, level 1: 18
He would be able to build ten more MOBS. All of them wouldn’t be complete before his ship was boarded, but it allowed him to enact his defensive plan. The drones had been working while he upgraded his core. A few changes were easy for Watkins to spot: the hatches on the starboard side that led to the fabrication and reprocessor compartments were sealed over and it just looked like a normal passageway.
He planned to make a stand in the training compartment, which would hopefully keep the enemy as far from his core as he could manage. A team of three drones was just now beginning to build the defenses there, which consisted of three lines of barricades. For now, there would be no defenders there, and these defenses, as they were being built, would be manned by the new MOBS coming off the assembly line.
Of his existing eighteen MOBS, twelve of them were defending the shuttle bay, which was where the enemy would gain access to his ship. The next three were behind a barricade in front of the hatchway leading to the training compartment. All the laser pistols he’d taken in the fight with the kobolds were given to these defenders. It would grant his troops a bit more initial firepower and, hopefully, allow them to stall the attackers for longer.
For Watkins’ final two minions, he planned to use them in a surprise attack. They were both hidden in the galley compartment at the far aft of the ship. When the enemy was about to overwhelm the defenders at the training room barricade, he’d have the final two defenders emerge and engage the enemy from behind. They’d empty their laser weapons, then duck back into the galley, where a drone was preparing a small barricade for them to use.
If the halfling invaders didn’t want the pair of MOBS to keep popping out and sniping at them from behind, they would have to expend time and effort to root them out. All of this, and a few tweaks to his barricades that he hadn’t tested yet, were going to grind down the enemy’s numbers and allow Watkins time to rebuild his forces.
With the hatches from the fabricator and reprocessor compartments being disguised, he could use those as a hidden avenue of attack. There was the potential to have a much larger force pop out and catch the enemy between itself and the defenders in the training compartment. A lot of this would depend on how the enemy reacted and on how well equipped and trained they were.
A dull clang sounded through the ship as the halfling vessel latched onto the cargo hatch. Watkins could feel their ship connect to his as the halflings tried to hack the cargo door and force it to open. This was an opportunity for him. He let their hacker make some progress but blocked them at critical times, delaying them enough to annoy them but not enough to force them to take more drastic measures, like blasting through his hull.
A check on the training compartment revealed that he had two newly minted MOBS standing guard there, and a third was just waiting on its gear to be fabricated. He had delayed all he could, and now it was time for his MOBS to do their part.
Chapter 45
Spiked Barricade
Watkins could sense that the hacker trying to access the hatch in his shuttle bay was getting frustrated. The hacker was trying to barrage Watkins with various strategies, each of which he could easily thwart. Completely stopping the hack into his shuttle bay wasn’t the goal; the goal was to stall and delay. A look over the forces in the shuttle bay told Watkins it was time to open the spigot on the enemy attackers.
Red warning lights began to flash in the shuttle bay as the hatch slowly opened. Watkins wasn’t quite done yet and stopped it after it had only opened a few feet. That delay was only for two minutes as the hacker tried and was eventually allowed by Watkins to override the controls again. That one small delay meant another defender inside the training compartment.
He now had five in there—and five more command points to use. The available points would sadly increase as he began to take casualties. Both he and Lani knew little about the halfling ship, and he only estimated how many enemies were aboard it. He could deduce that the number would be higher than on the kobold ships he’d engaged, as the halfling ship attached to him was larger than both the Canon and the converted freighters the kobolds were using.
A shrill howling split the air as the hatch fully opened. Watkins had expected a fight similar to what he experienced with the kobolds, but this time, there was no barrage of grenades leading the way. Instead, a veritable swarm of halflings charged in, howling and gnashing their teeth as they boarded the Canon. Watkins ordered his MOBS to engage, and the first volley of plasma bolts from the defenders in the cargo hold lashed out.
The halfling attack ground to a sudden halt, not because of the fire they had taken, which resulted in eight dead or wounded attackers. Instead, the halflings halted as they realized the defenders weren’t kobolds or some other species—they were also halflings. For a moment, Watkins thought there might be some way to work out a deal if they figured his ship was one of theirs and had his troops hold their fire.
He used the pause to get a better look at these halflings. Like his MOBS and the kobolds, they were all fitted with shipsuits but lacked any additional armor. As far as ranged weapons went, each held a pistol of some sort in one hand and a melee weapon in the other. Large knives that reminded Watkins of a butcher knife were the most common, though several of the halflings held what looked like meat cleavers.
Unlike his MOBS, these halflings were filthy, though their shipsuits looked to be in good repair. Dried gore covered their mouths, giving them a fearsome appearance, and their hands, along with the melee weapons they were holding, also held a disgusting level of dried remains. To his horror, Watkins realized that not all the weapons held dried gore; more than a few knives and cleavers dripped with fresh blood.
Instead of opening negotiations, the crowd of halfling attackers that were stacking up just inside his shuttle bay suddenly dropped their weapons and charged forward, foaming drool leaking from their oversized, tooth-filled maws. The MOBS immediately responded, firing the second charge of their plasma rifles, then drawing their pistols to continue laying down fire on the horde.
“That wasn’t what I expected,” Watkins said.
“Indeed. It seems that the sight of their supposed kin has worked them into a berserker rage of some sort. The lead ranks have lost their minds and even dropped their weapons,” Lani pointed out.
Far more halflings than Watkins had expected were pouring aboard. His MOBS were firing their pistols as fast as they could, but even with five shots in each weapon, it seemed like the tide of enemies was being barely whittled down. With the last shots fired, the MOBS drew melee weapons and waited for the enemy to close.
The barricades should have stalled them, but the halflings didn’t try to go around them. Instead, they leaped over the shoulder-height barricades and onto the startled defenders. Feeling no pain, his defending MOBS didn’t stop trying to deal as much damage as they could, lashing out with their melee weapons or even biting with their own formidable sets of teeth.
“Now that’s just wrong,” Watkins said with disgust as the halfling attackers swarmed and held down his MOBS. Instead of a fatal blow, the halflings holding down the MOBS began to feast. Their oversized and shark-tooth-filled mouths sliced through the shipsuits to tear large gobbets of flesh from his MOBS.
“At least our crew didn’t do too badly, despite their grisly end,” he commented as he and Lani looked at the aftermath of the fight inside the shuttle bay. His MOBS had taken down the enemy at better than three to one, but the flood of attackers continued. Around fifty of them were inside the shuttle bay, though half of those were still more intent on eating his MOBS than pressing the attack.
“I’m beginning to realize why the kobolds detonated their ship rather than be captured by the halflings,” Lani said, reminding Watkins of the space battle they had witnessed not that long ago.
“We’ll be doing nothing of the sort, and it’s time for me to get more actively involved,” Watkins said as the flow of enemy troops into the shuttle bay finally began to abate. There were close to seventy halflings aboard, and most were content to join the feast. Those that had eaten their fill picked up any dropped weapons and waited for orders.
Watkins ordered the six barricades in the room to slowly retract into the deck. There was a chance that an enemy could be pinched between the barricade and the deck, but the halflings were careful enough to avoid that. Once the barricades had been retracted, Watkins waited for the horde to disperse, their sheer numbers forcing several halflings to stand over the retracted barricades.
At his command, the recent modifications that he’d had his drones install went to work. On the surface of the barricades, several metal spikes extended. These only caught the feet of two halflings, but what happened next was more successful. Each barricade slammed back into place, the spikes impaling several of the halflings that had stood too close.
A total of eight halflings had been killed or seriously wounded by the surprise trap, and every easy kill he could make with a barricade would relieve the pressure on the rest of his MOBS. As the barricades retracted into the floor once again, Watkins noticed that the halflings gave them a wide berth. Several howls sounded from the pack of halflings, and they began to charge out of the shuttle bay and into the main passageway.
The trio of defenders at the bow end of the passageway began to fire, drawing the attention of most of the horde. Unlike the wide-open shuttle bay, the passageway was a tighter fit, and his barricades would keep any enemy from flanking his defenders. To prevent the enemy from leaping directly onto his troops, Watkins had the defenders move several steps back from the barricade itself.
Since the attackers already knew about them, Watkins also had the spikes extend on the barricade. If they wanted to press in close, they would push their fellow halflings positioned at the front of the pack into the waiting spikes. Rifles empty, his trio of defenders peppered the charging halflings with their pistols. These three had the last of the laser pistols that had been taken from the kobolds. Once these defenders were overrun, his MOBS would only have the more primitive single-shot plasma pistols his core had researched.
This time, the lead enemy halflings fired as they charged the barricade. They were shooting from the hip and not taking careful aim, but with so many shots flying out, one of his MOBS took a headshot and collapsed in a heap. His troops, though much fewer in number, were much more accurate, and each shot into the crowded passageway resulted in a hit. It was almost impossible to miss, given the press of bodies charging toward them.
