Gunboat (A LitRPG Adventure), page 3
Once it had repaired itself, the drone shoved the bleeding corpse of the rat creature into a storage compartment on its back and returned through the retractable portion of the wall it had entered from. As it left Watkins’ compartment, he lost sight of it. The damage to his core housing ached a bit, but it was more of a minor irritation now that the rat thing wasn’t actively chewing on him.
With the excitement over the attack dying down, Watkins found himself returning to the internal struggle he had faced earlier. His two sides warred, one wanting him to sink into cold logic and the other battling to keep ahold of his humanity.
As he fought with himself, Watkins thought about the battle with the mutated rat. It had been a potentially deadly situation for him. If the drone had lost the fight, he would have been slowly consumed by the rat, enduring excruciating pain as the damage to his core mounted. This new life was a dangerous one, and his position was precarious. Maybe it was time for him to embrace both sides of his existence. He needed the cold, logical portion of his mind, the one that seemed more in tune with operating his core.
He also needed his humanity, which he somehow knew would be crucial for the future. A truce of sorts was formed, each part of his being taking on the tasks it was best suited for. The cold, logical portion of his mind also brought up the fact that as Watkins repaired and upgraded himself, he would regain more of his humanity.
When fully functional, Watkins would lose nothing of his humanity and would instead gain a calculating, logical mind that his ship could put to good use. With the conflict inside himself over, or at least postponed for a time, he got to work. He had a ship to repair, and to do that, he was going to need more salvage.
Chapter 4
Beyond the Core
Watkins couldn’t see where the drone had brought the rat carcass. Just like with his Universal Fabricator, the reprocessor was in a different compartment where he had no vision. After several minutes, the drone returned and began to fix up the scratches that the mutated rat had carved into his core housing.
Despite welding and using various other tools on his core housing, the drone’s efforts had a soothing effect instead of the pain he expected to feel. It wasn’t long before Watkins confirmed he was as good as new. Well, at least as good as he had been earlier. Something told him that there were a lot more repairs and upgrades ahead of him if he wanted to gain control over his ship and function as he was intended to.
Core housing durability: 100%
Available salvage: 0
Available biomass: 1
He was out of salvage, but something new was there: biomass. That must be what the rat corpse had been turned into. There had to be a use for it, but he could worry about that later. Right now, he needed to figure out a way to see beyond this one compartment. He felt a deep-rooted need to expand his presence. This ship was his, and he wouldn’t stop until it was all back under his control.
Taking a good look at the compartment he was in showed that it was a mess. Part of the ceiling had buckled, and in the corner opposite his core were the remains of a device that reminded Watkins of a computer server. While the computer server thing was probably important, all the other garbage and debris strewn about the room was useless. It was a perfect source of salvage as far as Watkins was concerned.
Pulling up his drone command interface, he played around with the settings until he figured out how to assign his drone to begin gathering salvage in his compartment. The drone went to work, and the whole process reminded Watkins of one of those robot vacuums. It clattered its way methodically across the floor, but instead of dragging each tiny bit of debris out of the room and to the reprocessor, wherever that was, it placed the debris in a compartment at the back of its rectangular main body.
After a few moments, the debris placed inside was compacted down to make room for more. When the drone had filled its salvage compartment, it left the compartment to drop off the salvage for reprocessing. As the drone made its delivery to the reprocessor, Watkins noticed that his available salvage had increased by one.
It was slow going, but eventually, the available salvage ticked up to five, and Watkins was able to start production of a second drone. With two drones sweeping up the debris, the compartment was slowly scoured of anything useful. As the last of the floor was taken care of, the drones began to effortlessly climb the walls, their spider-like legs somehow finding purchase on the slick metal.
They cut off a damaged section of the wall, which clattered to the deck with more noise than Watkins would have liked. Removing the bent and battered section of wall revealed the ingress point the rat had used to enter the compartment and attack his core. One of the drones began to straighten out the wall panel when another of the mutated rats clambered through the opening.
Watkins immediately ordered his drones to attack as the rat made a beeline for his core. Before it could reach the core, the drone that had been trying to flatten the bent panel charged forward, using the welder integrated into one of its legs to burn through the back of the rat. Just like in the first fight, his drone didn’t come out unscathed; the rat snapped off one of the drone’s legs before it succumbed to the welder.
Seeing the smoking corpse of the rat, Watkins was glad he no longer had a sense of smell. He could see, hear, and communicate, and he was content with those senses for the time being. What he had was all he needed to complete the task of securing his vessel.
The damaged drone repaired itself, then dragged the rat carcass off to wherever the reprocessor was located. While it was gone, the other drone continued to work, taking over as it bashed and welded the bent section of wall back into its original shape. When the other drone returned, the pair lugged the now-repaired panel into place and welded the opening closed. It was an ugly repair, but it would probably keep the rats out or at least hold them back long enough for him to respond.
You have unlocked a new schematic. Your fabricator can now construct mutated bilge rats as a level 0 Mobile Offensive Battle System (MOBS). The cost to create this MOBS is 5 biomass and 1 salvage.
Available salvage: 4
Available biomass: 2
Knowledge clicked into place, and Watkins could see how to re-create a version of these creatures. Each creation would have a processor implanted in its brain, as well as some structural enhancements. This would give him complete control over the creature and allow it some autonomous control. While it didn’t possess tools or weapons, the mutated rat MOBS instinctually knew how to fight. Enhanced by Watkins’ technology, it should perform better in combat than its natural kin.
Until he acquired more biomass, Watkins would have to wait before he could go Doctor Frankenstein and create swarms of mutant rat-bugs to defend his core. For now, his pair of drones would have to suffice. Soon, he would be able to add a third drone if their resource gathering continued to show results.
Watkins was a bit worried that he’d run out of resources to gather. So far, the floors had been swept clean, and there wasn’t much on the walls and ceiling of the compartment that could be scrounged without tearing new holes in the place. About the only other thing he could think of was to try and break down the ruined server.
Up until now, he was a bit concerned about touching it. Somewhere in his new memories, he recognized the device as important. Damaged as it was, its usefulness might be at an end. At least now it could serve as salvage and help him create another drone to protect and repair his ship.
Please confirm you wish to salvage the server housing your {prompt">Limited Adjunct Network Interface. This is a critical piece of ship infrastructure and requires an override by the core to proceed.
That was something new. His new memories weren’t complete, but the Limited Adjunct Network Interface was important enough that the drone was going to make him confirm that he wanted to turn it into salvage. Instead of reprocessing it, Watkins took a chance and ordered one of the drones to attempt to repair it. The drone spent some time walking around and over the ruined server before it began to pull out more delicate tools to start its work.
The available salvage trickled down. When the salvage reserves hit zero, the drone stopped its work and went to assist its comrade in clearing up the rest of the damaged walls and ceiling sections. Their work deposited another point of salvage, and the drone that had started the repairs ceased its salvaging duties and returned to its repair task.
Watkins could see that several general orders could be programmed into his drones. Right now, they were all set to repair and defend and repair his core as their top priority. After that, it was salvaging operations, though the task of repairing the network interface device in his compartment superseded the salvage commands. In the future, Watkins could adjust settings as he desired, but for now, he kept the drones’ work priorities at their current settings.
He watched as the drone worked on repairs. It carried some salvage stored inside its body, but when the salvage ran low, it left the compartment and went to what Watkins presumed was the reprocessor to gather more. When the latest point of salvage was gathered, Watkins could feel something click in his mind, and the server began to light up as it came online.
The Limited Adjunct Network Interface (LANI) is now active. Please note that some data was lost when this adjunct was damaged.
“What’s a LANI do?” Watkins asked.
“I was tasked with assisting you through your transition into a ship’s core. In addition, you’ll assist me in my primary task,” a feminine voice said. It had the same artificial quality as Watkins’ own voice, but somehow, it was comforting to talk to someone other than a drone waiting for commands.
“Hi, I’m Captain Watkins. Pleased to meet you, LANI,” Watkins said, trying to be polite with his new neighbor.
“Thank you for your welcome,” LANI said. “Tell me, Captain, how long have you been active? My database is damaged, and many portions of my history post-installation are missing.”
Watkins was about to say that he had no idea how long he had been here, but then the knowledge clicked into place. From the time he was snatched up from the exploding drug runners’ boat, Watkins had been here in this world for over a century while he slowly acclimated to the core he now inhabited. It seemed impossible, but the chronometer in his core had been functioning correctly the whole time.
“It’s been 112 years, 9 months, and 14 days since I was brought here. I should note that I’ve only been awake for a short time,” Watkins muttered, still hardly believing how long it had taken for him to wake up as the ship’s core.
“That is . . . longer than I expected,” LANI admitted. She went quiet, and Watkins gave her some time to process everything. “It seems this vessel is in worse shape than I had anticipated. No matter. I will do what I can to guide you on the right path. There are some security protocols in place, and I’ll need your permission to access data and suggest actions to improve our odds of survival.”
A new prompt appeared as LANI finished.
Your Limited Adjunct Network Interface has requested access to your database and system logs. Do you wish her to have access to this information? Y/N.
Chapter 5
Expanding Control
Watkins wasn’t sure if he wanted to risk this LANI having access to his systems. He no longer had a physical human body, and his core and data were essentially him. Was this LANI a risk or someone who could truly help? The strange system programming that seemed to guide his life kicked in at his hesitation and offered some alternatives.
Additional access options have been unlocked.
1. Full access and administrative rights to database, system logs, and core.
2. Unrestricted access to database and system logs.
3. Full access to review but not alter database and system logs.
4. Full and reciprocal access to review but not alter database and system logs. All personal information and any specific files chosen by the core are restricted.
5. Deny any access.
Watkins needed help to navigate his new life, but he was loath to give anyone control over him. Of the five options, he eliminated both the first and second since they seemed the riskiest. Denying access was also the wrong call. They would need each other’s help to survive.
The fourth was probably the right call; it gave this LANI access to review the information she needed but kept her away from anything that linked to the humanity that Watkins desired to keep. He would also have the same access to peruse her data, but despite having access, he somehow knew that such a delve into LANI’s database was beyond him, at least for now.
You have granted the Limited Adjunct Network Interface full and reciprocal access to review but not alter database and system logs. All personal information and any specifically chosen files are inaccessible. Please note that your core currently lacks the processing power to fully integrate into and read the adjunct’s data nets.
“Thank you, Captain Watkins. Give me a moment while I review what occurred before I was activated,” LANI said.
While Watkins waited, he tried to order his drones to gather salvage in the compartment where the reprocessor was located. Sadly, they didn’t seem able to follow those orders since Watkins had no view over the area. Apparently, they could travel back and forth to drop off resources at the reprocessor, but he could only order them to harvest in an area, or perform other functions, when he could see that area.
“Interesting, there are several things going on here,” LANI said. “The last thing I remember was that a kobold ship had jumped into the system and launched an attack on the station I was based out of. I installed some of my consciousness into this vessel and ordered the station monitoring your world to seek out a viable candidate for core integration.
“After that, I don’t remember much, but from the ship’s logs, it appears they were successful in integrating you into the ship’s core. Sadly, it appears that the jump point linked to your world’s system collapsed after retrieving you and your crew. That jump point was always a bit of an anomaly and an ancillary task for our researchers to investigate.
“Now, let’s see . . . The kobold attack, which consisted of a pair of missiles, destroyed most of the station, and this ship had just left its docking clamp and was caught up in much of the blast. We drifted while you were being created and even collided with some debris, further damaging the ship. Our ship remains critically damaged, and we have a lot of work to do to bring things back under our control.”
She paused for a bit, and Watkins could feel something change. It was like a part of him was suddenly freed.
“There, I was able to unlock a bit of your personal memories. I’m sorry that it’s not much, but I suspect there will be more to find of both of us as we grow in power,” LANI said as images began to assault Watkins’ vision.
It was a series of images starting with his childhood. Watkins watched the child version of him enjoying a Christmas morning with his parents. His parents smiled as he opened a new gaming console that he had badly wanted. His mind filled with hopes that some of the neighborhood kids would come over to play with him. He had always wanted a brother, or perhaps even a sister, to play with, but he was an only child.
He noticed things that his child’s mind hadn’t picked up on. There was stress on his parents’ faces, and he could tell they were pained when he voiced his wish to have friends over and to have a brother one day. Watkins felt sad as his parents looked at each other, his father squeezing his mother’s hand as if to tell her it was going to be okay, even when it wasn’t. There was more there, the reason for their pain, but the memory was incomplete, and he watched as the images changed.
Watkins was now a teenager, walking down the hallway of his high school. One of the kids pulled the backpack off a girl’s shoulder, opened it, and scattered the contents over the hallway. Names were called, and he remembered that the girl was the focus of horrible lies about her life and had been picked on by many in the school. Anger flared in Watkins, but not at the bully; he was angry at himself as he joined in with others and mocked the girl instead of standing up for her. His desire to fit in was stronger than his desire to help someone that needed it.
That event had eaten at him, and from that day, Watkins had dedicated himself to defending those that lacked the strength to defend themselves. A final image appeared; it was from early in his Coast Guard career, and he was pulling a boater from the water. The family had been enjoying a day on the coast when a drunk on a small watercraft slammed into their boat. Thankfully, they had worn their life vests, but the smallest child, a girl only seven or eight years old, slipped out of hers as Watkins’ team arrived. Watkins jumped off his ship, diving down to pull that girl back to the surface.
The little girl was choking and crying, but that also meant she was alive. A sense of pride and accomplishment filled him, and at that time, a decade after the events in the school hallway, he felt that he had, in some small way, begun to make amends for his moment of weakness and cruelty. The images cleared as this batch of memories settled into his very being. A bit more of himself had been recovered, but there was still so much more he had to find.
“Thank you for that, LANI, but what do we do now? I only have vision over this compartment, and we’re out of resources here. I don’t know all that much about how I operate, but I do realize that tearing apart the compartment that I’m installed in for salvage would be a horrible decision,” Watkins asked, his mind still reeling a bit from the memories he’d absorbed.
“It seems your core integration tutorial programs were never written and installed,” LANI said. “We’ll have to resort to some trial and error here. Hmm, I can see that you have a hardline connection to both the reprocessor and the fabricator. That’s good. Had either been completely destroyed in the attack, we would be in a bad spot.
