Chapter 50: Let’s Go |
Derek was elbow-deep in a power conduit, skin of his arms shifted into the non-conductive scales of the Void Dragon just in case the damage to the starship wound up sending a current through there, even though this section wasn’t meant to be live, when his phone rang, with the ringtone he’d assigned to Mimi.
With a sigh, he withdrew his hands and picked up.
“Hey, I just had to let your older brother in through the airlock. Derek, can you come talk to him while I handle the reactor?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Derek quickly made his way over there, and the first question was “Why didn’t you just come through the hull to me?”
“Didn’t want to startle you,” Isaac said. “Are you alright? I know you said so when I called earlier …”
“Nah, we’re fine,” Derek shrugged. “I mean, ship’s beat to hell, but we’re a small crew, this is pretty much an ‘either we all survive, or we all die’ kind of situation.”
Isaac sighed. “But you’re fine. Do you need anything? Now, later, long term …”
“A fixed ship, but we’re working on that.”
“Sure. Why?” Derek replied, realizing he’d probably said that in the wrong order.
“If I have the salvage rights, I can have the very competent people in my employ scan, investigate, and hopefully reverse-engineer everything without needing to go through the military bureaucracy. By the time the navy confiscates everything, they’ll probably be done,” Isaac said, broad grin on his face. “Also, next time someone asks you to give something literally invaluable to them, you should probably ask for repayment.”
Derek’s phone chimed.
“You should check that,” Isaac advised, so Derek did so, promptly dropping it in shock when he saw the number attached to the incoming bank transfer.
“That’s just your share, by the way, the others got an identical payout, and the ship’s maintenance account got topped up,” Isaac explained. “So, what are you going to do after this? I hear they’re going to pin a medal on you.”
Derek could not help but feel a flash of fear at that.
“Honestly? Get as close to the Core as I have to fix the Dragonfly, then head out again. I’ve waited way too long to go exploring, and by God, I’m going to do it!”
“Pretty sure we can get the ship fixed here,” Isaac told him. “Hell, that engineer of yours ambushed me two seconds after I got aboard with a list of supplies I should have brought here.”
Derek sniggered. “Yeah, that sounds like Mimi, alright.”
“Also, it’s not like that medal is going anywhere,” Isaac said. “They already announced it; unless you commit genocide or something, they won’t be able to take that back. Medals, anyway. The UN wants to start actually using their roster of non-national medals that they haven’t really had many people to give to, Germany wants to claim you as its newest favorite son, most of the colonists are American, so the US wants in on the action … I can’t blame you for not wanting to get stuck on Earth for a month.”
“I could leave,” Derek pointed out.
“Ah, but they’d see that as rude. An explorer keeping on exploring is something they have to accept, at least in public, and it’s a great excuse for you staying away. An explorer coming back, accepting some medals and then running away …”
Derek sighed. “Yeah, I’m staying out here for a couple of years at least. Unless one of the others wants to head home.”
“I don’t think you have to worry on that front,” Isaac shrugged. “You’ve got a good group there.”
“Yeah …”
***
An hour later, the crew of the Dragonfly was gathered on the bridge, a portable grill merrily burning atop the central table, the sizzling of meat and the delectable smell of barbecue filling the room.
Apparently, the folks they’d just saved had a habit of summoning and hunting huge monsters for meat, and, as such, they’d sent up enough of the best cuts to feed them all for a week.
“That was crazy,” Atticus declared.
“What’s crazy is how badly you broke the ship,” Mimi grumped.
“We’ll help you fix it,” Ye-in said.
“But maybe we’ll focus on the scut work,” Derek offered. “For the sake of [Skill] Levels.”
“Mh?” Mimi asked, around the huge chunk of steak she’d just chowed down on, then nodded empathetically.
“Just to be clear, no one thinks I dragged us into something dangerous?” Derek asked, having spent the past couple of hours worried that he’d chosen to hurl this ship into the teeth of danger, all over the frustration of how everyone had assumed they couldn’t handle it.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“Do you really think I’d be on this ship if I minded the danger?” Atticus asked, raising his right eyebrow so far it practically disappeared into his hairline, likely the product of some kind of [Skill].
Ye-in gagged. “Please don’t do that while we’re eating.”
“Sorry,” Atticus replied, sounding slightly abashed. “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t mean it. Go out, do crazy shit, and get treated like heroes for it. What’s not to love?”
“Does the fact that I agree with you make me ripe for the asylum?” Derek asked dryly.
“Probably,” Ye-in laughed as she gave him a side hug. “But that makes you our favorite insane person.”
“Why, thank you for agreeing with me,” Derek replied with a wry grin on his face, rolling his eyes before getting up to fetch some of the meat they’d marinated from the fridge. As good as the meat had been with just regular cooking spices, in his mind, very few things beat a good Korean barbecue.
***
Several hours later, at night, Derek lay in his bed, staring at the status screen hovering above him.
Name: Derek Ambrosius Thoma
Class: Chimera
Species: High Human
Level: 15 -> 19
XP: 3,001/4,000
Health Status: Healthy
Mana: 1,750/1,750
Fortitude 90
Perception 60 -> 65
Strength 60
Agility 80
Magic Power 155 -> 175
Magic Regeneration 160 -> 175
Free Points: 0 Stat, 0 Skill
Central Skills
Aspect Hunter 1 -> 2
Aspect Integration 1 -> 4
Skills
Lightspeed Learning 9
Skill Fusion 7
Knowledge Conversion 1
Branching Capabilities 3
Anima Bolt 1 -> 3
Lifesurge 1
General Skills
Bloodline of the Hellborne Survivor
Stellar Mental Maths 7 -> 12
Spellcasting 9 (131 spells known)
Variable Weapon Empowerment 6
Phantom Armor 3
Knightly Discipline 1
Starship Upkeep 1 -> 3
Scholar of War 1 -> 7
Alcubierre Bubble 1 -> 11
Inspect 1
Acrobatic Adapatability 1 -> 2
Aspect
Aspect Skills
Hydra
Regeneration, Redundant Organs
Poltergeist
Ephemeral Form, Spectral Flight
Least Demon Lord
Grand Hellflame, Moment of Immortality
Lord of Time and Space
True Spatial Warp, Cosmos Soul, True Spatial Affinity, And I Shall Not Be Moved
Caladrius
Healing Light, Inner Light
Fata Morgana
Hologram, Perception Block
Cosmic Leviathan
Charging to Infinity, Cosmic Gaze, Stellar Travel, Omnidimensional Maneuvering
Void Dragon
Wings of the Void, Scales of the Void, Star’s Heart, Infinite Mind
Magebreaker Specter
Internal Grimoire, Spellbreaker
Yep. The [System] had stiffed him on the XP front. If he’d had a [Class] related to space, he would have gotten some for that, but as it stood, all he’d gotten were [Skill] Levels.
Heh, “all.” In the long run, XP was cheap. [Skill] Levels, feats, and the [Classes] they unlocked were the only things that counted. Oh, and threshold bonuses, of which he’d gotten two, so he pulled up the relevant [Skills], quite glad he’d set the [System] to summarize the description and then clearly list the improvements.
Stellar Mental Maths (legendary, Level 12)
This Skill allows the holder to do much of the maths required to steer a starship and control its weapons in their head.
The maximum size of the ship for which such calculations can be done has been increased to that of a medium-sized cruiser; doing so for a smaller vessel will boost speed and efficiency.
Furthermore, the results of mental calculations can now be placed directly into the appropriate computers on any vessel the holder controls.
Firstly, while he had absolutely no intention of ditching the Dragonfly for something bigger, having the option was cool. And, perhaps more importantly, being able to directly jam the result of his information into the computers without needing the intermediary of the controls might actually have let him pull off that trick earlier without outside help.
Hell, with the other [Skill] that had hit a threshold in play, repeated FTL ambushes would have been actually, properly, viable.
Alcubierre Bubble (legendary, Level 11)
This Skill allows the holder to take their starship to FTL speeds for interstellar travel.
Its maximum speed and acceleration have been increased, its jumps will be more accurate.
Cost: 250 mana to activate (reduced from 300), 500 mana per hour to sustain
Derek grinned.
Jup. This would be awesome.
The ship might be in shambles, with enough hull breaches and debris in the port side to render it inaccessible for any purpose other than repair, one of their fusion reactors was down until it was fixed, which would require so many replacement parts that it’d basically be an entirely new one … but all that was fixable, they were all alive, and the others were all raring to go.
Give it, oh, a couple of weeks for repairs, then they’d be going further out. Where no humans had ever gone before. Where no one had gone, with any luck, and make grand discoveries …
Also, to find new hornets’ nests to poke with sticks, but in many ways, wasn’t that just a way to find some excitement?