Chapter 64: Beastie |
For a long moment, Derek found himself convinced that the creature he was seeing on the screen was a glitch, a fabrication of a sensor network stressed too far by all the shit they’d put it through, their nigh-endless series of microjumps having fried something, deep, deep down.
Not that sensors had been that bad since the days when sticking your head out the window and looking with your eyes was a better way of finding things than technology, but it should have been a distinct possibility …
Yet it should have been obvious from the very start that it couldn’t possibly have been any further from “sensor glitch.”
Because Derek’s very own version of [Inspect], [Eye of the Predator], worked through sensors, and what do you know, the creature actually triggered the [Skill]. Only two things could do that: sapients empowered by the [System], and monsters. Three guesses what kind this thing was, and the first two don’t count.
Unfortunately, beyond confirming that the thing existed outside the computer’s imagination, the effect turned out to be almost entirely useless. And considering just how powerful his ability was, anything that could block his sight on what seemed to be Level disparity alone, it had to be powerful. Level 100 at least. And it was an eldritch creature to boot … for all that neither magic nor the [System] played even remotely straight with the laws of physics, their fuckery tended to be consistent.
The only thing about the eldritch that was consistent was how inconsistent it was, and that if there was a specific weirdness you really didn’t want to see, that was typically what you ran into.
By the time Derek’s mind finally caught up with what he was seeing, Atticus had already thrown the ship to the side, thrusters spinning the bow to aim away from the creature before the engines kicked in at flank acceleration, slamming Derek back in his seat, now regretting the fact that he’d partially risen in shock as his spine smashed into the back of his seat.
“You can use [Inspect] through the sensors, what the hell is it?” Ye-in snapped, already dialing it in with their weapons.
“Eldritch monster, high Level! Not a boss!” Derek shot back, and the hum of lasers and particle beams firing began to permeate the ship as the Dragonfly’s secondaries opened up.
So … as long as the creature wasn’t outright immune to energy weapons, it should be handleable. Guess what? That’s exactly what this thing seemed to be, rays of coherent light and lances of charged particles flashing straight through the creature of living static, harmlessly scattering off into the distance.
“Shit,” Derek muttered, eyes fixed on the sensor feed. The powers of the creature should have been either known or at least [Inspect]able, if they’d chosen to pick this fight. But they hadn’t. Leaving them with the option of either figuring out the trick before that creature tore the ship apart … or just plain legging it.
Clearly, that thing was a regular monster that had likely been summoned by whoever had been on the planet that had vanished, and somehow been left behind, or something.
What it decidedly wasn’t was an immediate problem. Put it in the report, and someone would show up and deal with it if it turned out to be important. Or they could come back and emerge at a greater distance to give them more time to hammer that thing until it died.
Derek’s mana was still recovering from their previous escapade, so he couldn’t have maintained the [Alcubierre Bubble] for very long even if he’d wanted to, but even ten light seconds of distance would have been more than enough. He’d taken them thirty.
“If we’re looking at something eldritch, that might explain why we could only see the flash from the vanishing planet once. Isn’t that stuff always weird like tha- …”
Derek’s attempt at a rational explanation was cut off by a string of curses from Atticus, a rapid-fire stream of profanity that was either slurred or in languaged he failed to recognize, let alone understand, as the Dragonfly banked once more.
Because the creature was right there. Same distance, same direction, same everything in relation to their ship, as though they’d never tried to get away.
Once more, the hum of energy weapons firing filled the ship, the effort fruitless, but there wasn’t a reason to stop trying. As weird as the eldritch was, there was every chance they might accidentally hit some gap in the creature’s armor … they probably wouldn’t.
“I don’t think warping away’s going to work,” Atticus cursed.
“We can’t increase the distance between us,” Mimi added after a long moment. “If it gets closer, it stays that close.”
Derek frowned at the sensor plot. He couldn’t see what she had, but … it tracked. It made sense, and he hated it.
An inescapable hunter immune to the primary and oftentimes only weapon type ships were equipped with could have easily wrecked the ship that had vanished in this system.
“Atticus, do you think you can line up the railgun?”
“Not without it getting a hell of a lot closer than we want it to … it’s hard enough to make sure it can’t accelerate in a straight line for too long.”
That was a complication. But one that could potentially be handled.
“I need to see if magic or physical objects can hurt it,” Derek said. “I’m heading to the airlock, do not shake me out while the exterior door is open.”
Granted, unless the creature was after him rather than the ship, that would give him a chance to run, but he didn’t want to run.
… Well, not when he’d be leaving his friends behind, that was. He was quite willing to leg it when he hadn’t chosen the fight in the first place.
The fact that this creature wasn’t letting him was … surprisingly terrifying.
Suddenly, the ship banked again, and this time Derek felt himself being pressed up against the ceiling one moment, kissing the floor the next, before finally winding up crawling along the starboard wall for a long moment until the artificial gravity reasserted itself, leaving him lying back on the floor, ship still swaying around him.
He took a moment to make sure it wasn’t going to get bad again, then stood up. The effect of the maneuvers was still making it through, but it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it had been. More like a small oceangoing vessel in moderately severe weather, rather than the “hamsterball in a tornado” he’d just been subjected to.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Sorry ‘bout that,” Atticus voice suddenly rang out over the PA system. “New [Skill] is being a bitch.”
Maneuvering enhancement whose inertial dampening required manual adjusting would be Derek’s guess.
Also, he wasn’t entirely sure whether he was staggering onwards because the deck was failing to stay still, or because he’d given himself a concussion. Though when triggering [Lifesurge] failed to fix it, he knew the answer.
He nearly stumbled past the airlock, barely catching the edge of the entrance to pull himself back, had it open, and then slammed his fist down on the intercom the moment he was in.
“Hold the ship straight, opening the exterior door.”
This time, Derek didn’t even bother having the air pumped out, he grabbed a lash on the wall and wrapped it around his wrist to anchor himself for when the doors opened and atmosphere vented, the emergency opening procedure simply seeing the exterior doors fly open and air gush out, pulling him along with it, temporarily seeing him pulled sideways so hard that he was floating paralell to the ground until the drag stopped.
His feet slammed back into the ground, and he staggered, forced to take a couple of seconds to dig the strap out of his wrist before leaning out into the void and staring at the creature coming up from behind.
It was … it was seriously far away. Barely a spec in the distance, well beyond what he should have been able to see with his Perception alone, only the fact that he had Aspects for this allowed him to spot the distant speck.
There were two things that might do the trick and put that monster in the ground.
Option one was magic, but he wasn’t strong enough to be able to hurt that thing. Or, at the very least, it was very unlikely.
Option two … hitting it with a railgun round might work, especially if it was one of the enchanted ones, but testing that would allow the damn thing to get way, way, way too freaking close.
As such, he had to conduct a little test, drawing upon the contents of one of his spatial rings, enchanted pieces left over from some of the maintenance he’d done, and, well, chucked them at the monster, telekinetically adjusting their trajectory so that it would hit the monster, assuming it didn’t move. Normally, he’d have used spatial magic to reduce the distance, but there was far too high a risk that that would wind up drawing the monster closer, and then they’d be screwed.
Derek pulled himself back into the airlock, then finally withdrew one of the bone conduction headsets and slipped it on.
“Keep us straight until the debris hits it!” he “yelled,” the feeling of shouting in an airless void incredibly disconcerting. But after a brief pause, he managed to ignore it long enough to finish the order. “If it does damage, hit it with the railgun!”
“Can you hold on if I out-accelerate the dampeners again?” Atticus’ voice came back, uncomfortably vibrating Derek’s skull as the infernal headset did its work.
“YES!” Derek shouted, only to be slammed back against the wall of the airlock before he was even finished, barely managing to hit the button to close the outer doors in time.
Stupid thought, but we need to move that panel to the rear wall so it’s reachable during accel, Derek realized as air began streaming back in, now that the airlock was sealed once more.
He kicked the panel then, hitting the override for the inner door, forcing it open before the pressure had fully equalized.
The sudden influx of air made his ears pop and sent him sliding back towards the exterior door before he finally scrambled to his feet. Drawing a mana potion from storage, Derek wound up spilling a third due to the acceleration, another third wound up splashed across his face, but he was able to swallow enough to recover some mana.
And then he began to drag himself towards the bridge using the dregs of his mana, grasping not actual handholds but the underlying spacetime via [Aspect Integration].
Yeah, we need handles or something in here, if Atticus is going to keep flying, especially if whatever that [Skill] is keeps leveling.
“GOTCHA!” Atticus yelled just as Derek dragged himself into his seat and buckled in. “Ready?”
“Ready,” Ye-in shot back, clearly referring to something they’d come up with while he’d been away.
And suddenly, the ship’s trajectory nearly reversed, perhaps fifteen degrees from their previous course, Atticus’ [Instant Redirection] at work.
The monster shot past, only to seem to slam into an invisible wall and slide along the inside of what … well, in all likelihood was an immaterial sphere centered on the ship that represented the maximum distance it could get from its prey. So as it found itself in front of the Dragonfly, it slid right across the muzzle of the ship’s primary weapons system. Just as (hopefully) planned.
For a long moment, nothing seemed to happen, the railgun round having flown straight through the monster without doing appreciable, or at least visible damage, Derek holding his breath despite himself, the distant “clunk” of the gun getting reloaded reaching ears that had been considerably less capable the last time the weapon had been fired …
And then the creature came apart in a burst of static, black and white spots crawling across the screen, leaving behind numerous dead pixels, though the damage seemed to be at least confined to the main screen.
They all stared at it until Ye-in turned her seat to face Derek.
“You saw that thing directly, right? It was real out there?”
Derek nodded. “I think it was holding onto the screen, I think. But did you get a kill notification? It might still be … oh, never mind.”
Abnormal Hunter (Level 110) has died to Environmental Hazard [Railgun Round to the Face]
Well … shit. That was unfortunate. But not entirely unexpected, sadly. Killing monsters well above yourself in Level using overpowered weapons you had neither built nor invented yourself, heavily reinforced by the [Skills] of those who were not present, with the majority of the power coming from an “unearned source” … then the monster’s death would count as having come from an environmental hazard, irrespective of just how stupid that title was in a given situation.
Huh. Derek thought. Wonder what all those early Raid Bosses the US nuked after summoning them just to get a good look had as their “cause of death.”
Died to “American stubbornness?” “Human recklessness?” “Forces no one should be messing with?”
But whoever wrote the new message is having way too much fun …
Derek sighed and slumped in his seat. At least they’d survived that relatively inta- …
Congratulations, Stellar Captain, for defeating a space monster!
For defeating your natural enemy using your starship, you have earned 2,000 XP.
Huh.
It was much less than he’d have gotten for killing it normally, a monster at that Level should have netted him at least 2,500 base, boosted to, if not past 10,000, due to the 69 Level difference, but it was something.
A hissed “yes” followed by a small fist-pump from Mimi told him she’d also qualified for this kind of reward, though it was swiftly followed up with a much louder “I think I should build an autocannon. Just in case we run into more of those.”
Rapid-fire kinetic weapons had once been considered for point-defense, but then discounted in favor of rapidly cycling lasers, which was what the Dragonfly had.
“I should probably pick up enchanting, then. Just so I can put mana into the munitions,” Derek mused, loud enough for the others to hear.
“Actually … could you put in an elemental focus cannon?” Atticus asked, drawing a shocked intake of breath out of the engineer.
“Those are literal antiques!”
Also, they required direct access to the core to charge and didn’t hold said charge well, which made getting them ready to fire a pain, not to mention the path of access typically wound up a weak point in the armor on smaller ships.
But one of those should have been able to hurt that thing.
“Maybe you can build one on the same scale as the point defense guns, and mount them next to the airlocks so someone can just reach out from there? It’ll be awkward, but should be less of a pain … right?” Derek suggested.
“Hm …”
Glancing at Mimi’s reflection in her screen, he could see a faraway look in her eyes that she always got when thinking of new stuff to build.
What would and would not work was a question that was up to her to answer, and when she did, he’d serve as her lab assistant and implement it. But what they really needed was a proper plan, which was why it was good that he had one.
“I’m taking the ship outside the local star’s heliosphere, that should be more than far enough away so Mimi can get us kitted out, then I’d say we search for the missing ship outside the star’s zone of interference.”
It wasn’t like they didn’t have a very good idea of just what the hell had happened to the exploration vessel that had vanished here, but finding the debris felt like the right thing to do. Assuming there was debris in the first place … and what were the chances they’d randomly appeared barely more than a light second from the only monster in the star system? There was every chance there’d be more …