Chapter 29. Sacrifice.


    Watkins returned from his simulation and into a battle. It took his core a moment to sort out all the returns on his sensors. He could feel Lani there, helping to boost the sensor readings and categorize them faster than his core could accomplish on its own. There was a battle going on out there in space, but, at least for the moment, he wasn’t a part of it.


    “I’m detecting transmissions. I’ll try to decrypt them,” Lani said.


    “Good, let me know when you have something,” Watkins said as the story the sensors told began to become clear.


    There were three other ships involved in the fight, and for now, his main concern was the warning about the inbound missile. He could see the weapon and quickly realized that it wasn’t tracking his ship and would pass far to port. The missile seemed to have missed its target and was either damaged or didn’t have the means to reacquire and engage its intended victim.


    One ship was larger than the other two, and from its positioning, the larger ship was likely the ship that had been shadowing him earlier. It was bigger than he had originally estimated from the faint sensor returns, about double the size of his vessel. The other two, which were engaging the larger ship, were slightly smaller than his ship. There was some distance between the two smaller ships, and the one furthest away was burning its drives hard to close the gap.


    Another missile fired from the closest small ship, which Watkins now designated SV1. Its comrade was SV2, and the large ship was LV1. It was a simple system, SV for small vessel and LV for large, but it would help him keep track of the players in this ongoing fight. Other than the larger ship, which probably knew Watkins was out here, he figured he was out of sensor range of the two smaller vessels.


    His sensors could more easily pick them up due to their weapons fire and the drives being pushed hard. One of the two engines on SV1 failed, and a small cloud of debris drifted from the ship. A point defense laser fired back at LV1, but at this range, Watkins couldn’t tell if it had any effect on the larger vessel.


    “I don’t think this is our fight, I’m going to try to skirt around the battle as quietly as possible,” Watkins suggested. He was practically drooling over the salvage those three ships represented, but he was in no condition for a slugging match with another ship. Watkins'' ship was still damaged and his weapons were weak. Sure, fighting a drifting void creature was one thing, but these could hit back much more effectively than a monster spitting acidic goop at him.


    “Missile launch from SV2, it’s not targeting us,” Lani said. Watkins watched the missile track toward LV1, even as the larger ship fired again, it’s beam weapons burning into the hull of SV1 and silencing its main drives. SV1 continued to poke back at the larger vessel, but Watkins doubted the single point defense weapon was all that effective.


    “Another launch from SV2. Both missiles are tracking on LV1. We have aspect change on SV2. It’s flipped and is trying to reverse course,” Lani said. She was right, SV2 was trying to flee, but it would take some time for its engines to halt their momentum and get them moving away from the fight.


    “I’m adjusting course,” Watkins said. He didn’t want his drive bloom to give him away, so he relied on the smaller maneuver thrusters to alter his course. Hopefully, being focussed on the fight it was engaged would mean that LV1 would lose track of Watkins rather quickly.


    “New burst of comms traffic from SV1, I can now partially translate for us,” Lani said, playing the comm recording for them both to hear.


    “Rattler, don’t abandon us…drives down…boarding soon…”


    A reply from SV2 was heard next.


    “Scourge, we have to return to the station it could be under attack as well,” the captain of SV2 told its stricken comrade.


    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    “He’s running,” Lani said as the reply from SV2 was repeated a second time.


    “It sure looks like it, where is the station he mentioned? Do you think they rebuilt your ruined one?” Watkins asked.


    “Anything is possible, we’ll know more when we make our way into the system,” Lani said.


    They watched as the missiles fired by SV2 arrived. The distance was enough that Watkins couldn’t discern exactly what the LV1 was doing, but it had enacted some kind of point defense, not laser based, that snuffed out the first missile. Whatever their defenses were, they proved insufficient to handle the second missile which slammed into the bow of LV1.


    A small burst of flames was seen as the escaping atmosphere vented and a cloud of debris showed them that the missile had at least been somewhat effective. Despite the solid hit, the larger vessel wasn’t deterred and continued to close in on SV1. With judicious use of its maneuver thrusters, SV1 managed to avoid the larger ship for a time, but it wasn’t long before it pulled alongside. Watkins couldn’t see exactly how the larger ship grappled its prey, and he wasn’t willing to move closer to get a better look.


    “Picking up a transmission from the big guy, here it is,” Lani said, pushing over to Watkins the simple message that LV1 sent to SV1.


    “Dinner is served.”


    “Well, that’s not ominous or anything,” Watkins said.


    “It wasn’t enough of a transmission for me to accurately predict what species that is aboard LV1. My database on the various groups out there is still patchy, but I can identify the SV1 and SV2 species with 94.5% accuracy. I believe they’re kobolds, which I remember are the same species that originally destroyed the station my server used to be housed on,” Lani explained.


    She shared the information she had with Watkins. It was somewhat more detailed than what she had shared before. After all, he had the pattern to make these things as MOBS for his ship. They were small humanoids, and reptilian looking. Weaker than a human, they did have some natural weapons with their teeth and clawed hands.


    “I should probably think about adding them into the research mix. Seeing that smaller ship being boarded reminds me that our drones won’t cut it against an armed and armored sapient foe,” Watkins said.


    “That is accurate, I think you should work toward developing one of our MOBS into something better. The kobold is a good choice, though it will likely take up more of your command limit than a mutated bilge rat, even after some upgrades, would. Oh, wait, we’ve got more comms traffic from SV1. I’ll translate, it’s getting easier now that I’ve had more practice,” Lani said.


    “They’re boarding, and our automated defenses were damaged in the fight. We can’t hold them off. Rattler, we’ll do as much damage as we can, and try to slow them down. May the Great Dragon guide you!”


    The message was repeated twice more, and before SV2 could reply, Watkins detected a huge explosion on SV1.


    “They’ve popped their reactor. The kobolds must not have liked the fate that awaited them if they chose to go out that way,” Lani said as the data on the self-destructed ship was gathered.


    “It sounds like they knew they were beat but were brave enough to sacrifice themselves to weaken the enemy threat,” Watkins said. He could admire their determination, but wondered if there might have been some way to fight off the enemy before it came to such a dire choice.


    His limited sensors began to parse through the data, the large explosion making it difficult to discern the details. Of SV1, there was nothing left other than a cloud of tiny debris particles. There was no way for Watkins to efficiently harvest such tiny amounts of salvage, at least not yet.


    LV1 was a different story. The larger ship had been docked with SV1, and most of it suffered a similar fate. The rearmost section of the ship, about 6.13% of its overall mass, had sheared away in the explosion and was tumbling through space showing no signs of power, or life. The distance was extreme for his sensors, but a clearer picture would be seen once the closed in.


    “I’ve got nothing on the scope other than that big, beautiful chuck of salvage and the retreating SV2. Altering course to intercept the debris. We need that salvage, and I think it’s worth the risk,” Watkins decided.


    “I’ll help you calculate the optimal approach vector. SV2 is moving away from the scene, so we should be safely off their sensors,” Lani added. She was eager to help, but Watkins had already calculated and laid in their course before her server could even begin to contribute.


    “We’ll move in at a cautious pace, I think we’re clear, but you never know what else might be lurking out there,” Watkins said, his attention glued to the sensors as they moved toward the target.


    “I’m catching a fragment of a final message to SV1 from SV2, here’s what I got,” Lani said.


    “…well fought, Scourge. Your sacrifice has bought…predator into our…family…struggle…”


    “Not much there, but I have a feeling we’ll run into them again,” Watkins said. This little, supposedly abandoned, system seemed to have quite a bit more traffic than they had suspected. Whatever the reason for that, he intended for his ship to be ready if the kobolds, the void creatures, or this mysterious third faction, wanted to scuffle.