Chapter 35 In space with a junkyard ship

“Lola, can you figure out, if we detached something from the ship during FTL, would it slow down and return to real space, and would it survive the transition?”

“Is this for your secret plan that you still haven’t shared?”

“Perhaps,” I said while still assembling the gravity generator.

“Then no, I won’t search up anything related to that.”

I stopped working and looked upwards toward her core. It was past a few floors, but I believe she got the message, and after about a minute of staring, she spoke again.

“Fine, I’ll try to figure it out, but this web is annoying. I already have two warnings not to use programs or AIs to search for information. It's so annoying having to pretend to be like a person who can only look at one thing at a time.”

“Oh wait, I didn’t know about that. Why do you have to do that? Isn't there some kind of license we can buy that would allow us to search through the web more efficiently?”

“No, it’s because they don't want anyone to go through the web and gain free knowledge. They want me to buy the information packages that are for sale, but they can be quite pricey.”

“Is that why you're having such trouble exactly figuring out what space monsters are?”

“Yes. We have descriptions and stuff they drop, but most information about them is suppressed.”

“Why would they suppress that information?”

“Well, that’s because for most of the galaxy and the universe, the space monsters are like the boogeyman. There are thousands, perhaps millions, of stories out there of space monsters consuming entire civilizations, and from what I can tell, they’re not wrong.”

“If it's so hard to find information about it, perhaps it's best to buy one of those information packages they're selling?”

Immediately, I got the feeling of dissatisfaction through our bond.

“I didn’t mean that you can’t or are unable to find the information on your own. It's just... sometimes it’s better to delegate. Don’t you agree?”

“Acknowledged.”

“Oh, don’t be like that. How much is the information packet?”

There was silence for a while before I hesitantly heard her voice.

“So... remember a while ago when I told you that information is suppressed?”

“You mean what you said just a few minutes ago?” she continued to speak like she hadn’t heard me.

“Well, the station doesn’t offer any of that knowledge, but the Adventurers Association does.”

“Oh, that’s good. How much will that cost us?”

“They even have video. I’m downloading it now.”

“It was free, wasn’t it?”

Once again, she was quiet, but I could sense embarrassment.

“So what was it? Was there some sort of adventurer web you didn’t know about?”

“To be fair, I thought that the Adventurers Association only used quantum computers, and their basic website is very badly designed. You really need to go through it to find stuff. You should recommend them a better UI design.”

“This is kind of funny. We all make mistakes. So, what have you learned?”

Instead of speaking, Lola started to play a video on one of the screens I had used for diagnostics.

The video didn’t have any voices, and the only sound you could hear seemed to be a low hum of engines. In the video, you could see that there were at least two other ships near this one, all of them obviously targeting something that was, right now, just a small speck.

Then the camera zoomed in, and for the first time I got a proper view of a space monster. The scale of it was hard to understand, as there wasn’t any reference points, but it seemed like whoever edited this video understood that fact as well, because dimensions of the creature showed up on screen.

It was about 150 metres long, with its body being about 25 metres across, but it had sort of like flippers that extended another 20 metres from the body. It also had an armoured exoskeleton that had spikes. Why would it have developed that?

It was seemingly swimming in space. Then there were brief flashes, and the monster seemed to let out some sort of sound, but nothing was heard because it was in space. Once again, it was weird that it even had such an instinct.

The flashes seemed to be railgun shots hitting it. They seemingly did little damage, but it was hard to tell.

As it got closer, the image got even clearer, and if I had to describe this type of space monster, I would say it was a cross between a fish and a dinosaur.

It continued to take fire, some of its armour cracking, but then all of a sudden it sorta like punched up a bit, like it was flexing. It unflexed so fast on the video it looked like a blur, but one of its front spikes flew off, and as the video quickly zoomed out, one of the now four ships that was visible was hit by that spike.

It easily penetrated the ship, doing heavy damage, and a moment later it seemed like the reactor went critical as the ship exploded, with chunks of the ship flying everywhere.

The other ships continued to fire as we focused in on the space monster once again, but now it was a lot closer, so we could still see other ships, and they were obviously trying to turn around and escape.

I do not know exactly how close the space monster got, but it was pretty close when it opened its mouth and spewed out some sort of acid onto one of the ships. It started to melt incredibly fast, but that ship itself tried to ram the space monster.

Instead of accomplishing anything—and it seemed like they knew that it wasn’t going to work—as from the ship, a lot of escape pods were launched.

The space monster itself was already focused on another ship as they were still firing at it, and with how fast it could move, the ship that was trying to ram it missed it entirely. It didn't take long for it to explode as well.

Turns out the first two ships actually had the nice ending. Because when it got close to the third one, it bit a large chunk out of it. The second bite finished that ship off, and it moved on to the next one.

The space monster was obviously quite damaged by this point, but it managed to destroy another ship before it went still.

“Please tell me that those ships had something like my old armour instead of the one we currently have?”

“No, they have the same armour as we have.”

“Well shit. And I’m guessing that isn't the only type of space monster out there?”

“In fact, it’s one of the smallest. This video was meant as a warning for anyone who wanted to take a quest to hunt a space monster. It very clearly states that this was one of the weakest space monsters out there.”

“Is there any more information about the ships and their weaponry?”

“Unfortunately, no. But I can go through the footage and try to match the known weapons that are sold.”

“Yeah, do that, but as a low priority. We have more important things to do right now.”

“Acknowledged.”

Those space monsters truly looked dangerous. And the fact that it was a small and weak one was just crazy. Now I didn’t know how I felt about taking any of those quests, so I guess the video did its job. But I guess no one would want me there to join one of those raids anyway because of my innate ability.

“Lola, how long until the shipment to test out my ability arrives?”

“It should be another few hours.”

I should have enough time to finish assembling the gravity generator, even if I hated not knowing how it exactly worked. But putting it together was like putting together a Lego—of course, it was a lot tougher and more technical, but I’ve assembled more complex devices than this one.

With a snap, the final lid closed. The readings all seemed green, but unfortunately, I couldn’t test the gravity generator inside the station, as it had its own gravity fields, which would mess with the activation of this one, if not straight-out damage it.

“Bob, help me get this to the ramp.”

Bob moved to immediately help me transport it to the ship ramp, where I hooked it up to the crane and lifted it up next to the engines. The engine section of the ship was still exposed, as there was no way of moving this into place from inside the ship.

Currently, I just left it between the two engines, as mounting it would require for us to have the back end of the ship.

First, we lifted the hull part. Now the drones would fix it in place and then add the sections of the radiation shielding, connecting it with the rest of the ship.

After that, we would mount the last remaining armour plates, and then the ship was actually finished. All of it would only take around five hours, and that's mostly because of the radiation shielding, as that was some intricate work.

Bob, in the meanwhile, had also delivered the latest shipment we received. There was some more metal and a few other things, as Lola was buying the things we would need for our trip.

There was also a crate that had water in it. I picked it up and took it to the second floor, next to the large algae water tank.

Inside the crate were what looked to be snail-like creatures. They would be perfect for helping to keep the algae tank clean, and they should be able to survive close to 40 G acceleration—which this ship should no longer be capable of—so they shouldn’t die.

There were 20 of them, overkill for the size of the algae tank, but unfortunately, half of them will not survive.

They were about the size of my hand, and it was a bit sad to see them packed in so tightly. It was also sad what I was about to do to half of them. Perhaps only one will have to die, but I guess we will see.

I picked the first one, and that one went into the tank. But the next one—I used my cybernetic hand’s electric discharge to kill it instantly. Why couldn't there be another way to test this? Unfortunately, it seemed to work, as I felt my ability activate.

It was just the briefest of pauses, and this time I could feel that there was a choice I could make—but that moment was so short, and the next moment the snail disappeared, seemingly leaving nothing behind.

For a moment, I was confused, but fortunately, my eyes were good enough to see the tiny bead of iron that replaced the snail.

Damn, that's so small. Apparently, there wasn’t even enough to turn into a coin.

Unfortunately, this meant that I needed to kill a few more to figure out what that choice was.

Before I killed another, I meditated on the feeling I felt. There was the sense of the creature—its life, all parts of it—and then there was a choice. Something was there.

With a heavy heart, I picked up another one and killed it instantly with an electric shock once again. This time, I focused a lot more on the choice, and when I knew the creature inside and out, I focused on its shell—the feeling of just that.

That too went by so fast, as it seemed my ability didn’t want to waste any time.

Now, when I opened my eyes, to my surprise, I still held the dead snail, but it didn’t have its shell.

Wait, what?