Dark Matter Ascension-Chapter 32B3 - : Dee’s time to shine!

Jace made his way up to the bridge: an isolated cube-shaped area near the center of the ship. “Why is it here? I thought they were always on the outside to look out?” he asked.

Dee was strapping herself into one of the seats, “Pff. That’s stupid. You put the squishy organics in the most protected place. We’ve got cameras to see.”

Priam was getting help from Greg getting strapped in, as the bunny-boy was having trouble navigating the eight-point seatbelt. Once the bunny boy was strapped in, Greg got to his seat.

Jace eyed the pilot seat: which was a bucket-style seat with lots of straps, facing dozens of monitors, and with a series of controls. “Ollie, I’m a master of ship piloting when I sit down to do it, right?”

“Yup!”

Jace sat at the pilot console and as soon as he had strapped in, he felt…right. As if he was perfectly at home with what he was about to do. Almost instinctively, he began throwing switches, tapping buttons, and taking direct control away from Quinn’s program.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Quinn demanded over the comms.

“Driving a spaceship!” Jace replied with ecstatic joy. Pulling up the cameras, he backed out of the docking bay: and a bunch of panels lit up with error messages that he shut off: instinctively knowing that it was just station security that wanted to yell at him for an uncleared departure. Spinning the vehicle around using its maneuvering thrusters, he began accelerating out of the planet’s gravity well.

Greg looked at Jace and his voice was filled with concern, “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Jace kept focused on the consoles, and Quinn’s voice filled the ship’s space. “This vessel doesn’t have any types of shields, and armaments are limited to anti-asteroid technology: mining drills and a handful of bombs for clearing out debris. The armored plating can take a massive amount of damage.”

Another alert popped up and Jace did not turn it off. “We’ve got company,” he said calmly. “Looks like four ships: smaller ones, possibly…Greg, what are they called, the little ones meant to intercept?”

“Fighters. Single-occupant, usually.”

“Right! We’ve got those coming,” Jace said as he saw the jagged design of the vehicles that were pursuing and catching up to the larger vessel. They looked like large ovals with a tail: and two, enormous cannons were mounted to the front. Jace’s mind raced as he thought of how to approach the situation. We have the lasers for when they get close enough: but those probably aren’t actually fighters since space combat isn’t really a thing thanks to The Cosmic Corridor. I’d bet those are meant for close-up extraction of minerals from asteroids pulled into the orbital ring. So they need to get close. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

“Ollie,” he whispered as he pushed the starship to accelerate, “How come I know so much about asteroid mining operations?”

“Edge of Possibility (Rank 3), and you are at the captain’s seat of a mining vessel. Knowledge of the operations of asteroid mining must come with the territory of the role.”

Dee pulled a lever and turned her seat around, “I’m pulling up the lasers! I have something I’ve been wanting to try.”

She began tapping buttons, and Jace saw the various notifications that showed the lasers at the aft of the vessel were being slaved to the control station she was sitting at. He heard her mutter the words, “Spinal Laser,” which didn’t make sense to Jace, because this ship didn’t have a Spinal Laser. Only the really big, planet-mining vessels had those.

He got his answer a moment later as she announced proudly, “Demolisher’s Devastation (Rank 38) [Broadside],” and slammed the button for the laser to fire.

Jace only saw the single laser fire: and yet four beams of green energy lanced out from the single mining laser. The beam was so bright that Jace’s monitors began to glitch out but came back a moment later to reveal all four ships with massive holes bored through their center. “I think you got them,” Jace said, “But did you have to kill them?”

“They were autonomous,” Dee replied as she cackled with glee and delight. “Not enough room for life support inside those small things.”

Jace continued accelerating the enormous vessel until they were at their maximum speed; then he let off the thrusters to let momentum take over and carry them along their course. “Quinn, you can put the program back in control if you want.” She did so, and Jace unbuckled from the vehicle, floating backward slightly thanks to the movement of the vessel around them compared to his fixed point in space.

“How long we going to be stuck in this metal tub?” Greg asked.

“Three weeks,” Quinn replied. “Best get comfortable. There are some cryopods, but if all of you went into those then it would be very risky. You could rotate out: one person stays out a week, the rest go into freeze.”

“Boring,” Dee said. She looked at Jace, “There’s artificial gravity in the crew quarters: just not in the rest of the ship. You brought games, right?”

“Yeah,” Jace replied as he floated down the spine of the ship.

The next three weeks passed by in a nice, if predictable and occasionally boring, routine. Dee never needed to sleep, so she would just be up all the time. Board games were played, films watched on a large cosmopanel that was present in the crew quarters, and Jace spent a lot of time messaging back and forth with Shhiv.

Quinn, however, was busy. The whole time, she was playing with the equivalent of Khrox’s stock market. She had a good handle on it, and had leveraged herself into several positions that would be extremely valuable once Deckard was eliminated and some of the Nebula Alliance’s assets were in unknown hands.

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It should be enough, she thought, to get Greg caught up with the rest of us. That was her goal, because Xera had charged her with doing so. She had no clue why Xera wanted the whole group of Signers to be the same level, but it was Quinn’s job to use her various market assets and all of the sellable goods that Jace had gathered up from Poltor Six to get them caught up.

As the second week passed and they entered the third week, her screen turned completely black, and Xera’s silhouette appeared. “We have a problem. Big one.”

“Hit me,” Quinn said as she stopped slouching in her chair and brushed away the bag of chips, scattering them onto the floor on accident before a small, cleaning robot swept them up and away.

“Deckard was more paranoid than I thought when it came to ‘Flicker’ coming after him. He fortified Teresii. It’s got planetary defenses put in place.”

“Shit,” Quinn replied. “I mean, we planned on crashing the ship into the planet, so that will do some damage-”

Xera interrupted, “No, it’s worse. It’s an autonomous drone network. Almost like a Dyson Swarm, but instead of being around a star, it’s around the world. Hundreds of thousands of fighter-sized vessels, all on standby. Word of the stolen ship got out, and Deckard is being very paranoid: half of that small fleet is heading to intercept.”

“I thought we removed the tracking function!”

“We did. Someone else is helping him. I don’t know who.” Xera sounded quite nettled, and she groaned out in disgust. “I hate it when things don’t go to plan.”

You and me both, Quinn thought in silent sympathy. But, she put on a confident tone to help buoy up her boss’s mood. “It’ll be fine. They’ve got Dee on board.”

Dee was lounging in the captain’s chair, lazily leaned back in her chitin, anxiously waiting for the chance that she had been waiting for. A chance to get revenge on the Nebula Alliance. Well, Deckard, in particular. A goal she had set for herself after being betrayed, captured, and sold for her precious goop.

Soon enough, she thought. I’ll get to crash a spaceship into his personal warehouses. And then I get to infiltrate his quarters and steal everything not nailed down. I only wish he would be alive to see his world crumble down around him. She giggled, which then turned into a cackle.

All of the screens around her turned red. Oh. That is not supposed to happen!

Quinn’s voice came over the comms, “Dee! Get everyone up! You’ve got incoming!”

“What’s coming?” she asked, feeling anxiety mixed with excitement bubble up in her being.

“Swarm of autonomous fighters.”

She immediately kicked off the chair and floated down the spine, going to the crew quarters, she yelled out, “Wake up! We got incoming! All hands to battle stations!”

Priam rolled out of his bunk, thudded softly on the ground, and looked up with bleary eyes, “What are battle stations?”

Dee grinned, her chitinous shell cracking into a grin. “You’re going to be watching me!” she turned around and propelled herself back through the spine to get to the weapon’s station, buckling in as she turned around. Jace flew in quickly after her and got into the captain’s seat, removing the autopilot controls.

Greg helped Priam strap in: despite the bunny boy’s protestations: and then buckled in. “Anything I can do to help?” Greg asked.

Dee pointed at the console behind him, “Use the lever, turn around, be extra eyes on the cameras.”

Greg did as he was told, and Jace spoke, “They’re on the monitors and closing fast. What type of weapons we looking at, Quinn?”

“Not good ones. They have a longer range than mining lasers. They’ll outrange you far before you can reach them.”

“What’s this hull plating like?” Dee asked. “How many hits can we take?”

“Quite a few,” Jace replied. “I’ll orient us so that the heaviest plating on the keel of the ship is pointing towards them. But we only have two mining lasers on that side of the hull.”

“Leave it to me!” Dee replied. “I’ve got a huge surprise for them!”

Greg interrupted, “How many can you take out with your broadside? Does it amplify range?”

“Oh my range for Skills is always amplified. But I don’t think I can use Demolisher’s Devastation through the ship weapons without my Artillerist’s Ingram. And I only get that granted Spinal Laser Skill a single time.”

“That’s correct,” Quinn stated. “Skills cannot work through ship vehicles unless they specifically state that. Your Artillerist’s Engram lets you use all of your offensive Skills through it, increasing the base range of the weapon based upon your <Artillerist> Class Expansion Skill Ranks. Plus, you have that once-per day part you mentioned.”

“Miku, calculate my maximum range,” Dee replied with her enthusiasm practically bubbling over.

Her Wayfinder made an affirmative noise in her head, and in the corner of her vision, a small number appeared that showed the distance between their ship and the maximum range of her Skill used through Spinal Laser and stacking her Artillerist’s Acumen Skill.

“Just a little closer,” Dee whispered as she felt her goop bubbling from excitement at being able to blow up a whole fleet of fighters. Sure, autonomous ones, but fighters nonetheless. Then: her moment. The threshold hit. “Demolisher’s Devastation (Rank 38) [Cone], Spinal Laser!” The energy drain she felt was precipitous, and it left her on the verge of unconsciousness, but through sheer will she forced herself to stay awake to watch the destruction unfold.

The screen facing the incoming swarm blurred a bit before snapping back to full clarity. An enormous cone of caustic, acidic energy exploded outward: completely obliterating the entire fleet of ships and melting them down to slag metal. Yes! Score for Dee, she thought as she lost consciousness.

Jace was struck dumb by what he just saw on the monitor. There was easily a few hundred miles of distance between their ship and the line of fighters approaching them, and Dee had just obliterated all of them with an attack that had the same area as the size of the moon orbiting Earth.

Everyone else seemed equally speechless, just staring at the field of slag metal that their ship pushed through. “Why can’t we use that on Troxanir?” Greg asked in disbelief. “Just use that Artillerist’s thing on a massive freaking ship weapon and blow him to nothingness?”

“I’ve calculated trying to use such weapons on him,” Xera replied over the comms. “The gravitic influence is too strong: anything except Dark Energy or Void will be utterly useless given the tremendous forces at play.”

“Damn,” Greg replied. “Still, that was amazing. Why not just nuke Deckard’s buildings from orbit with that?”

“Collateral damage,” Jace replied. “I’m not going to be involved in mass killing just to get an objective completed faster or more efficiently. No way. I’ve got enough blood on my hands.”

“We’re crashing a goddamn ship into his planet, Jace. Collateral damage is going to happen.”

“Actually,” Xera stated, “The atmosphere of Teresii is incredibly thick: the ship will mostly burn up.”

“And our escape pods?” Priam asked.

“Those have ablative heat shielding specifically for re-entry,” Jace replied as the knowledge came to him from Edge of Possibility. “The ship is designed for only operating out of atmosphere. Space only. No landing on planets. The plating is for impacts: not re-entry heat.”

Priam looked relieved at that, “Okay. Good.”

Jace looked over at Dee, the Plorp slouched over in her restraint harness. She has scary amounts of destructive potential, he thought. I hope she never becomes a problem: I bet if she had a ship she could destroy a whole planet given enough Stardust and a big enough weapon.