Book 1 - Lesson 5: "Do what you must, ask Forgiveness later."

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MAN! This one was a MESS. I think I screwed up and posted the unedited version the first one.

Its Edited now! It should be a lot better!

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Alpha felt like an idiot.

He dodged another tentacle from a breach in the hull and planted one of the nest seeds inside a pile of floating debris nearby.

Of course it could [Fold Skip]. He’d hit the thing in the Fold, to begin with. The bastard hadn’t just been firing pointlessly after he’d escaped into the vault; it had been carving a groove big enough to make the skip.

Its ‘laser‘ wasn’t a weapon; it was a bloody Fold engine! That made sense in retrospect; the fact it could also vaporize military-grade alloys was just a bonus. An evolutionary 2-for-1, in other words.

Unfortunately, his lack of knowledge about space-dwelling cephalopods meant he had to set his trap while facing frequent attacks from surprise tentacles. Alpha had seen the videos! Those were the worst kind! (Biologicals were disgusting).

The creature had latched itself onto the hull and was tracking Alpha through unknown means. Any breach would find itself clogged with dozens of wriggling tentacles reaching out to grasp at him. Most were met with fire from the TAWP’s point defense turrets, but that was only a temporary solution. He didn’t get the chance to fully stock up before his forced escape from the vault. If the next part of his plan worked, the glowy boy wouldn’t be a problem for much longer, though. After that, he could focus on gathering what he could and investigating the other problem he’d recently discovered.

That was a problem for future Alpha; it was time to plant some seeds! Of destruction!

Alpha was a farmer, and his crop was death!

Another nest seed was nestled deep in a pile of floating debris. That made three dozen in the last hour. Alpha would have preferred more, but time was running out. With each passing moment, the creature scuttling across the hull fragment was healing and growing stronger. He’d get pinned in some corner of the wreck if he waited much longer, with no easy way to escape. The trap was set; the rat was scurrying around, and now, all he needed was the ‘cheese.’

He crossed his fingers that Squidward was still hungry…

With a command, a drone slipped through a nearby opening, dodging a flailing tentacle by an inch. It stopped in front of Alpha, flaring its RCS thrusters to bleed off excess momentum. Alpha pulled out a small metal orb when the drone was still. A small flex of his manipulator caused the orb to crinkle slightly, forming small divots and cracks from which an immense amount of light and energy poured forth.

Kelvinite was a strange material. Mined from the heart of a dead star, it was originally considered a scientific curiosity with strong radiophobic properties. Until the discovery that it could be processed into a material capable of repelling most forms of energy, such as heat and electrical energy, unlike anything else before it.

Even visible light and radiation, like x-rays or radar, could be stored with almost a 99.999999999% efficiency. It was a super material whose value shot up 10,000% overnight. Ever since, kelvinite has found uses in nearly every industry in the Federation, from creating perfectly insulated habitation units to manufacturing DEA (directed energy armor) and stealth technology.

When you need to store a large amount of energy in a small package for a long time, kelvinite batteries are the go-to solution. Its greatest use was the development of so-called “mirror batteries.” Simple in concept, these devices trapped energy-carrying particles in a state of suspension that allowed for long-term storage. This made them perfect for powering medium-sized, autonomous items that needed to operate for long periods without maintenance or recharge, such as scouting units or satellites. Other storage methods, such as the fusion batteries that powered the scavenger drones, might provide greater adaptability or availability. When it came to sheer capacity and longevity? Kelvinite batteries were second to none.

These weapons-grade kelvinite ‘cores’ were used to power the TAWP’s weapon systems, recharging from Alpha’s own [Class-V Power Core], itself a top-of-the-line kelvinite battery/generator combo designed to power Battleships. His weapons could draw from his power core directly, but it was far more efficient to store ‘charges’ within several smaller, dedicated batteries. It also made them perfect as the power source for medium-scale DEWs (directed energy weapons), like those found on small fighters or transport vehicles.

He needed something to draw away the creature’s attention for a moment. Giving up one of these batteries now would be painful since it would be awhile before he could get a new one, but it was worth it. With any luck, its hunger would outweigh its anger. If it didn’t, Alpha would just have to pull the trigger and hope things turned out right.

The surface of the drone rippled as an indent formed in its chassis. It perfectly nestled the cracked kelvinite battery, which turned into a ball of thick, pulsing energy before a cover slid overtop. It wouldn’t last long, even if the battery didn’t go critical in the short term; the energy it released was already beginning to turn the drone’s outer surface orange. Its orders received, the drone retreated. Alpha switched to the drone’s camera and watched from his hiding spot.

The drone made a beeline through the debris, emerging into open space close to the creature. It must have moved right on top of him during his brief pause. The drone moved into position, ignored as the creature homed in on its more annoying prey. That was, until the cover keeping the cracked battery was pulled back. The instant it did, the creature’s attention snapped to the drone, its entire massive frame shifting as if to stare at the blazing beacon of energy. At least, he assumed it did, as Alpha had yet to find anything he could call an “eye” on the creature.

Squidward gave a spatial roar distinctly different from the rage-filled one of before. Its tentacles extracted themselves from the nearby debris and rushed to grab the glowing drone. Alpha cheered in victory, taking manual control of the drone from the AI, and gave the seeds their commands.

The creature attacked the battery drone with a vigor it hadn’t shown before, grasping and striking at it with the desperation of a starving man. He had to be quick and not give it time to recover more than it already had.

With his current arsenal and the creature’s ability to [Fold Skip], there was no way he could fight the thing off at its peak. Not without making sacrifices he wasn’t comfortable making.

Still, if this plan worked, he wouldn’t have to worry about it much longer. All he needed was a few more moments.

Alpha panicked for a moment when a lucky auroric beam passed dangerously close to the drone, causing it to spin out of control. The drone was becoming hard to control and less responsive as the cracked battery continually damaged it. With each passing moment, the tentacle’s swings came closer and closer as the drone became less able to dodge. Until the inevitable happened; the creature’s longest remaining primary tentacle wrapped itself around the drone, dragging it into its eldritch maw.

Alpha’s frustration turned into triumph as the seeds gave the “All Ready” single the next moment. Just in time, too. What Alpha was about to do would be considered a war crime on some planets, or at the very least, gross animal abuse. This might cross a line even for him, but when the chips were down, you did what you had to do.

“Activate [Bot-flies]. Target has been marketed by beacon signal AA-33-@11.”

The hull debris rumbled to life, rocking, as several dozen nests worth of [Bot-fly] drones rumbled to life at once.

[Bot-fly] drones were Alpha’s take on the [Mosquito] drones, small, pineapple-sized drones used to pester and control local wildlife, keeping them away from protected areas. [Mosquitos] were mostly considered harmless, delivering a mild shock via a built-in laser or a capsaicin spray mist for multiple targets. [Mosquitos] were one of the more common drones in the Federation. They were used everywhere, from home gardens to keep out pests (such as nosy neighbors) to private security.

Forward military bases on new worlds even used swarms of thousands to drive back hostile wildlife, upset at their new guests. Some planets even used them for crowd control when someone got uppity about some new local law (though this was frowned on by polite society).

The [Bot-fly] drone? They were much less… ‘not dangerous.’ Originally, Alpha had taken the [Mosquito] model and modified it as an anti-ship weapon. Swarms of drones would be released from carriers, overwhelming the target’s point defenses with their huge numbers and small, nimble size. Those that made it through would attach to the target’s hulls via clamps and magnetic locks. That’s where things took a turn. Instead of harmlessly zapping the target ship with a taser, the [Bot-fly] would release a secondary drone nicknamed a “wiggler.” These wigglers would burrow into the enemy ship’s armor, using the armored [Bot-flies] as cover, then seek and destroy critical ship systems. Systems such as power lines, controls, and even life support.

When they were first released, [Bot-fly] drones had been devastatingly effective, and within a year, pirate activity in the testing systems had dropped 95%. With time and exposure, pirate gangs had developed only a few effective counters to the swarms. Things like hidden, redundant systems and false decoys could trick the wigglers, but [Bot-flies] remained an effective weapon in the Federation military, especially against smaller fighters.

Then someone got the smart idea to try using them against some of the more invasive and dangerous megafauna. The results had been… horrific. The wiggler’s AI couldn’t properly identify ‘critical’ aspects of a large, terrestrial creature, so they would continuously burrow through the creature’s flesh at random until they hit something important. If not enough drones were used at once, this could take a long time.

After the incident, the Federation Senate passed a law banning the use of [Bot-flies] against biological life outside emergency circumstances. And even then, authorization had to go through several layers of approval, including deep bio-scans of the creature to identify critical areas such as heart and brain equivalents. In the 100 years since their creation, such a situation has only happened thrice. Each one against dangerous, abnormal creatures who threatened untold costs in damage and life.

Unfortunately, Alpha didn’t have the time or equipment to do those himself.

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Two days later

Alpha pulled another piece of the Squid creature off the hull fragment, or at least what remained. Once he’d deployed the [Bot-fly] drones, they had quickly overwhelmed the creature, the numerous flagella unable to capture or destroy all the massive swarm of pineapple-sized drones. Lucky for Alpha and maybe the creature as well, it only took roughly three minutes for the drones to hit something critical.

Not so lucky; its dying throngs had generated a spatial quake strong enough that Alpha feared it would cause another Fold Break. Local space had to be quite fragile at that point, after all. The quake had torn through most of the remaining debris, shredding it into pieces worth little more than scrap. Even the inner vault hadn’t come away unscathed. The damage was severe enough that he’d lost all means of connecting to its internal systems. It would be near impossible to open without cutting into the bloody thing. Not that he had a way of doing that at the moment.

Worse, whatever method the creature had used to store its vast energy supply had detonated shortly after its death. The explosion destroyed most of the [Bot-flies] and threw whatever had survived the spatial quake even further away at even greater speeds.

Now he was trapped in the twisted remains of the hull fragment containing his vault, most of the Anatidae floating off into space in the opposite direction. As well as most of the usable parts he needed…

In other words, he was royally screwed.

In any other situation, he might as well shut down the TAWP frame, tuck his core into some hidey-hole, and go into hibernation. Maybe the Federation would pick up his distress beacon sometime in the next Millenia.

With that in mind, it was a good thing Alpha had another option. With a mental command, Alpha’s perception flipped to the drone he’d set to monitor the discovery he’d made during the fight. The massive star system that had most definitely not been there before Squidward had shown up. How does an entire star system just appear from thin air (vacuum?)? MAGIC!

At least, that’s what Alpha was going with at the moment because he had not the slightest idea. One moment he’d been floating in the void, with nothing but the interstellar medium for light-years around. Then the creature had shown up and apparently brought an entire star system with it.

He figured the Fold Break might have flung them through space, and they landed near a star by chance. But the chances of that were like jumping out of a plane and into the ocean, then hitting a particular lone shrimp while traveling at terminal velocity…

Ok, so Alpha wasn’t the best at metaphors, but the point still stood! The chance of that happening wasn’t even worth calculating.

But then the only other option was that the creature had brought the star system to HIM. But that was even more insane; who ever heard of an entire star system in the Fold? The sheer size of the groove needed for something like that would have been on the scale seen only in neutron stars. A system stuck in such a groove should have been torn apart and reduced to cosmic dust simply from the force of the space-time compression.

Regardless of how it happened, Alpha now had another option. While the TAWP frame wasn’t designed for space operations, he could print various sensors using its nanoskin. Coupled with the long-range cameras on his drone, he could learn enough of what he needed.

Not that the data made any accursed sense to him.

From what he’d gathered, the system comprised a dozen celestial bodies orbiting a bright, pale-gold, main sequence star, roughly 20% larger than the star once known as Sirius A.

That was the most normal thing he could find. Everything else was… off, to the point he questioned if his equipment was malfunctioning.

It had taken nearly two days of work, but he’d managed to jury-rig some of the surviving drones into a rudimentary propulsion system. It wasn’t anywhere close to being strong enough to move the several miles long fragment of dreadnaught hull any significant distance, but it didn’t need to. The hull fragment was already drifting towards the system’s outer edge; all he needed to do was nudge the fragment juuuust enough in the direction he wanted it.

If this worked how he wanted, his resource problem would be a thing of the past.

And if it didn’t? Well, he figured that would still be true…