Chapter 52. True Hunger.

  “I think we’re going to be better off towing the halfling ship. We’ll cut it loose just before we’re ready to engage the station,” Watkins decided.

  “That’s good, it’ll take a while for me to program new training modules for the verminkin, so I don’t think we can leave them aboard the halfling ship on their own yet,” Lani said.

  “Good, we’ll get them aboard the Canon. I’m not sold on keeping the halfling ship and crewing it with verminkin. Before the next fight, we can lock them in the crew quarters if they’re giving us any trouble. You just keep working on those training modules, we’ll need them brought up to speed as soon as possible,” Watkins said. Skitterbach and another verminkin were still in the med pods, and a third pod had just completed construction, allowing the next most injured verminkin to be worked on.

  The total headcount of the surviving verminkin, including Skitterbach, was 14. There had been 19 of them when the halflings boarded the Canon, but several in the cargo hold had been torn apart once the halflings realized they were losing the battle. Still, it was a sizeable number for a ship of his size.

  His ship had two compartments designated as crew quarters. The one nearest the bow of the ship was designated Crew Quarters A, and it was the larger of the two. Once Watkins finished building out the bunks, storage lockers, and bathing facilities, it would house up to 24 crew members, or double that if they were hot bunking like on a sub.

  The second crew quarters, just aft of the cargo hold, was smaller, and would only comfortably hold 16 crew. This one seemed like the perfect choice for the officer’s quarters, so Watkins had it built out with a bit more room for each officer berthed there, giving him a capacity of 8. He could always rebuild it to maximum capacity, but it would be good for the verminkin to see that a promotion came with privileges.

  He renamed the two spaces, designating the larger one as Crew Quarters, and the other as Officer Quarters, no more Quarters A and B. The verminkin seemed much more interested in the galley than the quarters so far. Watkins was initially concerned that the crew would quickly eat through his biomass stores. Once his drones started work on the crew quarters, his concerns proved unfounded.

  It turned out that the reprocessor had no trouble turning waste into biomass. While the verminkin were used to deprivation, he wasn’t going to tell them that the source of at least some of the biomass they consumed was their own waste. At least the food fabricator seemed to create appetizing meals from the raw biomass bricks. They would eventually need to replenish their supply if he had to build more MOBS, but with all the casualties of the battle being gathered for reprocessing, there wasn’t going to be any problem with biomass for a good while.

  While the drones gathered the fallen, Watkins waited for confirmation that he could create verminkin MOBS, but despite reprocessing several relatively intact corpses, the notification never came. It was a mystery that Lani didn’t have any answers for either. Maybe there was something more complex about the verminkin physiology that made them harder to duplicate.

  It didn’t matter, he had his halflings for MOBS duty and having only living verminkin would make it easier to tell the living crew apart from the MOBS. Skitterbach was soon healed up completely by the Canon’s med pod, and he took charge of organizing everyone. He was especially proud of the galley, where he showed them how to use the controls to customize their meals. Watkins had a drone shuttle over several more biomass bricks and showed the verminkin how to reload the food fabricator once the supply inside ran out.

  Well fed, and with uniforms slowly arriving, the verminkin started to acclimate to their new environment and their newfound freedom. Lani set aside some space in the cargo hold to setup a few training terminals. Once her training regimen was completed, they verminkin would spend some of their day in virtual training, and part of the day working with the drones to learn simple repairs and maintenance.

  The Plasma Rifle Level 1 research finished up, and netted Watkins another 15 core points. His research module progress was only at 31%, but he knew it was more complex and would take longer to sort out. For the freed-up module, he decided to start research on level one for the Shields. That would allow him to rebuild the entire shield projector, and he wouldn’t have to look at the broken wing of the device every time he examined the exterior of his ship.

  It wouldn’t be completed before they reached the kobold station, which they were getting closer to, but more protection seemed like a good thing with the potential for more halfling ships showing up. The sensors were showing that there was no new activity at either the station, or the drifting kobold vessel. Still, he kept up his guard as they maneuvered closer to the station.

  The new plasma rifles were coming off the fabricator, and his halfling MOBS were slowly being upgraded with the new units. Their old rifles were kept for the time being, and stored in the Armory that was between the cargo hold and the Crew Quarters. For now, the Armory was locked down, but he could always unlock it in a pinch if things got desperate enough that he needed to arm the verminkin and throw them into battle.

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  Going from level zero to level one proved to be a significant improvement for the rifle. Where before, the plasma rifle held an internal battery that stored enough energy for two shots, the new rifles featured a detachable power pack that held enough energy for four rounds. It was a bit cumbersome to swap out power packs, but it could be done by his MOBS in a few seconds.

  Their new combat loadout would consist of a plasma rifle, laser pistol, melee weapon, and three extra plasma rifle power packs. The number of power packs for each MOBS would increase as he had time to produce them. Unlike the previous rifles, the new power packs couldn’t regenerate on their own and had to be connected to a charger. The charger was bulky but could be hauled around by a drone. He had a couple of chargers created and assigned a drone to each for charger duty.

  In a prolonged fight, the drones could shuttle charged power packs to his MOBS. Charging an empty power pack took about five minutes, and the charger had connections to charge up to four at once. They were still a long way from what Watkins considered an effective and efficient weapon system for his MOBS, but he was moving in the right direction.

  Getting ready for reboarding the station, Watkins had his MOBS assemble in the cargo hold. There were enough barricades now to protect all his troops. About half were equipped with the new rifles, but another rifle and the associated power packs were being produced at the fabricator every few minutes. The drones would run the upgraded weapons into the cargo hold and swap out with one of the MOBS still holding a tier zero weapon.

  Each of the new rifles came with a bandolier for the reloads. The pair of drones hauling the charging stations waited just outside the cargo hold. Each charging station had four fully charged packs ready to go, and the drones would swap them out with spent packs as the battle progressed.

  With the new rifles, and the laser pistols he had taken as prizes, his troops were much better armed than they had been for the fist fight. Pulling up alongside the station, Watkins and Lani looked it over, trying to make out any new threats that might have emerged. It seemed that whatever survivors were still aboard the station hadn’t been that productive while Watkins was away.

  “It looks clear, moving to the boarding collar,” Watkins said as they closed in. The verminkin were in their quarters, but he had the drones install a video screen so they could also monitor the assault. The halflings hadn’t provided them with any entertainment, so even the prospect of watching the battle drew all their attention.

  The verminkin didn’t know his true nature, and that Watkins had been monitoring their chatter since they came aboard. A good portion of the verminkin seemed to think that the halfling MOBS would go berserk at any moment and attack. Maybe, if they saw his troops operating in a professional manner, they would realize that these MOBS were completely under control, and not a ticking timebomb waiting to turn them into a snack.

  “We have a good seal on the station, and there’s no new locking software on their hatch,” Lani announced. That was odd, Watkins would have at least expected the kobolds to have tried to lock the door. It would have been a futile move, but it was like they had completely forgotten about him.

  The station door began to slowly retract, and the first wave of MOBS crossed to the kobold cargo hold. This time, there were no defenders present, no grenades thrown, and no mechs stomping toward them. With the cargo hold secured, it was time to push his troops further into the station. A team of six MOBS were left to defend the boarding collar, and the remaining units entered the passageway to the next module.

  At the end of the passageway, a simple hatch sealed off the next station compartment. A halfling MOBS tried the hatch, finding it was locked. One of the drones hauling a charger scuttled forward to hack the hatch. It was only a few moments before the hatch slid open. This time, there was a response from inside. A grenade clanged into the passageway.

  Shrapnel flew from the device, and a hail of metallic shards shredded the nearest pair of MOBS. Those behind took some damage as the shrapnel found gaps in their armor. Wounds and pain were ignored by his MOBS and they pressed the attack. Laser fire probed the passageway, killing another of Watkins’ troops before the first one made it inside the compartment.

  The lead MOBS was pierced by three laser blasts, but his brief journey had given Watkins a chance to view what they faced. It was relatively open space, housing several work cubicles that the kobold defenders were hiding behind. They would pop up, unleash some laser blasts and then duck back behind the cubicle walls.

  More of Watkins’ forces charged into the room, the lead group eating another grenade before their return fire started to reach out at the kobold defenders. The kobolds had created makeshift defenses, reinforcing the cubicle walls with metal containers and office furniture. Already more powerful than the laser pistols, the level one upgrades to the plasma rifles packed an even more powerful punch than the level zero versions had.

  The hastily thrown together defenses proved insufficient to stop a plasma rifle blast, and the kobold defenders were quickly picked off. With the defenders down, the MOBS swept the compartment. A quick check showed the cubicles were used as quarters for the kobold station crew. At one of the corners of the far wall, several terminals and sturdy chairs were arranged. A drone confirmed the terminals were used to control the station’s systems.

  “This is nothing like I remember the station. It must have been stripped at some point, and these new terminals were cobbled together by the kobolds at a later date. Give me some time linked to them with a drone, and I can try to find what we’re looking for,” Lani said.

  “That’s the plan, but we need to clear out any other threats before we begin exploring their systems,” Watkins said, before he could order his mobs into the next compartment, a crackling speaker imbedded in the deck activated.

  “You might kill my entire claw of crew, but I will take you with me. Release the creature, let it kill these halflings. Show them what true hunger looks like,” A hissing kobold announced across the station.