B2-19 - Space Race (Patreon)

Kignarva Class 3 Deep Scanning Module System Liquidation - All the equipment to get a Kignarva Deep Scanner up and running, mid grade, Tier 1 - 300,000

5 metric tons Biomass - It’s biomass, people. Low grade, Tier 1 - 5,000

200 programable processors, low grade, Tier 1 - 60,000

2 metric tons, alchemical material, mana trace confirmed by System - 120,000

1 metric ton, ‘junk’ mana batteries, various grades, Tier 1 - 25,000

2 Auto Assemblers low grade, Tier 1 - 110,000

1 Auto Disassembler low grade, Tier 1 - 35,000

Alzonii’s Liquidation - various low grade, Tier 1 tools, machines, and components. Salvage from Kobono’s Town, hit by Dimensional Instability - 150,000

100 liters of System grade, Tier 1 Mana Conductive Gel - 200,000

2 metric tons of Volex explosive gel low grade, Tier 1 - 100,000

2 metric tons of Helix explosive gel low grade, Tier 1 - 75,000

Yonnivolo Liquidation - Weapons, various low grade, Tier 1 ammunition, weapons, and defense drones for a low price. Salvage from Kobono’s Town, hit by Dimensional Instability. 150,000

10 complete Knowledge Cube set: System Tech Engineering Manuals I-XX  mid grade, Tier 1 - 75,000

Knowledge Cube Liquidation - 750 various knowledge Cubes. Salvage from Histimaria Peace Cruiser Incident, various grades, Tier 1 - 40,000

3 Altaron’s Personal Computer Mk. 5 - mid grade, Tier 1 - 30,000

Pinnical Slavager’s Set - tools, supplies, and knowledge cubes - various grades, Tier 1 - 110,000

Hotarrii B-542 Grow Station Deluxe - mid grade, Tier 1 - 40,000

1 Deep Mining Industrial Droid - mid grade, Tier 1 - 50,000

1 Deep Mining Industrial Digger - mid grade, Tier 1 - 60,000

1 Xefer Classic All Terrain Rover - low grade, Tier 1 - 50,000

1 Golla Voz High Capacity Dimensional Storage Container low grade, Tier 2 - 1,000,000

40 Hoxzoma Discount Armor sets - low grade, Tier 1 - 200,000

1 Kixx Level 5 Repair Droid - mid grade, Tier 1 - 250,000

Histavaranii Engineer Grade Virtual Reality Based Building Gear - high grade, Tier 1 - 1,000,000

“Okay, I think we went a little crazy here,” Maya panted as she, Tender, and Bell moved another pallet load of material off the shipping pallet. The newly built machine was getting a work out and Maya was already regretting being bitten by the buying bug. It was a pay day spending spree, but only much larger. 

Bell didn’t say anything, only grunting as they pushed the boxes off the pallet. From there it was a simple thing of getting the Cage to do the heavy lifting, warping and moving it across the large open space Maya had created. 

Easy Come, Easy Go I

You have spent 80 percent of the credits you have earned in one day.

+ 2 Foundation

Maya collapsed upon the floor of the Cage, breathing heavily and sweating in her shipsuit. Roci came over looked at her and appeared to shake their head at her, before wandering off. 

“Are we done now?” Yosi asked, hesitantly.

“Tender?” 

“Take my money and shut up?” Tender said. 

“We just boosted the local economy after a devastating dimensional instability,” Maya said. “And we’ve also gained a lot of equipment we desperately needed, did you see that VR Engineering gear? I’m so gonna use the hell out of that.” Maya gasped in air. “But yeah, we’re done. I’m spent. We’re spent. Time to go home.” 

“We have four hours left on the clock,” Bell said. “Shall we see if we can get to your Earth space?” 

“Oh, right. That.” Maya got up off the floor, summoned a bottle of water and gulped it down. “Yeah, we might as well. We need to see what the energy drain is on the batteries when we change locations. We’ve been very lucky that we’ve always found what we were looking for.”

“Luck. I’ve seen your Luck stat,” Bell said. 

“Does that really have an effect on things?” Maya asked. 

‘I don’t know, no one really does. But it’s there and some people swear it does help them in dangerous situations.” 

“Well, whatever, it’s good to have.” Maya slumped into a chair she summoned before the control panel. “Alright, quick and easy stop into Earth space. We test the ambient mana and see if all my plans, hopes, and dreams are shit or not.” 

Maya closed her eyes and willed the Cage to go to Earth, but as she did so she thought about space, about satellites, space shuttles, and space stations…

She could feel the disconnection of the threshold from Haltor’s World and a new connection forming, it was tenuous, but Maya pushed her will into it, trusting her Dimensional Awareness. There was a bit of pressure, but then a connection formed. 

“That was more difficult than I thought,” Maya said.  

‘Perhaps you have over extended yourself,” Nan said. “You have been up for more than two standard days.” 

“Wait, what?” Bell demanded. “When did you last sleep?” 

Maya shrugged. “Stimulants and danger has been my wake up juice,” she replied. 

Bell shook his head. 

“Ah, look at that. It only takes a million gen to change locations,” Maya grinned. “We can hop around now, if we want.” 

“A million gens is still a lot,” Bell stated. “We only have three hours now.” 

“But we’ll be swimming in gens once we figure out the ambient mana here.” 

Maya got out of the chair and turned the far wall into a view screen again. She grinned as she saw the familiar blue globe below them. 

“The first Sullivan in space,” she announced. “Eat your heart out, Malcolm, you little nerd!” Maya laughed hysterically and turned to see everyone looking at her strangely. “What? My brother was a real asshole when it came to space, thought he knew everything and was going to be an astronaut or something.”

Maya walked closer to the view screen, leaning against it and staring down at her planet. It looked calm and lovely, a moving ball of blue and white, but if one looked closer… 

“Tender toss out the scanner,” she said. “I’ll make a mini airlock, so we don’t go flying out.” She commanded the Cage to form a small room with a door that could be remotely opened. Tender set up the scanning device, and she ejected the coffee can sized device out the small airlock. 

Maya’s eyes traced it and then she caught sight of something else, a flash in the darkness. 

“Holy shit,” Maya breathed, watching the distant image take shape. “It’s the International Space Station!” Maya laughed hysterically again and stared as the iconic space station began to take shape. 

“Your species were a space faring race?” Tender asked, interested. 

“Of a sorts, we visited our moon and sent out probes across our solar system, but we only had a small space station in orbit around our planet. I think the Chinese had one too…” Maya frowned. 

She stared a the space station and snapped her fingers. “Is there anyone alive in there? The station was active pre-Integration. So it’s been what? Six, seven days since Integration?” 

“I don’t see how anyone would survive upon it,” Tender said. “Usually the introduction of massive amounts of essence mana into a newly Integrated universe causes a lot of problems with pre-Integration technologies. Also I’ve got the ambient mana readings if you want to know them.” 

Maya concentrated, shifting Tier 2 components around upon the surface of the Cage. 

“Alright, alright. I think I’ve remember this. Marcus was a boy scout, a real pain in the ass half the time, but he challenged me to learn Morse Code,” Maya said. She walked to the control panel and grinned. 

“What are you doing?” Bell asked. “What is Morse Code?” 

“An old school way of communicating,” Maya said and changed the lay out of the control panel. In it’s place was a large button that connected to the Cage wall that existed in orbit. She had changed that wall into a giant light bulb, covering the entire surface with light emitting components. “Here we go.”

Di-di-di-dit  Di-dit (HI)

Maya cursed and then slowed the message down by twelve. The first message was merely a blast of light lasting less than a second. It was agonizingly slow, taking well over a minute to just slowly punch in the message. 

Di-dah Dah-dit Dah-di-dah-dah Di-dah-dah-dah-dah  (ANY1)

Di-di-di-dit Dah-dah-dah Dah-dah Dit (HOME)

Impatience warred with hope and Maya walked back and forth before the view screen, causing some confusion among the others. 

“What does it matter?” Bell asked. 

“They might still be alive,” she responded. 

“But we can’t do anything for them,” Bell said. 

“Yeah, but… I don’t know. I need to know.” 

“Look!” Yosi cried. 

Maya snapped her head back to the screen and saw a flash of light. It came slow and steady, but it was a simple universal message. 

Di-di-dit Dah-dah-dah Di-di-dit (SOS)

“Holy shit,” Maya gasped. “Holy shit, they’re alive.” 

“Who? Do you know them?” Bell asked. 

“What? No, I don’t know them. They’re astronauts… Uh… I don’t think anyone really kept up on who went into space, except Malcolm.” Maya tried to remember, but she couldn’t think of anything. 

“Interesting,” Tender said. 

“What?” 

“Zoom in on the lower right hand quadrant of their station module,” he said. 

Maya did so and let out another gasp. “What the fuck? I thought there were no space monsters in this universe?” 

Upon the side of the International Space Station Maya saw a creature; it was amorphous and greenish in color, an undulating body that made Maya think of the slime monsters in games and RPGs.

“It appears the station is losing structural integrity and it’s orbit is decaying,” Tender said. “I suspect in six hours MVT it will fall back into the Earth’s atmosphere.” 

“Shit. Shit. Shit,” Maya hissed. “We have to do something.” 

“We only have two and a half hours of Cage time left,” Bell said. “That’s barely twelve minutes MVT time.” 

Di-di-dit Dah-dah-dah Di-di-dit (SOS)

Maya groaned. She rushed to the control panel and begin prepping herself to change their location again. She could do it, if she concentrated. She imagined what she remembered of the ISS, about it’s orbit, about what it represented. Then she willed the change to occur. 

Error. Location must be more than 200km distant. 

“Shit,” Maya cursed. “Of course there’s a range limit. Every time you need something to happen, there’s always a limit.” She took a deep breath. “Break out that VR gear, I need time to think!” Maya scrambled toward the stack of goods they had purchased, trying to remember where they had stacked that pricey gear set. 

She stumble to a stack and ripped open the contents, three small cherry red boxes the size of cigarette packs fell out. Maya grabbed them before they hit the ground and then activated one. 

Welcome Altaron’s Personal Computer Mk. 5 - mid grade, Tier 1. For all your computing needs, choose Altaron.  

Shall we begin setting up?

Maya spent five minutes activating the personal computer, through some System method it connected to her status screens and vision, allowing her to see it as if they were System messages. Maya then slid the computer into a pocket and helped Tender, Bell, and Yosi move crates to find the VR Gear.

They unboxed it and Maya began forming the power connections within the Cage, while Bell and Tender set the machine up. Within ten minutes they had it ready and Maya slipped the helmet over her head. 

***

Half an hour later; Maya gasped and tore the helmet off her head. “I’ve got it, guys!” she cried. She staggered bit and grinned. “This is pretty cool, ya’ll should try it.” 

“I can’t,” Tender said. 

“Regular VR is fine with me,” Bell said. 

“I’ll try it, Maya,” Yosi stated. 

“Cool, but first. We build!” Maya began pulling files off of her personal computer and sending them to Tender, Yosi, and Bell, whom all had taken the time to activate their personal computers, although Tender was already a computer.

“Get me those, assemble that, build that, I’ll work on this,” Maya said, rushing toward the stack of crates. “Nan, pop some Human ration bars into the oven and pack medical supplies for peoples suffering from oxygen deprivation. Bell, you got something in that noggin’ that can scrub carbon dioxide from the air?”

“Yeah, I believe so.’ 

“Get on it, pal.” 

The Yonnivolo Liquidation Crates held a defense drone, a small flying craft the size of a bicycle with enough power and ammo to take down low grade, Tier 1 monsters. Whomever Yonnivolo was, had stripped the battery and ammo, but had thankfully left the guidance and main thruster pack untouched.

The Molliton Defense Drone - low grade, Tier 1 was an all purpose defense drone, but that didn’t mean it was designed to work in the vacuum of space. It also mounted twin auto cannons that fired kinetic projectiles, normally the thrusters would reduce any recoil, but Maya’s half remembered science knowledge said for every action there was an equal and opposite reaction. A kick in space would send both parties flying. 

The drone only had a twenty kilometer range and the station was seventy five kilometers away, according to the sensors. That meant it would have to cross the void of space in some fashion. 

Maya cut off the aerodynamic parts of the drone and began fusing chopped up bits of low grade armor she had purchased to reinforce the back end of the drone. 

Volex explosive gel was a very stable alchemical component for making ammunition. It was very popular for Tier 1 worlds. Helix was the same, a bit more pricier and a bit more boom for the buck. Maya pulled a pair of crappy Type 2 Heavy Tool mana batteries from the batch of junk batteries they had purchased, she stripped off the covers and began pulling out the racks and grabbed the storage container holding the conductive gel. 

“Ah, that’s interesting,” Tender said. 

“Yeah, Explosives I is coming in handy right now. Back in the day, there used to be an idea that one could use nuclear bombs to propel spacecrafts,” Maya grinned. 

“Nuclear bombs?’ Tender ask. 

“What you don’t have those? Release the energy in an atom to create a massive explosion that produces a lot of radiation and a mushroom cloud?” 

“No. I have never heard of that.” 

“Really?” Maya paused. “Weird.” 

While Maya had been working, Tender had stripped down a pair of low grade weapons that had been also purchased from the Yonnivolo Liquidation. With some other components they scrounged together, they attached the two weapons. Maya was going solely on gut instinct here. The creature was an amorphous thing; a slime monster from games she had played, kinetic strikes wouldn’t hurt it, but perhaps other kinds of weapons could. 

Therefore she attached a thermal wave generator that produced a wide area baking field, and an electrical energy blaster. Although mana changed a lot of physics and reality, the electromagnetic spectrum still existed, and with it one could create a lightning gun. It just wasn’t all that stable when it came to actual electronics. 

Maya plugged in another pair of mana batteries into the drone and activated the internal processor. It whirred and clicked and produced scores of error codes. There was a reason the drone was being sold for so low of a price. Maya grimaced and overrode what she could and prayed it wouldn’t be too screwed up. Tender gave it the good rogue AI try and cleaned up some of the code, reducing the errors in a hurry. 

Built Under Stress I

With Skill, Knowledge, and Ability you have created something functional under intense stress. 

+ 2 Mental Recovery

“That is hideous,” Bell said as he saw what Maya and Tender were working on. 

“Look in the mirror, pal,” Maya snapped. 

Bell frowned. “I made a few vials of low grade health potions, stamina potions, and a large vial of carbon dioxide cleanser.” He set down a small box before her. Maya smiled at him. 

“Sorry, just a little frazzled.”

“I understand. You’re doing impressive work lately.” 

“Pressure does wonders for motivation,” she said as she attached a long tube of components along a rough marsani frame, fiddling with the spacing of the components and then fusing them onto the frame. She snaked wires to a separate mana battery and connected the whole thing, a small green operational light flashed and Maya grinned. 

Maya summoned her armored gauntlets and used them to tear opened the bags of conductive gel. She smeared it on an inverted bowl of marsani backed by chopped up low grade armor at the end of the frame. 

“Main engine,” Maya muttered and sat back with relief. “Alright, we got a shitty guidance computer, but all we need it to do is get from point A to point B. I’m using the Volex explosive gel to create thrust, when it contacts charged conductive gel it tends to go boom. So I’ve got this mini ejector here that’s basically a copy of the railgun I made some time ago. Just barely has enough kick to push the gel embedded with a chunk of marsani out. Volex gets in contact with conductive gel, boom, drone flies forward. A couple of booms and it’ll get to the station, if it goes off course, we’ve got the onboard thrusters to try and steady the beast.  

“I’ve dumped the sensor info into the processor, so once it detects the critter, it’ll begin firing upon it. Hopefully hitting it and scoring some direct hits before the drone soft crashes into the station.” 

“Soft crashes?” Bell asked. 

Maya shrugged. “The maneuvering thrusters aren’t that great, but they should be enough to slow down the drone when it gets near the critter, about two hundred meters for the thermal and a hundred for the lightning. Hopefully it’ll bake the beastie then shock it to hell. Then soft crash into the station.” 

“Seems a tad… risky,” Yosi said. 

“True, but life is risk,” Maya gave a sad smile “It’s the best we can do for them.” 

“What about their orbital decay?” Tender asked. 

Maya dragged a parabolic dish from out of the clutter scattered around them.  

“Havin Mk. 2 Mana Purge Field - mid grade, Tier 1” Maya said. “I’ve been thinking on the whole thing about mana and electronics; how it seems to gum up the works. This mana purger is designed to remove ambient mana from an area, allowing crafters a controlled clean space before they channel into an item. Pretty cool. From what’s been dumped into my head, mana doesn’t destroy electronics, it just makes them not work very well. If the purger works like advertised, they might be able to get their systems back online and perhaps correct their course before they all burn up.” 

“A lot of speculation there,” Bell said. 

“It’s all I got.” 

“Then we move forward with it,” Tender said. “If we fail, then we failed, but if we don’t try, then that is worse, no?” 

“Yeah, buddy.” 

Maya and Tender rushed the rest of the construction as they only had twenty minutes of Cage time left. They dragged the heavily modified defense drone to a newly created airlock and then began fiddling with the guidance code once more. Too many errors were popping up and they needed to upload more information to allow the tiny brain that controlled the railgun to fire correctly. 

They finally uploaded the best code they could in the time frame and then launched the drone with with cargo of medicine, food, water, and instructions for the purger, some knowledge cubes, and an emergency air circulation system that had been in the Alzonii Liquidation pile, along with the best of the mana batteries they could find. 

Maya sat down heavily in a mess of components and trash. One minute to go. 

“Shit, I hope this works,” Maya said as she watched the drone slowly drift away from their position. She looked around and frowned. “Where’s Roci?”

Tender and the others looked around, the Cage had been collapsed into a simple box again, no rooms beside the washroom Maya had added. 

“Roci! Where are you, kid!” Maya called out. 

“Boss!” Tender pointed at the view screen. 

On it a pair of purple eyes stared back at them, clinging onto the drone. 

“What the sh-“

Then the Cage ran out of power.