Vivid Stars Online

Felisa almost skipped forward to the edge of the ship's hull, laughing as she went. “This is just what we need right now,” she breathed, barely audible as she reached out to touch it. “Mother is going to be so pleased.”

She looked so happy that I was reluctant to interrupt, however, there was something I needed to clarify. “Uh,” I started, before trying again. “I believe this ship is an item designed to leave the facility.”

Felisa froze, her hand hovering in mid-air, before turning to me with a frown. “You can’t possibly believe? This ship will be the new flagship for the entire fleet if we can get it working. You can’t just claim it like that.”

“But,” Linnea said from beside me with a grin. “Just yesterday you clarified that everything that was designed to leave here would be Jared’s, even if you clear the entire facility.”

Felisa's frown deepened and for a second something dangerous flashed in her eyes. For that brief period, I worried that she’d decided to kill us for the betterment of the planet or something before her face relaxed again.

“I didn’t think we’d find something like this,” she responded with a sigh. “But whatever. You can discuss it with mother when you get back. It’s not like civilians can own military ships, anyway.”

With that, she gestured to a squad of soldiers to begin making their way around the side of the ship. With a few words of thanks to Linnea for the support, I trailed along behind with her and Elana.

While having soldiers around to do the heavy lifting was nice at first, I was growing tired of it. It felt like I wasn’t needed other than for the information I had, which on the face of things was true.

Going to have to try to get back to some solo or small group exploring after this, I thought with a shake of my head. Hopefully, everything will calm down for a while.

As we came around the corner of the ship, I couldn’t help but gasp at the sheer scale of what was laid out before me. The space inside the ship hangar was massive, far beyond any natural or man-made space that I had ever heard of.

And it was filled with spaceships of various sizes and shapes. In front of us, Felisa was eagerly darting between them, having regained her good cheer as she happily called out her findings.

Personally, I had little knowledge of spaceships, however, I could gleam enough from her exclamations to get a general idea of what was present here.

First was the cruiser itself, which, according to my scanner, was over three thousand feet long and fifteen hundred feet wide. Then came two frigates, which differed slightly, but were about half the size or fifteen hundred feet by seven hundred and fifty.

After that came five destroyers of roughly seven hundred fifty feet by three hundred and seventy-five. If that dizzying array of capital ships wasn’t enough, there were a dozen smaller ships, about the size of a VTOL, she termed gunboats and over two dozen single-person fighters.

It was an impressive find, though I couldn’t help but worry a little about how this would shake out. Technically speaking, they should all belong to me, however, I couldn’t see it working out like that. Not with how big an impact this could have on the planet’s military at a trying time.

Still, that was a worry for later, and if nothing else, it increased the chances that I could keep at least one of them. Felisa's declaration that civilians couldn’t own military-grade ships was a concern, but hopefully, one that we could work around.

Besides, it was hard to be concerned when there was so much to wonder at. Each ship was subtly different from the others of its class as if each had been hand designed and built for a specific purpose rather than being mass-produced.

They were also beautifully done, all smooth curves and shining metal. Even though most of them showed obvious signs of battle damage, the perfection underneath shone through.

As I was walking through the maze of narrow walkways between ships, Elana sidled up next to me. “Hey Jared,” she said in a sly tone. “You're getting a spaceship, right? I mean, you're not just going to let all of this go.”

“Yeah,” I responded with a nod, already feeling my determination growing for the discussions ahead. “At least one,” I finished as I glanced over to where Linnea was staring longingly at a fighter.

She told me before how much she would love to fly like that. If there was a way I could make that happen, then I was going to do it. If I could swing it, then a fighter would be a nice bonus for all the help she’d given me so far.

With her insistence on only charging her normal rates, regardless of how much we found, she had probably gained the least of the three of us from these missions. Hopefully, she’d be willing to take a gift to help even things out.

“Nice,” Elana responded from beside me. “Then I want to be chief engineer.”

“Huh?” I responded inarticulately, surprised out of my musing by her question.

“It’s not like you're going to be able to run one of those all by yourself,” she said with a laugh and a shake of her head. “I mean, even the frigates are massive and sure to need a small crew.”

“Maybe you could get a gunboat and fly it by yourself, but they look more like short-range armed transports than anything. If you're going to get a real spaceship, then you want one you can live aboard and travel the galaxy in.”

I couldn’t help but nod along with that. A large spaceship with living quarters would be ideal if I ever wanted to leave the planet and travel around. While I felt like there was still plenty to do here, I knew that there were a lot of unexplored planets further out beyond this one.

Moving on to find more undisturbed psionic planets felt like a logical long-term plan. “OK then,” I responded with a nod. “Your right, even with my Technokinesis, having an engineer along would be good. If you want it, then the job was yours.”

I wasn’t lying either. While Technokinesis was amazing for understanding and repairing technology, there was a limit to how much I could do each day with the limited amount of power and time I had. Having someone else along who could work with tech would be a godsend.

“Great,” she said with a joyous laugh before skipping over to look at a frigate. “Oh,” she shouted over her shoulder as she went. “And don’t think that gets you out of our deal, I still want all the robots.”

How in the world am I going to fund running a ship like that, I thought as I wandered off as well. While the idea sounded amazing, the logistics would take some working out. Maybe I can get some funding from the Duchess for my claim on the other ships?

It was something that would have to be worked out later, as I could hear Felisa calling us all together.

“Right then,” she responded her normal taciturn manner back in place. “As much as I want to stay here and examine the ships, we still need to secure the facility. Honestly, it’s a surprise we haven’t been attacked already, but…”

Almost as if it had been waiting, a voice cut her off as it echoed around us. It was feminine, but still had a mechanical undertone that suggested it was the AI.

“Please take the offering of ships I have prepared and leave. Surely it is enough to sate your greed?” The voice finished with an actually worried tone.

We will froze in response to that, me perhaps more than anyone. The other two AIs I had fought had been nothing like this. The first had been almost completely robotic before triggering the self-destruct, while the second had been homicidal.

This one seemed a lot more nuanced, particularly if it had set up these ships to bribe us to leave. Was Elana right about them, knowing that the others were killed? If so, this isn’t exactly the response I was expecting.

“You want us to leave in exchange for these ships?” I asked, gesturing around me. They clearly weren’t new ships from the battle damage, and yet the AI had said that it prepared them. The only thing I could think of was that it had somehow called them here from other places on the planet.

“Yes,” the responded, sounding almost tired. “I have felt the deaths of all my siblings despite the preparations they had made. While these ships are important, protecting the hallowed chamber is of supreme importance. Please take these ships, leave, and do not return.”

It was certainly an interesting tactic on the AI’s part, one that I felt suggested it was quite a bit more advanced than the others. Given the relative size of the facility, though, I supposed having a more powerful AI to run it made sense.

The deal was actually pretty good as well, almost enough to give up on the ritual chamber. I could see that Felisa wasn’t buying it, however.”

“No,” she responded with a shake of her head. “Now that we have almost confirmed interference by high-tech enemies, getting full access to Technokinesis has become extremely important. We will move on and secure the facility, regardless.”

This time, the voice definitely sounded tired and worn down when it spoke. “So be it then.” As it finished, one of the doors to the hanger opened and humanoid-looking robots surged through.

Unlike the clumsy, modified worker robots the second facility had used, these were sleek and swift as they advanced. Barely larger than a human, they wielded actual guns rather than having them attached.

At a word from Felisa, the soldiers spread out and began engaging while the rest of us moved to support.

While the enemy was many and dangerous, in the end, we were the stronger side. The drop troopers with us were well trained and heavily armed, while I could reach out and disable robot after robot.

The presence, for lack of a better word, of this AI was stronger than either of the other two, however now that I had Technokinesis, it still couldn't stop me from disabling the robots.

I felt like I could even take full control of one, however, I left that aside in favor of simply taking more enemies out. Mindful of Elana’s desire for working robots, I stretched my powers to take them out with minimal damage.

Only a few minutes after the attack, we were standing over a field of smoking robots, our side triumphant with only a couple of causalities.

I could see Felisa standing in the middle of the wreckage, frowning before she pulled up her watch and began talking into it. She spent a couple of minutes discussing something before striding over to me.

“Mother is coming here with additional troops,” she said as she reached me. “This is too large a find to leave anything to chance. She’ll be here in about six hours. In the meantime, we’re going to secure the facility. If we encounter resistance beyond what we can handle, we will fall back to this point and wait.”

“You're the most familiar with clearing these places,” she continued with a nod at me. “How do you suggest we go about it?”

While I felt a little bad for the AI, I still needed the ritual chamber. Helping clear the facility would hopefully be a good bargaining point when the Duchess arrived as well.

“We should secure the ritual chamber first,” I said as I thought it through. “It’s the most important objective and it will give me a chance to level up my Technokinesis. After that, I should be able to disable the AI.”

“Understood,” she responded with another nod, before moving off to gather the healthiest of the troopers.

I didn’t particularly want to take this AI out, not with how human-like it sounded. However, I knew Felisa would be intent on securing the facility, no matter what. At least if I did it after the chamber, I might be able to figure something out with my upgraded Technokinesis.