Havok Bringer

Tiff had informed me that subsequent jumps would be much easier on us physically, and Elvis had something in the med bay that would help us acclimate even quicker.

“Small miracles I guess,” I said as CJ and I left the med bay. There wasn’t much to speak of in the room, just some medical examination tables and some robotic arms hanging from the ceiling. The walls were lined with drawers and closets full of supplies. Elvis was the ship’s medical professional as well and everything related to human physiology had been uploaded to his data core before the dungeon had been initiated.

CJ had not been pleased with our hazing and was currently walking beside me in a sour mood, aggressively ripping his new vape.

“Elvis has it out for me Andy, I swear to God!” CJ said in an aggravated tone. “Since I got transported to this damn ship he has come after me in one way or another. I can't take this shit no more, bro.”

I stopped in the hallway before we walked back into the VCR. “Listen CJ, I'm going to need your head on straight, especially going into this EVAC mission to get Tiff’s body. I have a plan, and you are going to play a big part if it’s possible, but I need you to find some common ground with Elvis, okay?”

“I'll try Andy, I'll try,” he said, ripping another long hit off of his vape. “By the way, thanks for the vape. I think it’s the only thing keeping me sane right now,” he chuckled.

As we walked into the VCR, Tiff was sitting at a table in the center of the room that Elvis had materialized for us.

“Elvis, I have a question,” I said looking up at the ceiling. I was sure it wasn’t necessary to look up at the ceiling, but I did it reflexively. “Can those Havok Hound drop suits in the armory be operated autonomously?”

“Yes, Captain. Elvis can pilot the drop suits autonomously. The Bloodhound only has 5 storage closets, so we can only deploy 5 at a time. Elvis can only operate 2 at any given time and still maintain peak efficiency for other ships' systems, however. Why do you ask?”

“I want to utilize one of the drop suits during our Exfil of Tiff's body from the containment center,” I replied.

“That isn’t possible, Captain. As stated, the facility has an AI-dampening field. Elvis is AI also; I cannot penetrate the dampening field to pilot the suit,” Elvis replied.

“I thought you might say that, Elvis. I want you to create a subsystem and run the piloting program hardware through CJ’s station. You will need to train him on the intricacies of piloting the drop suit over the next 12 days. I want a two-day margin for error before we start the Exfil process. Understood?”

CJ’s face lit up and I could see that Tiff also approved of this part of the plan.

“No dead weight on my ship, CJ. Time to start pulling your weight around here,” I said smiling.

“It will take too long to train NUB to use drop suit. He will endanger Captain’s life, as well as the mission,” Elvis grumbled.

“Elvis, am I the Captain of the Bloodhound?" I asked pointedly.

“Yes sir, Captain Dawes is captain of Bloodhound. Great Captain who let Elvis choose own name! Captain Dawes will kill many foes!” Elvis said excitedly.

“Then I need you to follow my orders, Elvis. I will defer to you on matters of ship security and navigation, but there will be times when I need you to follow my orders and ensure that we are moving in the operational direction that I have deemed fit. This is one of those times.”

“Understood, Captain. Elvis will begin creating software and have training modules prepared for SR-Jennings by 1200 hours,” Elvis sharply replied.

“Thanks, Elvis. Also open up and stock the shooting range. The crew and I will be acclimating ourselves with the available firearms on board the Bloodhound today.”

CJ chimed in, “What is SR-Jennings?”

Elvis replied, “Spaceman recruit, lowest enlisted rank on ship. That is you, you are lowest.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and squeezed my eyes shut tightly. It was progress, a very small amount of progress, but Elvis at least saw CJ as a member of the crew now; it would have to be enough.

“CJ, Elvis is the COB, Chief of the Boat. For all intents and purposes, he is your commanding officer. You will pay attention to his orders and recommendations during this training process. I need you to be a killing machine with that drop suit. We have no margin for error here, got it?” I asked.

“I got it, Andy!” CJ replied.

“You refer to Captain as Captain during official briefings recruit!” Elvis growled.

“Jesus. Sure, man. I got it, Captain!” CJ said with a goofy salute.

It was currently 0800 hours, so we had 4 hours to talk basic strategy and get some time in the armory shooting range. After Elvis and CJ decided to play somewhat nicely, we all sat down to have primary conversation about the strategy to get Tiff’s body back.

“I won’t be able to communicate or assist at all with the EVAC Captain. Once we get within 100 miles of the containment facility, I will become inert, as will Elvis. Elvis will have emergency operating procedures for the ship, and he can pre-program a flight path for the shuttle to get you there and back, but you and CJ will be on your own. This is very dangerous, Andrew,” Tiff said as she looked me in the eyes.

I could feel that she was nervous. I was sure she wanted to do this, but I also think that she thought we would be trying to do it further down the line after I was stronger and had become more acclimated with my current reality.

“Do we know anything about the defenses on the containment facility?” I asked.

“There should be no organic life on board. The facility will be rather large, especially compared to the Bloodhound though. These facilities are meant to operate autonomously for millennia. If an AI becomes corrupted for some reason, the remains will be jettisoned into the nearest solar body and a replacement will arrive. “

“Corrupted?” I asked.

“Dies,” Tiff responded. “You must remember that an AI dies if it’s assigned participant dies. There are thousands of participants from Earth in this dungeon, I would assume. The mortality rate of participants is 99% in most iterations of the dungeons from past Reapings.”

“Once an AI is corrupted, the facility is repopulated, and the new AI will begin uploading data relevant to the next scheduled reaping.”

I took a deep breath, “Okay so let’s make sure that doesn’t happen to you. I need an idea of what we're going up against in there. Do you have intel? How many mechs, how many mech guards?”

Tiff's eyes glazed over; I could tell she was combing data inside her head. “Each facility has two sets of guards. They consist of one Battle Mech and two mech guards. They are on 12-hour rotations. After 12 hours, the mechs and mech guards will return to their off-duty stations for decontamination and recharge,” she said.

“I’m not sure of the levels. I would say at least Level 10. Nobody expects one of these facilities to be infiltrated, so the guards are fairly low leveled.”

I raised my eyebrows, “Low levelled?!”

“Tiff, I’m only Level 4 for crying out loud. How can I fight multiple Level 10 mechs?!”

“Elvis might have plan to help!” Elvis suddenly chimed in.

“Okay, let’s hear it, Elvis. I need all the help I can get,” I said.

“There is grind station on way to containment facility. We lose one day, Captain gain levels.”

I looked at Tiff, “What is a grind station?”

“Usually don’t see them before Level 1, but since we are taking a bit of a detour, I guess Elvis found one. They are small pre-populated areas with a designated number of enemies. You land, kill everything, and get some levels. You may get some loot, which is never anything great, but you need the levels, and this will get you at least a few,” Tiff said.

“Okay, sounds easy enough. Elvis, how far away is the grind station?” I asked.

“We can be at grind station within 2 hours after next jump,” Elvis replied.

“Okay, chart a course. Our next jump is in 10 hours, so that will give us time to finish what we're doing. Eat something and grab a few hours of sleep,” I said.

“We have a very basic plan. After the grind station we can regroup to put the final touches on the Exfil plan. For now, let’s go shoot something,” I said.

“Hell yeah!” CJ shouted as we headed to the armory.

As we walked into the armory, I walked over to the firearm lockers lining the left side of the room. I was familiar enough with weapons on Earth. My dad had made sure that all of his boys were familiar with guns growing up. Again, I wasn’t much of a hunter, but Dad wanted us to understand how to safely handle firearms just in case. I had shot various models of rifles and shotguns. I also kept a personal firearm for protection, and it really became a necessity after the drop.

None of that prepared me for the types of firearms that were available on The Bloodhound. There were kinetic weapons and weapons that shot bullets. There were also focused-energy weapons that fired concentrated plasma bursts and instead of a clip, they had plasma mags. From what I understand, the weapons would fire a plasma bolt that is super-heated by a focused laser beam and explodes on contact. It was lethal, it was dangerous, and it was fucking awesome.

Tiff was familiar with all of the weapons on board, but CJ and I were like kids in a candy store. Both the kinetic and plasma weapons were basically dummy proof. They were auto-correcting, auto-targeting, and made just about anyone with the ability to shoot them an expert marksman.

My armor had a sidearm that I hadn’t tested yet, so I decided that now was a good time to check it out. As CJ continued testing the plasma rifles, I engaged my armor. I stood in one of the fire lanes and unholstered the weapon on my left hip. The weapon molded to my hand perfectly. The barrel was about 8 inches long, with a bright orange LED-type light running down the length of the barrel. As I held the weapon out in front of my body, I saw the targeting system in HUD come to life. I could see the distance to the target, wind speed, estimated curvature of the planet's surface, and just tons of data.

I aimed at the brown dummy at the end of the firing lane and fired. The round wasn’t kinetic, and it wasn’t exactly like the plasma rounds from the armory. It was an intense burst of energy flying from the barrel. As soon as the barrel arced, the dummy’s head completely exploded.

“Holy shit!” I said. “Did you see that, CJ? This gun is ridiculous!”

“Should definitely help in combat. Between that and those daggers nothing will want to get close to you, that’s for sure,” CJ said.

I thought for a second about how I would prepare and carry a long-range rifle. I was no sniper, but with the targeting system in my armor I imagined it would come in handy.

As I thought about it, the weapon in my hand morphed into a rifle. “Well, that’s convenient,” I said.

I took the rifle and aimed it down the lane toward what was left of the dummy. As I did, my targeting HUD zoomed in on the center mass of the dummy, it was like I had a long-range scope in my helmet. "This will definitely come in handy," I thought.

“That armor is like nothing I have seen before, Captain. Again, I'm not sure where it came from, but it does give you an advantage,” Tiff said.

I was starting to feel more comfortable in my armor now, and as the 5-minute cycle was ending I noticed that my stamina was also low.

“Hey Tiff, does this armor drain my stamina? I’m noticing that my stamina is low,” I asked.

“It would make sense; the armor is integrated into your physiology and will need to burn resources to activate,” she replied.

“This may work to our advantage. Let the armor cycle end and then use a stamina stim. Let's see what happens,” she said.

“I can’t use stims without my armor though, right?” I asked.

“Once you have accessed the ability, you should be able to utilize it without the full armor being active. Once the armor cycles down, just concentrate on using the stim and see what happens," Tiff responded as she walked over to me.

As the armor cycled down, I noticed that my stamina was at about twenty percent. I was glad it left some room for error and didn’t drain my stamina completely. I didn’t know what happened when my stamina ran out completely. That was one more thing I needed to test or ask Tiff about.

I concentrated on my stamina stim and, as I did, two insectoid arm-like appendages popped out of my shoulders and stabbed into either side of my neck followed by a small hissing noise. My stamina immediately refilled.

“That is unnerving,” I said with a nervous chuckle. “But hey, it worked. I can use my stims without my armor being fully activated.”

“Does this mean I can immediately reactivate my armor?” I asked. “Since it seems to run on stamina and my stamina is refilled, I should be able to reactivate it, right?”

“I’m really not sure,” Tiff responded. “I’ve never seen armor like this. I think it’s worth a try.”

I focused on my armor and as I did, the edges of my vision flashed red, and a warning popped up on my HUD.

Warning - 4 minutes remaining on Armor Cool Down

“Okay, so it looks like I have a 5-minute cooldown between uses; not ideal, but I think I can work with that,” I said.

“So, I’ll have 5 minutes to kick as much ass as possible. Guess I better be efficient,” I said to Tiff with a smile.