chapter 185

We were approaching yet another space portal. This time, we will be testing out a new launching system for my scout drones. We had lost a few of them in different incidents during this portal-clearing madness we were doing. This, however, led to a big discovery that changed quite a lot and improved our offensive capabilities even more.

FH’s Expansive Swarm skill was the best skill any of us had, simply because of how much space it added to the ship. This deep storage came with a lot of restrictions, as in the beginning, you could barely store anything else but drones there, and even now, this limitation was quite firm, but not as much since FH ranked this skill up.

We had always had trouble with storing enough missiles to properly use them as an offensive weapon. We still had plenty, but they were to be used situationally, as we simply didn’t have enough to use them in regular engagements.

Missiles were incredibly versatile and powerful, but their biggest problem was how much storage space they needed. The missile-looking scout drones were the key. They had enough drone-like qualities to be accepted by the deep storage skill. A bit of testing and modifications showed that every missile could be stored in there.

It added a bit of cost to every missile made, but the benefits outweighed the negatives by a huge margin. We also managed to build in a complex launching system that could simultaneously deploy eight missiles at a time and reload them pretty fast from the storage racks.

Launching them was also easier thanks to this skill's ability to open doorways at any location in or outside the ship. We now have an omnidirectional missile launcher that could appear and disappear at a moment's notice.

With our factory capabilities, it wouldn’t be too hard to make new missiles. All of this extended our effective engagement range by an incredible amount. It would also mean that I needed to properly start designing better missiles, as the current ones were a bit too basic for my liking.

Another thing to add to the list of my ever-expanding to-do list.

Finally, the deep scan of the area around us was finished, with nothing out of the ordinary found. “Launch the scout drone,” I said, but as soon as I finished speaking, FH interrupted me.

“Wait, Captain,” she said. It was strange, as this was the first time she had done anything like that, but we weren’t in a hurry. Almost a minute later, she finally spoke again. “There’s trouble, Captain.”

She sent me information that truly was troublesome. There was another black threat call that was almost in range.

“It’s estimated opening time is a bit out of our range, but only by a day or two. We can also pretend we didn’t see this notification on the quantum net.”

That might be a good idea, but a black threat was a serious problem for everyone. Although, wasn’t it a bit strange for there to be another one?

“Is this the second black threat after the last one, and we happen to be close by, again?” I asked FH, a bit annoyed at our luck.

“Actually, no, Captain. There have been two others, but they were too far away. One was in the Canyon of Death, the second largest red zone, the other in a smaller red zone up towards the northern parts of the galaxy.”

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So many of them. This was annoying, and from the looks of it, it would take us away from our correct destination. “What type of threat is it?”

“A moment, please. It’s a Varani fortress. Those are so dangerous that the ones in charge of clearing the portal have chosen to wait until the portal breaks, as assaulting it with its entire fleet supporting it would be a suicide mission. There is information even about their history, do you want to hear it?”

“Yes, all of it,” was my simple answer, as I needed to know everything to make a decision.

“They are an incredibly warlike species. Their size category is small, but despite their extreme xenophobic worldviews, they are incredible engineers. When they discovered the wider galaxy, they were well behind the technology curve, but in a century, their ships were better than any other in their galaxy.”

“What followed was brutal and endless war until their species conquered their entire home galaxy, exterminating every other spacefaring civilization. They tried a few unsuccessful attacks on a neighbouring galaxy, but even those were brutal wars.”

“So they still own their own galaxy somewhere out there. Could it be trouble to kill them?”

“No, captain, they were wiped out. They kicked out the Adventurers’ Guild from their galaxy, which put them on a watch list. They managed to hold back from attacking protected planets of still-developing civilizations for about two centuries before they broke the most important universal law and started exterminating and conquering every remaining habitable world in their galaxy.”

“The Adventurers’ Guild called an exterminatos on the entire species. They have only done so a few times before, and that time was as spectacular as every other time. Nearly 90% of eight galaxies' worth of space adventurers were collected. It wasn’t an easy war, but their species was exterminated from the universe.”

Holy shit. The scale of it all was difficult to comprehend. FH continued to feed me information about the ships of this species. In ground combat, they weren’t that impressive, but their ships surely were.

One of their fortresses was basically an independent war machine that not only protects an area but was also a spaceship factory. If they had enough resources, one of those fortresses could be used to conquer quite a large swath of territory.

The numbers currently registered for this black threat were huge. It was because the space portal was quite close to the edge of the red zone we were in, and close by was a pretty busy FTL current. The propaganda indicated that this was going to be a fight that we were going to win.

“FH, dig up more information. I want to know what the real situation is.” In about half an hour, she had a better picture, and it wasn’t the best news.

“There are two Dukes already in the system, with a lot more heavy hitters either there or on their way. But there are four other Dukes heading that way with huge fleets that they have gathered that aren’t set to arrive for about two or three weeks after the portal has broken.”

“There are two options: either they’re coming there to help destroy the fortress inside the portal, or they expect the first fleet to fail.”

“That was my conclusion as well. Also, captain, as a side note, the species and their fortresses and fleets are considered pirates.”

“So, you think there is actually something to my nickname?”

“I don’t know, captain, but I’m guessing we are going?”

“Yes, even if we can’t help in the first fight, this is still a black threat. Set course to that solar system.”

“As you order, my captain.”

The stats of the enemy ships were quite excellent, but they should be a step or two below the current Forward Horizon. This should make us one of the heavy hitters in that fight. The journey there was going to take nearly two months, and we were going to drop out of FTL a couple of times to get more information.

My sixth sense was warning me that this was going to be a difficult fight, but it wasn’t screaming for me not to go. That was good enough, as a black threat classification, especially for an S-ranked portal, wasn’t something to be taken lightly or left to fester.

The notice went out to everyone about our change of plan, and immediately Bob, Dean, and Sam contacted me, but not Lola, for some reason.

“Captain, we aren’t fully stocked for such a battle.”

“I don’t think we are required to answer this one, are we?”

“That’s why I argued we should head straight for the Four-Leaf Station. That way, we would already have purchased all our skills.”

“Yes, I understand we aren’t fully stocked, but we have plenty in reserve for a big battle. We are so close to the cut-off point that some may argue that we should have answered the call. And yes, Sam, it is unfortunate that we don’t have full sets of skills for you all, but things like this can’t be predicted.”

They all once again spoke up in unison. I spoke over them in a commanding voice. “We are going, that is not in question. Tell me your worries, and we will see how we can mitigate them.”

We discussed things for quite a while. By the time we were finished, we had been in FTL for a while now, but Lola still hadn’t joined our meeting. This was no longer a curiosity but something that worried me.

She was in her workshop, seemingly working on something. In front of her looked to be a young or a small tree. She seemed to be fussing over it quite a lot. Was she close to finishing one of the tech trees?

She had managed to grow trees like this before. None of them, unfortunately, was able to produce what we were looking for. The seed technology was quite complex and making them bio-cybernetic was another step of complexity. Then, making them produce what we need seemed infinitely more difficult.

Before I could contact her, she spoke through our bond with me. “Captain, I think I’ve done it.”