“Detecting abnormal movement,” FH said.
The tactical screen turned some of the space monsters red because their movement trajectory changed to interact with ours. Like this, more and more turned red, but for some reason, only space monsters that were in smaller clusters seemed to be heading towards us.
My eyes flicked towards the mana detection device. FH was using that to locate all the space monsters, and all of them should have some mana sense, which might allow them to locate us.
There was a reason why we hadn’t slowed down after we exited FTL. Like this, we actually had a chance to escape quite quickly if things turned out to not be as described.
“Captain, what should we do?” Dean asked, but I didn’t answer immediately.
More and more information was collected, all of it being analysed and then made into usable data.
The final verdict was 712 space monsters. Some of the clusters around places where there still seemed to be some food had more than 100 individuals, but there were a lot of small clusters with only a few space monsters.
It seemed that food might have been a big problem, as they seemed to have been eating each other as well. There were plenty of corpses around the large clusters. There also seemed to be what looked like eggs.
“Can we focus on object designation B11?”
The tactical screen changed, growing smaller while the images we had of object B11 were enlarged. Our cameras focused back on it. It was a bit hard to get good video quality of what we were looking at, but we didn’t need video; we just needed to understand what we were seeing.
Clear images soon replaced the blurry ones from before. FH used our already extensive database to quickly find a match. The designation changed, confirming that yes, these were space monster eggs.
We soon had the magical signature for them, but FH was struggling a bit, as those signals were very faint. Moving up to the mana detection device, I placed my hands on the correct position and lent my superior mana-sensing capability to the efforts.
It was always strange to see the world around us filled with the splendour of mana. Nothing in the regular visual spectrum came even close to the vibrancy of what I was seeing now. Yet I pushed it all aside, focusing on the location of the eggs, understanding what types of signals they gave off, and then searching for those around the rest of the solar system.
FH was constantly getting information from my mind and updating our database. From there, other AIs took that raw data and started updating the tactical screen. We soon had the locations of thousands upon thousands of eggs.
“Oh, that’s bad,” I heard someone say, and they were correct.
The eggs seemed to be in multiple stages of life, some quite close to starting to hatch. As soon as I pulled my hands away, FH started to explain without me even needing to ask about the life cycle of space monsters.
“While there are some exceptions, almost all of the observed space monsters lay eggs. The incubation periods vary wildly, with some eggs even being able to go into hibernation for tens of thousands of years.”
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“While we didn’t have this information before, it’s easy to see that these space monster eggs have quite a short incubation. From what I’m seeing, I’m guessing about eight years. And they seem to be able to lay a lot of them.”
“How are they not a Black Threat?” Sam asked, and I was wondering that as well. FH had a quick answer.
“If you look at the tactical screen, you will see why.”
We all looked at it to see that each of the red space monsters now had a timer to them. Some of the closer ones had a timer displaying a month, while others further away were nearing a year.
“Why did they stop accelerating?” Bob asked.
FH started to explain it to them, but now I remembered. Some space monsters were only capable of accelerating to a certain speed and not being able to push themselves to go faster without exerting themselves.
It was because of the way they moved through space. Space monsters were basically creatures that utilised and knew how to manipulate space fabric. Most of them didn't do so consciously; it's like us walking and staying upright; they can just do it.
It seemed that these space monsters were the kind where their other biological ways of manipulating space fabric limited their maximum speed, most likely because of their absolutely overpowered defensive capability of diverting railgun shots.
Everything always comes with trade-offs. That’s why they weren’t a black-ranked threat. They would not be able to survive going from one solar system to another, as they would starve along the way simply because they couldn't move fast enough.
This was excellent news. “FH, prepare maximum engagement distance for hard-light weaponry flyby for the nearest space monsters. We don’t have months to wait.”
It took the AIs a couple of moments to calculate the best approach, but soon the ship was changing angles and starting adjustment burns. On the tactical screen, the times started to change, with one particular group of space monsters now having a timer of only two days.
The next two days the ship was filled with nervous energy. All of us knew that the space monsters could push themselves to move faster for a short while, so there was still some danger that they might somehow be able to catch us.
All of them were most likely starving, and starving individuals were always dangerous. Our fears were soon realised, because a couple of hours before they made it into range, they started to accelerate, with our trajectory lines now meeting at almost exactly the same time.
“Prepare the main engines for maximum burn. Turret AIs, you will only have a few dozen seconds; use them to the best of your capabilities.”
Time started to tick by slower and slower as the space monsters started to reach our maximum weapons range. Honestly, I had no idea how they thought this was going to go, because we were still moving so much faster than them and, well, physics were still quite the bitch.
The first of the four space monsters crossed that invisible line. The next moment, there were no singular shots to test out how effective our weapons could be. No, every turret with an angle to shoot fired and didn’t stop firing. They were giving it their all.
Not every shot was targeted at the space monster, as they could possibly dodge. Because of that, the entire space around them would be flooded with fire.
It all happened so fast, but the bolts of light hit its target, piercing through the defences of the space monster. While it took dozens of shots, the first one was dead just a few seconds after it started to get hit. It did manage to dodge a bit out of the way from the main volume of fire, but it was obviously not enough.
The other space monsters reacted almost immediately, but it was too late to do anything. They were killed in a similar fashion to the first one. Some of the replay showed that even our hard-light bolts were affected by their defences a bit, as we could see them bend just slightly from their targeted location, but it was not enough.
They were too far away for my innate ability to activate. Most likely, I would need some synergistic skill with FH so I could extend my range enough.
My thoughts were interrupted by us accelerating. That’s right, even though we had killed those space monsters, their bodies would still be moving quite fast, and we didn’t want to get hit by them.
Accelerating so rapidly was unpleasant. It would have also been enough to easily kill any normal human. I could now understand why some adventurer spaceships could accelerate up to 60G or even beyond that. We got tougher and tougher as time went on, and we continued to rank up.
“No point in wasting time. Our weapons work; let's plan the most optimal route to take out all the small clusters of space monsters. Also, Lola, let’s hold off on using that lure device, as a lot of them are already coming towards us.”
The trajectory of the corpses was noted. FH AIs were currently arguing about the optimal route while I focused on the few large clusters of space monsters and the space portal they came from. It not having collapsed meant that there were still space monsters inside. We would also need to clear that out.
Then there were a couple of destroyed space stations and other facilities. In the agreement we made, there was nothing about not being able to lose those places, but I already knew that there wasn’t going to be much value there for us. There was no point in stripping those places for materials, as those would be used to restart the economy of this solar system.
There were a couple of things that I wanted; number one on that list was radioactive materials. While we had quite a lot stored inside the power core, it was too little to run the ship off radiation as we could with the Mark I.
The trouble with fusion reactions was that they were quite easily tracked. While FH skills and our excellent containment, thanks to the nano machines, made that more difficult, I would still like the ability to completely hide from other sensors. That meant collecting more high-end radioactive materials that would otherwise cost way too much.
A couple of beeps informed me that the AIs had finished debating and were waiting for me to confirm the current route. Looking at the timer, it would take two months to finish off all the currently approaching space monsters.
“Not bad,” I said while approving the route. Almost immediately afterwards, the ship started to manoeuvre.