Espionage 1
Espionage 1 will allow you to control a reconnaissance drone. This unit is capable of stealth and will allow visual and audio surveillance.
Warning
Currently several decks remain unclaimed and until such time those advantages will not be available.
THERE WERE several options which were unfamiliar. Command and Espionage were completely new, and what had previously been Manufacturing seemed to have been renamed to Engineering.
The extra options were fairly underwhelming. Espionage would provide little that the Research upgrade couldn’t, and the Command upgrade was nothing I couldn't achieve simply by paying attention. Still, my ability to multitask had been somewhat hampered since my upgrade to a biocomputer.
The two that really stood out to me were the Research and Engineering upgrades. I'd put off anything related to maintenance until this point and it had hurt me. On the other hand, SCIENCE.
As is right and proper, SCIENCE won. I assigned the point.
Two science drones materialized. They were bulky, hovering disks laden with equipment, quite unlike the sleek spheres of the military drones. I dispatched both into the jungle.
It was time to meet the neighbors and subjugate them to my will. This was my ship now and I had to make that clear. While my observation systems might not be working on the other decks I had no problem with communication. I sent a message to the central research console informing them to appear on the Command deck.
An acknowledgment response didn't take long to arrive—they were scientists. They were likely as curious about me as I was about them.
THROUGH MY CAMERAS I saw three come up the stairs. Two men and one woman, all in lab coats marked with a bat sigil and wearing thick goggles that obscured their features. They were more dangerous than they appeared at first glance. While their clothing beneath the lab coats looked typical, my scans were identifying it as some sort of anti-ballistic weave.
They paused at the top of the stairs before stepping onto the deck.
"I am Doctor Batavius, coming as requested. Do you guarantee safe passage for me and my companions?" the woman said.
I didn't, of course. Fortunately I had no compulsion against lying.
"Are you literally as blind as bats? How disappointingly silly. Do come in, I can't guarantee you won't bump into any walls, but I won't kill you," I said. That was even true, I'd have Hot Stuff do it, if it came to violence. My flame cannons were strictly a backup precaution.
"Oh, good. An AI with an attitude, why has no one ever thought of that before?" asked the woman with droll condescension, moving on. It wasn't her first time here, she knew the way to the throne room.
I'd manufactured up a table and chairs for the meeting. Anna, Mechos, and one of my drones would be on one side, with the delegation on the other. Hot Stuff and Ophelia were on guard duty.
The doctor and her companions made their way inside and took seats at the table.
"I'm Anna," Anna said, sticking out her hand.
"I don't care. Let the important people talk," said Batavius.
Anna gave a strained smile. "I'm the Queen of the World."
"Then you're doing a terrible job. Does the smart one have a name?"
"I'm Mechos," Mechos said.
The doctor peered at him and leaned forward to study his mechanical arm. "You have an upgrade core and are choosing to be a mechanic, not an engineer. No, I'm definitely not talking to you either."
"I'm Emma," I said through my drone’s speakers.
"There you are," said Batavius, reaching over the table and grabbing my drone to turn it over and examine it. "A military model. Really? Is this thing even upgraded?"
"The science drones are off in the jungle studying interesting wildlife, instead of a crazy bat who is already pushing her luck," I said.
"As they should be." Batavius released my drone which quickly hovered away.
"If you are quite done making enemies of all my allies by somehow managing to be even more unlikable than Anna, I called you here for a reason," I said.
"I'm likable," Anna said.
"Visualize the impossible and then try to make it a reality. Perhaps you have the soul of a mad scientist at least?" Batavius said. "And I imagine you want control of my deck, to gain my loyalty, so on and so forth. Will you get rid of all the damnable magic?"
Anna looked like she was about to get punchy. I quietly materialized a plate of cookies.
Anna reached for one and the doctor slapped her hand away.
"If you're our new queen, you’ll have none of those. I'm not going to spend a decade researching ever-stronger thrones. We'll have no repeats of Lord Sluggicus."
"I am not Lord Sluggicus," Anna said, her voice strained.
Batavius explained, "He had an ooze core which let him absorb things. Powers, memories, buildings. Rather useless fellow, but great at expanding an empire—for a time. It got quite ridiculous at the end."
"Anna manages to absorb cookies and lay about doing nothing even without an ooze core. It seems to be a natural ability. It sounds as if you are accepting my proposal then?" I asked.
The doctor waved her hand airily. The two others remained silent.
"I've no desire to be the queen myself. You seem quaint and ill-designed, and your associates charmless half-wits, but I'm happy enough to support you until somebody better kills you off," said Batavius.
As she said this I felt a newfound rush of power in my systems and my awareness expanded into the deck below.
The Research deck was something like an alchemist’s laboratory, walls covered with arcane sigils, a vast library, tables filled with an array of bubbling beakers and tubes. The magical runes were already starting to fade.
Including the doctor and her two companions, there were a total of a dozen researchers.
I began reconfiguring the deck at once to put in proper testing labyrinths and converting the mystical libraries into genetic facilities.
I wasn’t given long to focus on those changes. At the other end of the ship we had some new visitors to our deck. They looked nothing like researchers.
There were a half-dozen in total, both men and women, wearing heavy body armor marked with a wolf’s head on the shoulder, and carrying assault rifles.
"You are as wise as you are insulting,” I told Batavius. “Now, we've got Wolves on the way. Tell me about them."
Anna pushed back from the table and accepted a rifle from Ophelia.
"They're vulnerable to fire, right?" Anna asked.
Batavius replied, "What a delightful fantasy world you live in—where you can afford to eat cookies and your attackers can’t defend themselves against the things to which they are supposedly weak.”
Anna slammed the butt of her rifle into the doctor's face, who cried out as her nose broke.
"I'm your Queen, show some damned respect. Ophelia, heal the old bat," Anna said, tipping over the table.
The Wolves were heading straight for the throne room. They'd been here before too. I doubted the timing was a coincidence. They’d waited until they could neutralize the leaders of two decks at once. I'd see them pay for trying.
4
The Wolves paused outside the door to the throne room and one threw something inside.
Batavius, still bleeding from her nose, took a small device from her pocket and tossed it. It rumbled through the air leaving a trail of fire and hit the Wolf’s grenade. An explosion of black goo from the device dampened the flash and detonation of the grenade. What should have been a massive blast became instead a damp fizzle.
The Wolves weren't deterred. They were already advancing into the room, spreading into the corners and opening fire on anyone upright. They were aiming for headshots—they weren't trying to take prisoners.