APEX's Upgrades (Part 1)

Transcript

Hey, where the hell do you think you're going? And don't pull none of that, oh, I was just going to the bathroom crap on me. There's a bathroom in the storage room and I've seen you use it three times already.

No, I don't watch you use it. I don't have a toilet kink, that's gross. Do I really look that deranged to you? What, you see a little space goblin such as myself and think, yeah, I bet he likes pee.

Oh, I'm sure you didn't mean it, just like you didn't mean to go snooping around for that crystal, huh? Don't know what I'm talking about. Yeah, sure, I've heard that one before.

From you, like every time I ask a question. What, do you know anything, two plus two, what the powerhouse of the cell is? How I was able to fit the best damn FTL jump engine on a ship of this size and not have it be at risk of fucking black holing us all into the next millennia?

One of those questions is not common knowledge, nor is black holing an actual term. Yeah, of course it's not common knowledge, because I'm the only one who's been able to do it. That doesn't change the fact that bigger ships, specifically from one corporation, are just as fast.

In fact, usually, FTL, and if you don't know what that means, then just imagine that I'm saying some fancy fucking space magic that makes it go zoop really quick, cause I'm not explaining it better than that, takes a crew of at least ten if they are really damn good, engineers constantly monitoring, and I mean 24-7 monitoring, to maintain its functionality and stability, which of course means that you gotta have at least 30 if you don't want them getting burned out and worked to death, which in itself implies a much bigger crew on board, cause those peeps gotta eat, sleep, and shit like the rest of us, or, well, like the rest of you at least. So I'm talking cooks, maintenance for the rest of the ship, hell, a cleaning crew, and that doesn't even cover the crew itself, so, ow, ah, fuck me, why? Oh, alright, alright, shut up, I get it, I get it, I'll get to the point, okay, why is a whole ass destroyer following us?

Don't you dare, you bitch. You worked on a stealth cruiser, you definitely know what a destroyer is. Destroyers have hangars that can carry cruisers, multiple ones, you probably took off from one, maybe even the one that's on our ass right now.

So either your ass is an empress of an entire planet, because I can't imagine who else would be so valuable that they'd send a ship of that size, or, or that crystal is worth just as much. Now we're not all useless and dumb and don't know anything like I'll ever believe that coming from you, and we've been poking around a little bit. That's no ordinary rock, I know that, it's fancy, it's advanced, it was created, not found.

Apex? Yes? What's the bounty on my head right now? 15 credits.

Oh shit, I totally forgot about that, that has to be from the grocery store that I held up for all their instant ramen. Fuck me, I thought I paid them back. You did, however, you also committed a crime by threatening them with a WMD.

You also paid them three months after the incident, not right away. Tits. I thought giving them a few extra credits would make up for that, oh well.

My point still stands, where's the bounty, huh? In case you didn't know, that corporation, hell I could call it THE corporation, I'm pretty sure it's the richest company there is at this point, has so much money that they always ALWAYS put a big ass bounty, sometimes alive but usually dead, on whoever they want. It gets done in days, that's how well they pay.

So what about us, huh? It's not like they haven't noticed. They knew instantly, they knew the second we boarded your ship, they probably knew a few seconds before that when I told them that we WERE boarding the ship, because it's fun to do that.

But my point is, this is so important that they want to do it themselves. Are you freezing up yet? Do I have to dumb it down even more? This is scary.

You should be scared. Do you know why? Because if you're telling the truth, and you knew NOTHING about the crystal, then guess what they're gonna do, huh?

Leave you, right here, with us. Doesn't sound so bad, does it? Not until they've extracted the crystal, and then blow us into a fine space dust.

Of course not, okay? Because if you knew nothing about it, well, now you do. And if this is so secretive and important that they are sending their own destroyer after us, you can bet they're gonna make that ship live up to its namesake.

You're as dead as us, alright? Now of course, maybe you do know something about it, and you're the best damn liar we have ever seen. So good, in fact, that you can perfectly mimic the internal signals of fear, such as your increased blood rate, dilated eyes, neurons firing across all your muscles.

Thanks for the constant monitoring, by the way, Apex. Even if it is a little creepy. I was built to monitor every signal, organic or synthetic, onboard this ship.

You are welcome. Sometimes I wonder why I do this to myself. What are we gonna do about it? I don't know.

Dying sounds kinda fun. My current plan is, uh, fuck around, find out. Yes, of course, I'm joking.

It's not my fault we're stuck dead in the water, well, the water's a space, anyway. If we could be moving, we would be. And then you wouldn't have to listen to me spew more shit, cause there'd be no trouble.

I said the destroyer is just as fast, not that it was faster. But someone blew our engine out in the firefight. Okay, fine, maybe it wasn't you.

You weren't a scientist, engineer, security officer, and now you weren't even a gunner either? What the hell were you doing on that ship? Anyway, it doesn't matter.

Ugh, yeah, of course you can help. That's why I'm here. I was gonna force you to if you didn't offer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, what can you do? Well, uh, I can repair most of it, but we need some extra parts, so Tor's gone out to get those. There's a station not too far away that somehow we're not already on the shit list for, so he'll make it back in time.

What do you mean how? Well, yeah, he's not flying there, it's a tiny ship, we can't fit another ship in our own ship. No, of course we don't have any space pods either, stop asking dumb questions, that's not important right now, okay?

Like I said, he'll be back in time, but, well, we can't actually repair it at all. Hey, don't freak out, alright? I can repair it, totally, I'm just physically unable to.

It's the engine, it's all external damage, I don't have a space suit, I can't go out there. Actually, I don't think any of us do. Hey, Becks, can you make a shopping list and set a reminder for two weeks? Done.

Make one? What, do you want me to tear this ship apart even more? Buy one? From me? Have you seen me? I'm a one-of-a-kind golden nugget.

Literally, my species hasn't been logged because I'm the only one. You think they'll have a space suit for me? Right, that's what I said, I can't repair it.

I know how to, but I can't. Yeah, yeah, I got a plan, okay? We gotta give Apex arms so that he can do it.

Yes, give him arms, I get that he's a disembodied voice, but he's the ship's AI. It'd be like giving him a little flying robot with a hundred arms or something to control so that he can move out there. Okay, well, to be honest, I've already made them.

I did a while ago for funsies, but never actually used them. Would you stop interrupting me? I'm getting there.

They've never been used, so they've never been calibrated. The work they gotta do is precise as hell. If he's off by even a few micrometers, he could do more damage than he would fix it.

No offense to you, buddy, you're fine the way you are. That'd be all on me for not setting things up right. None taken.

Thank you, Jax. Yeah, I gotta fine-tune their movements, exactly. Make corrections to the left and right, up and down, in and out.

How much pressure they apply, if they're too rough, they could clearly botch things, too. But I can't do it alone. I have to be actively checking the numbers and making adjustments, but at the same time, someone else has to be in front of the thing making sure they're moving.

Alright, I'll just say it. The more complex and fast the movements are, the better for the calibrations, and I think the best way to do it is to have someone fucking fight the metal tube arms while I basically control them. Please, please, I am not shitting you.

The others always laugh and walk away because they think I'm joking, but this is kind of a do-or-die situation, so. .. What do you mean you got a better idea?