Chapter 100
Chapter 100
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 100
Chapter Title: Ep. 100
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“Stax? No signal coming through on this end.”
“What? I can’t hear you! Say it again!”
“Fuck!”
As soon as communications cut off, Milo spat out a curse in frustration.
“Hey! Can’t we get comms back up?”
“I’ll check.”
Everything had been fine until they passed through the docking port. The signal chips on their spacesuits showed up clearly, and aside from a bit of static, communications worked without issue.
But after they boarded the ship, one by one they vanished from the detectors, and then comms went dead.
“The signals are transmitting fine, but it looks like something’s interfering in between.”
“Can’t you fix it?”
“Uh, well... we might need to go in and handle it directly.”
Send more people in, knowing what might have happened to the ones who went first?
Just cut our losses?
Milo wasn’t the type to value his crew’s lives like your average Space Dogs cartel boss.
Still, Stax and Justin are a waste to lose.
The first mate had run smuggling ops with Milo for years, and Justin was a decent engineer—a rare commodity among the Space Dogs.
As he debated whether to abandon them, a subordinate in the situation room called out to him.
“Captain, we’ve got a signal.”
“Yeah? Who?”
“It’s Justin.”
Speak of the devil—even wolf gods answer prayers. Justin’s blip appeared on the detector.
The light on the detector was drawing closer to the docking port side.
“Didn’t he head to the engine room? Why’s he coming back?”
“No idea.”
“Switch to the docking port camera.”
A camera feed popped up on the bottom of the situation room’s main display.
Moments later, Justin walked into the docking port.
He’d ditched his transparent helmet somewhere—his dazed face was fully visible on camera.
“Huh? Why’s he not wearing his helmet?”
“Holy shit! That bastard’s got a bomb!”
Justin was holding the bomb Milo had given the first mate with orders to blow the ship if there was nothing worth salvaging.
“If it goes off inside the docking port, the damage will be massive!”
“I know that, you fuck! Hey! Get the speakers on!”
Milo grabbed the mic and yelled at Justin.
“Justin! What the hell are you doing?”
Justin froze mid-step, clutching the bomb in a stupor.
“Where’s Stax, and why do you have that bomb?”
To Milo, Justin didn’t look in his right mind.
For starters, it was suspicious that he had the bomb meant for the first mate. And wandering the ship’s interior without a helmet, who knew what was in there?
But if the guy set off that bomb in the docking port, the Calvin would take heavy damage for sure.
“Hey, hey, what’s so scary? You’re a pirate, kid—what’s there to be afraid of?”
While talking to Justin, Milo gestured to his crew.
They needed to seal off the entire sector connected to the docking port on the Calvin.
“Forget it. Put the bomb down and come talk. Yeah?”
“What?”
Justin suddenly spouted nonsense, stared straight at the camera, and let out a creepy laugh.
“What?”
“Wait—!”
Justin laughed maniacally, his mouth splitting wide, and hit the detonator switch.
Before Milo could stop him, the bomb exploded, shaking the hull violently.
Done. The moment I felt the vibration through the ship, I prepared to bail. Rescue first. I’d restructured the ship so the explosion site connected in a straight line to the engine room and where the kids were. The black walls squirmed, reshaping themselves, linking the space with Specimen 026 and Adhai to the engine room. Specimen 026 was cracking open a spacesuit helmet and shoving dozens of tentacles inside. Adhai had removed the helmet and was sucking blood. They spotted me and waved hello.
Of the enemies who boarded, about half fell into the traps I set and became history.
Some thrashed around trying to escape, but Specimen 026 and Adhai took care of them.
Lucky the Assimilation Tentacles can trigger Predation Effects too.
An Aimorph’s Predation Effect doesn’t activate just from eating dead bodies.
To be precise, it only works on creatures I kill and consume. Same for evolution conditions like hunting intelligent species—only ones I kill count.
Samples from crude gene extraction tech don’t count as ‘killed by me,’ though.
Anyway, after assimilating with the ship and killing enemies with traps, then eating the meat triggered Predation Effects without issue.
Got some fun fusion traits out of it, but I’ll check those later.
Time to reshape the ship.
The wall in front of the engine room vanished, exposing open space.
About fifty meters away, I could see the pirate ship’s hull. From the shattered docking port hole, debris and pirates inside were getting sucked out into the void.
I released the Assimilation Tentacles.
A sense of loss hit me as I lost connection to the ship-wide senses—and the black gelatinous coating enveloping the vessel rapidly withered and shriveled.
I planted my legs and kicked off hard.
My enlarged body, armored in chitin, swam through space.
Specimen 026 followed, propelling itself with fins like me. Adhai flew leisurely beside it, perfectly at home in the vacuum like a space dragon.
Ahead loomed the massive pirate vessel in full view.
Damage looks pretty good.
To blow the docking port, I’d hijacked their engineer Justin with a parasite.
I had two goals.
First: Punch a hole in the enemy hull so I could infiltrate safely.
Their ship bristled with plasma turrets and sensors that could detect me clinging to the exterior.
To sneak in, I needed to distract them and create an entry point.
Justin handled that.
The bomb’s power exceeded expectations, leaving a nice big hole. That let me achieve my second goal easily too.
They won’t be doing FTL jumps for a while.
Goal two: Prevent the pirate ship from warping away via FTL.
I knew there was a pirate hideout nearby.
If they FTL’d to it, I’d be at a disadvantage.
To stop that, I needed to make them hesitant to fire up their light-speed engines.
Ships don’t run FTL with hull damage unless they have to.
It wasn’t impossible, but FTL stressed the hull. Botch it, and the ship could split apart mid-jump.
They might risk it in a war, but not now.
Without patching that hull breach, they wouldn’t dare use the engines.
Anyway, both objectives complete.
We slipped into the broken hole without issue.
I hit the deck running down the sector’s corridor without stopping.
Not done yet.
Had to cross before the surrounding bulkhead doors sealed.
Specimen 026 and Adhai landed right behind me and followed without hesitation.
Far down the corridor, a bulkhead door not fully closed yet.
Cameras.
Through my auxiliary organs, I sensed the surveillance cameras beyond the door.
While sprinting, I extended Assimilation Tentacles to smash them.
I’d have to face the pirates eventually to take the ship, but no need to get spotted early.
After wrecking the cameras, we barely slipped through the bulkhead.
Infiltration successful.
They’d send repair crews soon. Had to move.
While controlling Justin, I’d asked him about good hiding spots on the pirate ship.
He said it was a Star Union freighter retrofitted—decks 1 and 2 were all cargo holds.
Normally stocked with animals or goods for sale, but after finishing a deal on the way back, some holds were empty.
Goods on deck 2, deck 1 empty.
No valuables meant lax security—guards slacked on patrols. Perfect hideout for me.
We’re on deck 3.
Going straight would hit cameras 100%. Rear sealed by bulkhead; only way was forward.
That’d likely run into repair crews.
Blast through the floor.
Drop to deck 2, then circle around.
I sliced my arm, dripping acidic blood on the floor. The metal plating sizzled, toxic smoke rising.
Being this big sucks for this.
The hole was big enough for Adhai or a shrunken Specimen 026, but not me.
I bled more to enlarge it faster, then gripped the melted edges with my combat arms and ripped it wide.
Hole’s plenty big now.
They’d chalk it up to the explosion in the isolated sector.
They’d figure out it wasn’t blast damage eventually, but by then, all hell would break loose—no one’d care who made the hole.
I sent Specimen 026 and Adhai down first. Nearby, I sensed human movement.
Pirates in spacesuits heading here to fix the damaged sector.
Test the new trait?
I considered it briefly but noped out.
Nah, plenty of other ways.
Tipping my hand early wasn’t smart.
Instead of the new trait, I hit one pirate down the corridor with Dread Stare.
As they rounded the corner, the middle one freaked out in terror.
“A-aaah!”
“What’s with this guy?”
“The darkness! The darkness is devouring us! Gaaah!”
While the others calmed their shaking comrade, I finished melting the floor and dropped below.
Countless containers, large cryo pods, rectangular cages with alloy bars—facilities for animals galore.
Auxiliary senses picked up stairs that way.
We bolted toward them, disabling the stair camera with barbed hairs.
Only after hunkering down in a dim corner of the deck 1 cargo hold could we catch our breath.
Good. Now for phase two...
As I pondered next moves, a boom echoed from above.
The ship’s plasma turrets firing.
Target: the ship I’d abandoned.
With their scout team dead and ship wrecked, the captain must be pissed.
Enjoy that chair while you can.
It’d be mine soon enough.
“They fucked this place up good.”
“How do we even patch this?”
The Ruthrak Cartel engineers sighed in their spacesuits.
“Captain’s pissed, so we make do. Hurry and I’ll handle the exterior—you take the interior, Cooper.”
“Got it.”
Cooper gripped his metal injector to repair the ship’s interior damage alone. The man-sized welder-looking tool was standard for fixing massive structures like ships. Link alloy plates to it, and liquid metal extruded from the tip to weld damaged areas. While working the injector for a good while, he noticed something odd.
“This ain’t from an explosion.”
The hole in the floor before the bulkhead had melted edges, like acid had been poured. He peeked below to check. A hand shot out from inside, grabbing his helmet.
“!”
He couldn’t even scream as he was yanked into the hole. Only the lonely metal injector remained where Cooper had stood. Minutes later, Hurry came inside from exterior repairs for a break.
“What? Where’d that bastard Cooper go?”
Seeing the injector abandoned by the big pit, he tilted his head.
“Cooper! Where you at?”
“Down... be... low...”
“Why’d you go down there?”
No reply. Hurry waited for him to come up, but no sign. Reluctantly, he jumped down into the pit.
“Hey! What’re you doing in the cargo hold?”
“This... way...”
The cargo hold had minimal lighting to avoid agitating smuggled animals. Hurry knew that, but even accounting for it, this was way darker than usual.
“Lights out?”
Not sensing anything off yet, Hurry followed the voice. Came from the stairs? No creatures or cargo stored on deck 1 currently. Figured Cooper was slacking; he headed down without suspicion.
“Cooper?”
Deck 2 had seemed dark, but deck 1 was another level. Even for dim-witted Hurry, venturing alone into pitch black took guts.
“Cooper! Too dark—can’t see shit!”
He yelled, and a white light flickered on far away. Realizing it was a helmet lamp, Hurry relaxed and followed it.
“What the hell are you doing way back h—.”
He found the eagerly awaited Cooper. But not how he’d imagined. No helmet. More precisely, no head to wear one on. So where was that light coming from? Hurry’s gaze traced the beam upward. At about 5 meters up, four long fingers held Cooper’s helmet.
With those words, the helmet light went out.
All that remained was suffocating darkness that swallowed even death cries.