Metallic Gremlin (1)
As befits a game set in the vastness of space, Space Survival was home to an enormous variety of species.
Some were intelligent races that built civilizations and lived in organized communities. Others, like Amorph, were pure predators that regarded every living creature as nothing more than food.
The real charm of Space Survival was that the game you experienced changed completely depending on which species you chose to play.
That said, as mentioned before, it was a game set in space. No matter which species you picked, you had to venture into the stars sooner or later if you wanted to progress.
So what posed the greatest threat the moment you first left the safety of a planet?
The community had long settled on two answers.
The first was the Spacedogs generated as NPCs.
They were a type of hostile NPC, programmed to relentlessly target player ships. And since they were NPCs, killing them accomplished nothing — they simply respawned, endlessly.
Which meant that for players fresh into space, the first great challenge was figuring out how to protect their hull from Spacedog raids.
The saving grace was that unless you ran into one of the upper-tier cartels, Spacedogs were hardly difficult to put down — provided you had a proper warship and adequate armament.
So no, the Spacedogs weren't the true threat.
It was the silver plunderers of the void — the Metallic Gremlin swarms. The event that spawned them en masse as NPCs was the one countless players feared above all others.
Of all the things that could have triggered... it had to be that.
I'd known there was a very slim chance a Metallic Gremlin swarm could appear in I-97. The odds were roughly those of winning the lottery, so I hadn't worried much about it. This was not how things were supposed to go.
This is bad.
The white cloud — no, the Metallic Gremlin swarm — was closing in fast.
It only looked like a cloud because thousands of silver-skinned Metallic Gremlins were packed tightly together.
Judging by its scale, this was at least a mid-sized swarm. For a single ship, countering one was all but impossible.
Should I just sit tight?
Right now I had eroded and assimilated the pirate ship Calvin, making it my own.
Metallic Gremlins went after metal and metal alone, so with a stroke of luck, they might pass me right by.
...No.
The risk was far too great. If I let them approach and they swarmed me anyway, it would be over on the spot.
Granted, a ship fused with my body had defensive capabilities well beyond an ordinary vessel, but their numbers were overwhelming. Thousands of them at minimum — more than I could hold off indefinitely.
I have to fight here.
There was no choice but to engage, watch for an opening, and escape into faster-than-light travel. Simply running immediately might seem the smarter option, but that was easier said than done — because of what lurked mixed into that swarm.
The Warpboy.
Among the Metallic Gremlins' higher-tier variants was a creature called the Warpboy.
The Warpboy possessed no special combat abilities whatsoever — just a single innate power called Warp Guide. But its effect was devastatingly potent.
Mass teleportation, of all things.
In this game, every form of instant relocation was restricted — a ship's FTL jump, the Spirit Attunement Code Black had used, all of it.
Spirit Attunement couldn't be performed alone, FTL travel burned enormous amounts of energy, and so on.
But exactly two creatures in the entire game could teleport large groups across space with no restrictions at all — and the Warpboy was one of them.
Certain Vortex Ones could pull off unrestricted mass teleportation too, but you didn't meet those until the extreme late game.
Far more threatening was the Warpboy, a creature you could run into right from the early stages.
Still, a mid-sized swarm is a mercy.
Large swarms — or the colossal gatherings known as a Great Herd — carried multiple Warpboys. A mid-sized swarm had only one.
Kill that one creature, and the swarm could be shaken off entirely.
[Zzz zzzzzz (Everyone, I need your help)]
｢What is it?｣
[Zzzzz (Enemies)]
Less than five minutes remained before the swarm reached us.
That was how long I had to get everyone ready to fight.
First, I explained to Adhai and No. 26 how we would engage the enemy.
[Zzuuuuu zzzzz zzzzzz (Adhai, keep them at bay)]
｢Understood.｣
[Zz zzzzz zzzzz zzzzz (You're still growing, so only fly fast when you need to dodge)]
Adhai, the only one among us capable of aerial combat in open space, would take the field directly and intercept the enemy head-on.
And No. 26.
[Zzzzz zzzzz (Scare them)]
｢Make them scared?｣
No. 26's role was to freeze or disrupt the swarm's movements.
Metallic Gremlins had incredibly tough bodies, but almost no resistance to psychic power.
Swarms of large scale or bigger included individuals that could shield against psychic attacks — but this swarm had none.
[Zzzz zzzzz zz zz (If either of you is in danger, hide here)]
I restructured the hull, creating cover and access points so Adhai and No. 26 could take shelter inside the ship whenever they needed to.
After sending them off, I moved every Stormgun the pirates had left onto the outer hull.
They'll work fine on motion-detection autofire.
Those that had burned through their ammunition or were running low on battery, I swapped out using the erosion tentacles.
With the new machine-gun emplacements finished, I built one more turret of my own design — one that incorporated my traits.
A biochemical weapons platform that spat fungal spores, built around the Rot Fungi Organ.
Short effective range, so this one's for mid-to-close combat.
With a final check of the plasma turrets complete, I turned my attention back to the Metallic Gremlin swarm.
They would be inside the plasma turrets' effective range within moments.
[Zzzzzzz (Everyone, ready)]
｢Yes!｣
｢Me｣｢Ready｣｢Complete｣
I channeled energy into every plasma turret mounted across the hull.
Destructive power enough to cleave a ship in two — a ship that could operate untroubled even in the barren void — surged through the alloyed emplacements.
Fire.
Countless green heat rays lanced out at the swarm, streaking across the dark like comets set against the night sky.
Comets trailing green tails pierced the bone-white cloud. Dozens of Metallic Gremlins oxidized under the plasma barrage — yet far more of them surged forward to fill the places their dead kin had left empty.
｢■■■!｣
The enraged swarm came hurtling toward me. I scanned their ranks, hunting for the Warpboy.
It's usually buried deep in the swarm.
It would have been lovely if the plasma barrage had killed it outright, but things never went that smoothly.
As if to prove me wrong, a faint flicker of blue appeared near the swarm's outer edge — and a heartbeat later, the creature vanished into its depths.
There you are.
The Warpboy was smaller than an ordinary Metallic Gremlin — barely fifty centimeters — but its body was marked with blue glowing stripes.
Which made it reasonably easy to spot, even at a distance.
Catching it with the plasma turrets won't be easy.
That last movement had been quicker than I expected. Unless something had a firm grip on it, pinning the Warpboy down would be no simple feat.
I have to wait until No. 26 can cast Fear of the Deep Sea.
That didn't mean I intended to let them approach unopposed, of course. I recharged the plasma turrets.
Energy was still building when the swarm abruptly began to stain blue.
Warp Guide!
I frantically focused my will on the thrusters at the ship's rear. The energy flowing toward the turrets diverted into the drives, and the entire ship lunged forward.
Reload the turrets while advancing!
From the darkness astern, the Metallic Gremlin swarm burst out trailing blue light — directly into the waiting guns I had positioned exactly for a rear attack.
Green and blue paint smeared together across a black canvas that swallowed every photon.
The two lights clashed — and the advantage went to the blue cloud, the Metallic Gremlins. They had accomplished exactly what they set out to do.
｢■■!｣
｢■■■■!｣
The Metallic Gremlins clung to my tail.
Up close, their shabby appearance was laid brutally bare.
Hairless, seamless silver skin, and a face that was nothing but a sucker-mouth — watching the things bare their teeth and come charging was not a pleasant sight.
The moment they entered effective range, the Stormguns mounted along the outer hull roared to life. Depleted uranium shells hammered down on them like a storm.
Their hide could shrug off laser weapons without a scratch, but against a Stormgun it was another story entirely. No hide could endure shells the size of a grown man's palm detonating by the hundreds. The Gremlins closing in on me burst apart one after another, their signature silver blood embroidering the darkness like a scattered Milky Way.
｢■■! ■■!｣
But the Metallic Gremlins showed no sign of giving up. If anything, the blood of their kin only whipped their ferocity higher, and they came after me with greater fury than before.
Next — the plasma cannons.
The cannons mounted on the hull fired first.
Having been hit twice in a row, the Gremlins scattered instantly, as if determined never to take a third hit. Only the slowest few were reduced to ash inside the green plasma rays.
While the overheated turrets cycled through their cooldown, the swarm came charging in again.
It's not over yet.
Judging they had come close enough, I readied my next weapon.
From the elongated turret port on the ship's upper hull, fungal spores sprayed out.
｢■■■?｣
The Gremlins couldn't seem to tell whether this unfamiliar substance was an attack or not. Unopposed, the spores drifted deep into their midst.
Like balloons full of flour, the spore sacs burst — and the rot fungi latched onto the creatures.
｢■!｣
｢■■■!｣
The ugly faces of the infected Gremlins twisted as the black mold consumed them. Unable to bear the agony, they threw themselves onto their own kin — and as they did, the fungus spread further. A vicious cycle, feeding on itself.
Good. If this keeps up — damn it!
I was still savoring how well it was working when the Warpboy responded. The bodies of the infected glowed blue, and in the next instant they were dumped far out into open space.
Some among them hadn't even been infected. The Warpboy didn't seem to care.
｢■■! ■■■■!｣
I fired the spores again, but this time the creatures kept well clear of the projectiles' trajectories — as if the Warpboy had warned them off.
...It's smarter than the game version.
The Warpboy's mind was sharp. Its tactical adaptation was solid, and its command over the swarm was genuinely skillful.
But still...
I still had hidden cards left to play.
Amid the flashing Stormgun fire and plasma rays, a green flying shape burst from my hull.
｢Hunting｣｢Begin｣
Adhai, the Green Gallagon. She tore through space faster than any Stormgun round and raked the enemy with Purple Lightning.
The Metallic Gremlins, defenseless against psychic power, convulsed under the bolts of arcane lightning. The paralyzed ones were finished off by depleted uranium shells and plasma rays.
｢■■!｣
The Warpboy tried to teleport part of the swarm right next to my hull. The moment a handful of Gremlins began to glow blue, what I'd been waiting for arrived.
There it is.
The terror crawled up from the deep and closed around me.
From the space beneath the hull, hundreds of tentacles, each rivaling a planet in scale, erupted upward. Crushed by that incomprehensible size, the entire Metallic Gremlin swarm froze at once.
And beyond the tentacles, from the very heart of that galactic abyss, an enormous eye emerged and began to watch them.
｢■■!｣
｢■■■!｣
Panicked, the swarm descended into chaos. The creatures had no eyes of their own, so what they felt would be nothing like the image I was seeing.
But Fear of the Deep Sea acted directly on the mind. They would feel the crushing scale of those planet-blotting tentacles through every fiber of their bodies.
Far more terrifying than anything they could see.
｢■■■....｣
Just as I'd predicted, several dozen of the frozen Gremlins broke away from the swarm. Their hearts had simply stopped, dead from encountering terror so far beyond comprehension.
It wasn't cowardice. Even knowing exactly what it was, I'd felt my blood run cold when those tentacles rose from beneath me.
Then the vision of the tentacles vanished in an instant.
No. 26 had tuned her power so that its influence wouldn't touch me or Adhai.
But because her control over the ability was still clumsy, a portion of the Metallic Gremlins — the Warpboy among them — shook free of the illusion.
｢■■■■!｣
The Warpboy apparently expected me to open fire, and tried to shift itself deeper into the swarm.
I couldn't afford to wait any longer. I fired the cannons in haste.
The long green rays lanced through the swarm. One sweeping beam caught the Warpboy's arm and reduced it to ash wholesale — but the creature still lived.
｢■■■!｣
The Warpboy's body began to glow blue. It was going to flee.
Not yet, you don't!
The hull transformed at my will in the space of a breath. Thick clusters of elongated tentacles erupted from the bow of the eroded ship.
The newly grown tentacles blazed violet all at once.
The Monster's Tentacles blooming from my ship drew not only on my psychic power and energy but on the reserves stored within the hull itself.
A monstrous concentration of energy gathered at the prow, coalescing into a violet sphere. Its scale was on a different dimension from anything I could manage in my true body.
The resplendent essence of psychic power, burning purple, sat poised above my hand.
Even the Gremlins who had escaped No. 26's illusion stared blankly at the beautiful sphere of energy I had wrought — like moths transfixed by a flame, drifting helplessly toward their own burning.
Adhai, seeing the psychic sphere blaze like a second sun, hurried back toward the hull to get clear of the Psychic Breath's blast radius.
｢■?!｣
The clever Warpboy realized what I was about to do and began preparing a jump.
But instead of its own body glowing, the Gremlins around it lit up blue.
In the same instant, the violet sphere compressed into a single line — and split the void.
Half of the white cloud before me vanished without a trace, as though it had never existed at all.
But I had no time to celebrate.
Damn it!
In its final moments, the Warpboy had cast FTL travel over its kin.
The creature itself was vaporized to dust by the Psychic Breath — but its kin had succeeded in leaping through space.
｢■■■!｣
Half the Metallic Gremlin swarm slammed down onto my hull.
The fight was far from over.