Uninvited Guest (3)
The engine is disabled, and I just finished cutting the comms. Not a bad start.
The wrecked communication equipment before me spat out one last spark and went silent. I let the tangle of cables and wires I was holding drop to the floor.
Thanks to No. 26 hiding in the garbage processing bay, disabling the security of the communications room had been easy. I slipped in through the window while the security androids stood frozen in the EMP-like aftereffects of her psychic blast.
She could keep her power up, sure.
The only reason I was doing this the hard way, kicking things apart myself, was that the enemy might be able to trace the psychic residue she left behind. Even the APDs came with tracking functions as a backup to their psychic suppression.
My hiding place would be found eventually anyway, but getting caught this early would be bad.
With every machine in the room wrecked, I pushed open the door of the comms room and stepped out. The androids, still not rebooted from the EMP effect, stood slumped with their heads hanging loose.
No. 26's psychic power didn't produce a real EMP — it merely mimicked one. In a few minutes, everything would be back to normal.
Of course, by then I'd already be long gone. I set off toward my next target.
Originally, after crippling the engine, I'd planned to hit the drone management station rather than the comms room. That facility was unique to Star Union — no ship belonging to Mega Corp or the Cult had anything like it.
Star Union relies heavily on its machines, after all.
Star Union ships look like rectangular boxes bristling with spikes, and the longest cylindrical spike near the top or bottom center is the drone management station. As the name suggests, it serves as the control center that manages the ship's drones and androids.
Destroying it wouldn't shut down every drone and android outright — their ultimate overseer was the ship's central computer. But it would degrade their operations. In other words, without the drone management station, hijacking the ship became far easier.
That was why I'd meant to make it my second target after the engine — but then the situation changed dramatically.
I was clinging to the ceiling, upside down, crawling toward the drone management station when I sensed a shift in the movement of the drones and androids. The machines that had been outside the ship were pouring back in.
There was only one reason drones busy with repairs would return in the middle of a battle: the fight was over. Once it ended and they prepared to return to their point of origin, they'd need to enter faster-than-light travel, so they'd recalled every drone aboard.
It ended earlier than I expected.
The moment I realized that, I swerved toward the comms room and scurried along, sending a ripple to No. 26 telling her to start breaking the ship's machinery.
The timing was just right.
Before wrecking the communication equipment, I'd glanced through the comm logs. The last entry was a transmission to the flagship — most likely reporting that the FTL engine had been destroyed.
If I'd cut the comms even a little later, they would definitely have called for reinforcements.
The uniform vibration tingling through my hands and feet, and the heat far more intense than before, told me the ship's thrusters were roaring at full power.
They had clearly chosen to withdraw to the safest system they could reach and effect repairs on their own.
And that's the captain's biggest mistake.
Instead of requesting a repair ship or support forces, he'd decided to fix it himself. That single choice sealed this ship's fate.
Cut off from all outside contact, with limited means of escape—
An ideal playground, as it happened.
｢Do you see this? This is not collision damage.｣
｢Captain, it looks like there's something else aboard this ship besides us.｣
"……"
Keynes-Q, who had reviewed the transmitted footage through his neural cables, let out a low groan.
First the engine, then the comms, and now the drone management station has been neutralized too.
He knew exactly what that pointed to.
Ship 98 was under attack by an unknown entity. And not from outside the hull — from within.
"There's really no way to restore it?"
｢The circuits were doused in some kind of acid solution. They're completely melted. Full restoration of the drone management station will take at least six hours — possibly as long as twelve.｣
"And the comms equipment?"
｢About the same.｣
In other words, with bad luck, they'd be sitting blind and deaf for twelve hours. The thrusters at least were undamaged, so moving to another system posed no problem — but he could not afford to relax.
He had no idea what purpose drove the thing aboard this ship, but its hostility toward them was unmistakable.
Damn it. I got complacent.
He had a rough idea where the creature had come from. The bio-ship — the very reason the Nemea Fleet, to which Ship 98 belonged, had come to the JP-99 star system. The uninvited guest must have boarded his ship when they collided with it.
"Send all available repair drones and androids over there, for now."
｢Understood. Thank you, Captain.｣
"And has anything shown up on the surveillance systems?"
｢Strangely enough — nothing. Not in the comms room, not in the drone management station. No camera caught a single thing.｣
Star Union officially professed atheism. To androids built from metal parts and synthetic muscle-fiber modules rather than flesh and blood, the afterlife meant nothing at all.
Keynes-Q, a cyborg, didn't believe in ghosts or superstitions either — yet for this one moment, he genuinely wondered if a ghost was behind it all.
"Ship 98. Did we confirm where the EMP originated?"
｢Insufficient trace data for confirmation. Only that it was generated internally.｣
"So it's somewhere inside this ship. Mix cyborgs, androids, and drones into squads of three and set up standing guard rotations."
｢Insufficient cyborg personnel for full hull coverage.｣
"…Tch. Fill the gaps with Screamers, then."
｢Confirmed.｣
Just hold out for twelve hours. That was what Keynes-Q believed.
He learned that this was a fatal misjudgment three hours later — when every camera and light fixture in the ship's corridors went dark.
"Damn it! Only the cameras and lights are out? Don't tell me the reactor's been hit too!"
｢Reactor nominal. Malfunction in the wiring infrastructure. Cause estimated to be external interference.｣
"And despite that, nothing showed up on the cameras? Is that supposed to make sense?"
He couldn't comprehend it.
This ship carried hundreds of cameras — high-performance units equipped not only with standard surveillance but with thermal imaging and a full suite of vision modes.
Particular care had been taken to eliminate blind spots around critical facilities.
And yet nothing had been caught. That was flatly impossible.
He strained to make sense of the incomprehensible situation — but the true disaster was only just beginning.
｢Alert: Cyborgs 31 through 35, stationed in the wiring infrastructure zone, unresponsive. No biosigns detected.｣
"What?"
He hurriedly pulled up the biosignal data for his cyborg crew. Ship 98's computer had spoken the truth.
Five of the cyborgs' signals had gone dark.
The uninvited guest had begun its assault in earnest.
｢All guard squads, prepare for boarding action! Use every weapon you have — just kill the thing, whatever it takes!｣
"Son of a bitch!"
"Vision mode switched."
"Defensive posture ready."
The six combat androids reacted the instant the order came down.
They looked far more mechanical than Mega Corp's androids, and their performance was better for it.
Mega Corp, haunted by a past machine uprising, harbored deep fears about robot development. Star Union labored under no such constraints, and so its war machines had been improved without cease — quadrupedal walkers, models bristling with five arms and two heads, and more.
The combat models, fully optimized for war and long since abandoned human form, activated their mounted weapons. Every one of them carried a Heavy Launcher — a weapon that took the Stormgun's firepower and rate of fire and multiplied it explosively.
Resembling a multi-barrel rocket pod, the Heavy Launcher could vomit a staggering volume of fire through its multiple muzzles in an instant — but its accuracy suffered badly. An unmodified cyborg could barely control the recoil, which was why Star Union androids were its primary operators.
Though in a battlefield like this — a one-way corridor with nowhere to dodge — that low accuracy hardly mattered.
"The moment you see it, open fire!"
"Confirmed."
The two cyborgs, three apiece flanking either side of the corridor, took up their drone control terminals. Normally they would have joined the fight themselves, but with the drone management station out of commission, that was no longer possible.
Fine control over the drones required managing them directly through the terminals, as they were doing now.
The moment the cyborgs worked their terminals, spherical drones bristling with three gun muzzles each rose into the air.
Star Union support drones. In a situation like this — hunting an unseen enemy and reinforcing the androids' vision — they were exactly the right tool.
Finally, the cyborgs adjusted their own eyes, which had been replaced with special cameras, and switched to thermal vision. The corridor was pitch black, and nothing could be seen with normal sight.
With every preparation complete, the two cyborgs tensed and stared hard, one down the corridor ahead, the other behind.
The corridor lay in the characteristic gray wash of thermal vision, utterly empty — not so much as an ant to be found. It was so still that it was hard to believe anyone was out there hunting them.
There was no sound either, only the faint hum of metal from the hull and a thin static hiss. Perhaps it was the atmosphere of the place — but somehow, that hiss sounded strange to him.
Wait. Static?
The cyborg covering the rear wanted nothing more than to focus on his watch, but the unidentifiable noise kept nagging at him. It was as if somewhere in his modified brain, a warning was firing: Don't miss that.
Eventually, he fine-tuned the system responsible for his hearing.
The sounds came through louder now. It was like something soft and yielding scraping against hard sheet metal.
What is that?
It reminded him of the sound his bare feet used to make on the floor, back before he'd had his legs replaced. His gaze began to turn toward the direction of the noise — when suddenly his partner up front smacked his shoulder.
"What?"
"Shh."
His partner thrust out a finger, pointing to the far end of the corridor. There should have been nothing to see but darkness — yet from that distant end, the faint warmth of a living body was bleeding into view.
A heartbeat later, dozens of small heat signatures began closing in on them fast.
"Damn it! Open fire!"
"Heavy Launchers active."
From the six grotesquely shaped androids came an avalanche of rounds. A terrifying weapon, spitting depleted uranium shells — each one devastating on its own — at over a hundred rounds per second, it tore into the creatures without mercy.
"Beep. Evasive targets detected."
"Engaging."
The things — no, the things — scrambled along the walls and ceiling, weaving through the gunfire.
But that was precisely what the drones were for. The moment the androids opened fire, the hovering support drones streamed real-time data on the creatures' movements straight into their targeting systems.
The fight was over quickly. Confirmed kills, the androids ceased fire, and the two cyborgs stepped forward.
"Wanted a look at the thing, and this is what we get."
"Yeah, no kidding."
Aim a Heavy Launcher at a man's head, and his head and upper torso simply cease to exist. Nothing that had been hit by those weapons had left so much as a recognizable trace.
The largest remaining piece was the upper torso of one of the creatures.
"Ugly-looking bug, ain't it."
"For a bug, those teeth are way overspec'd. Look at that dentition. That's not even human."
"Ugh. Hope I don't see that thing in my nightmares."
Examining the corpse fragments, the two of them shuddered at the grotesque sight.
"There could be more of these bastards. Let's report in first, before—"
The cyborg about to contact the captain froze mid-sentence.
That noise had reached his ears again. His gaze drifted toward the ceiling, where the sound was coming from.
The drones… they're gone.
The three drones that had been hovering there moments before were nowhere to be seen.
He whipped his head around to warn his partner —
And in that instant, something warm splattered across his face.
"...Hk?"
Then came the sound of his partner choking. Through his thermal vision, he watched his partner rise slowly into the air — and split cleanly into three pieces.
"K-kill it! Kill that thing!"
Horrified, the cyborg scrambled back behind the androids.
But to his order, the androids gave no response at all. They stood placid as lambs — hard to believe these were the same killing machines that had been unleashing indiscriminate devastation seconds ago.
"Fire! Shoot it! Kill it!"
"No target detected."
"Unable to fi— gyaaaaargh!"
One after another, the androids met the same end as his partner. Something invisible tore into them with merciless fury.
One of the five-armed androids had its limbs ripped away, synthetic petroleum gushing down onto the floor, while the quadrupedal model was smashed apart at the waist, its halves slammed into the wall and ceiling.
The broad corridor, which had smelled of nothing but metal, was abruptly thick with the stench of blood and fuel. That acrid reek jolted the panicked cyborg back to his senses.
R-run! I have to run!
He bolted down the corridor, desperate to put as much distance between himself and the thing as possible. As he ran, a sound drifted faintly to his ears from far away.
Gunfire.
The same thing was happening elsewhere in the ship.
H-hide! I have to hide!
His eyes caught a door along one side of the corridor — a ration storage bay for cyborg combat rations. He flung the door open, slipped inside, and pressed himself into a corner.
In-in here, I should be safe!
Cyborg combat rations reeked almost as foully as their trademark tire-like taste. With a stench like this, the thing would never find him.
Crouched low, holding his breath, he felt hyper-aware of every sound from outside. The gunfire he'd heard until the moment he ducked in here still hadn't stopped.
Which meant things on that end were going no better. He swallowed hard.
Somebody, please, come find me!
Had the Great Leader Jubaka heard his prayer? He heard the storage bay door begin to open. His eyes snapped to the doorway — but nothing was there.
Why can't I see anyth— wait.
A sudden, sick premonition swept over him. Carefully, he deactivated his thermal vision. In its place, he switched to a mode that linked his hearing and sight together, letting him perceive objects through their vibrations.
As his vision shifted, a new world unfolded before his eyes.
The combat rations he'd knocked over in his panicked scramble inside. Racks of neatly stacked boxes. And — a tail, forked at the tip into two prongs.
A tail?
His eyes traveled up the tail, past the massive pincer at its end.
Four thick, powerful legs braced against the floor alongside it — like the tail, armored in hard carapace and covered in bristling fur.
Above them, a heavy torso and four muscular arms. Each ended in four sharp claws, sheathed in chitin and dense muscle — arms that had shredded androids and cyborgs to ribbons, weapons in their own right.
And above all of it, there was a head.
A long, Coldblood-like snout, a massive crest of carapace sweeping back along its spine, six imposing horns — ｢it｣ was staring straight at him.
"Impressive. Turns out you can't hide from vibration, after all."
Even though an ordinary woman's voice flowed from its mouth, he could find no comfort in it.
Because the ｢thing｣ before his eyes —
Was already spreading its two-forked jaws wide and closing in on him.
Having made quick work of the cyborg in the ration storage bay, I picked up the combat rations scattered across the floor.
Cyborgs don't taste great, I have to say.
The meat itself was passable, but all those mechanical components made every bite grind and crunch unpleasantly. Like gnawing on a rack of ribs that was all bone and no flesh.
How about these, then?
I tossed a combat ration into my mouth without even unwrapping the packet.
Mmm. Underwhelming.
Star Union's combat rations tasted even more bitter and astringent than the 100% cacao I'd eaten once before. Flavor-wise it beat the Mega Corp calorie bars, but the texture was considerably worse.
I'll save these for after I take the ship.
The plan for seizing the vessel was to implant parasites in the captain and the handful of cyborgs who looked useful, and proceed from there.
There were two reasons to go about it so tediously. The first: in case cyborgs from other ships tried to contact this one. The ship had dropped out with a supposed malfunction, so the flagship might call in at any moment.
Though honestly, the bigger reason is that I can't use my Erosion Tentacles.
In truth, that was the biggest reason of all. Without the tentacles, corrupting the ship with Nightmare Horizon was impossible too.
I can't even confirm whether it's a valid target for erosion in the first place.
To claim the ship, I'd have to release my Clever Underdog state and seize it with the Erosion Tentacles. And Organic Evolution, my transformation ability, had a cooldown of a full month — nothing to sneeze at. So my plan was to minimize the risks aboard the ship as much as possible before taking control.
Shall I go clear out the rest?
I left the storage bay and moved along the corridor. From far off, I could hear the sounds of No. 26, Adhai, and Mother of the Sky cutting loose.
Everyone must have been bored.
Once the corridors were cleared, gathering the pack to seize the key facilities together wouldn't be a bad idea.
As I moved along, thinking this, I sensed something stirring just ahead. Soon it revealed itself, wheezing heavily.
｢Kuuuu｣ ｢Kuuuu｣
A Screamer.
The earlier battles had proven that androids and drones couldn't detect me. The cyborg I'd just eaten, however, had been aware of me even before the fight.
I can't hide sound or vibration.
Fur of the Unknown Creature worked by having the micro-vibrations of my fur jam observational equipment, keeping me invisible to sensors. It did nothing to muffle the noise and tremors of an actual living body.
Using my enhanced suction pads, I moved as quietly as I could — but as long as I was a creature of flesh, I couldn't erase sound entirely.
A Screamer, though — how would it—
｢Kuuuu｣ ｢Enemy detected. Eliminate.｣ ｢Kuuuu｣
Ah.
Contrary to my hopes, the Screamer's bloodshot eyes locked onto me.
The monster — half human, half machine — came charging at me on six metal legs.