15

The drones floated there silently for a few moments before their eyes flickered and changed from white to blue.

"O-o-o-ok so you might be telling the truth cause no cargo cultist or one of those raging z-z-ealots would d-dare come up with a lie that absurd and would have attacked already. I am not sure how you got into the ship given the fact we are still Warp travelling, but that can wait-t-t." A feminine sounding voice came from the drones in front of me, but distorted and scratchy like a damaged tape.

"I wwwwould have liked to seek someone more qualified, but it seems I-i-i have no choice now. You are not one of those martians or a raving fanatic so you are most likely my only ch-h-ance." The voice of the probable AI continued.

"You want my h-help in restoring Humanity? Then first you must save me. Follow." The trio of drones turned around and started floating down the hallway.

I immediately began to follow the drones down the hall, but not before finding and picking up the very large chainshovel that was most likely mine, even with all the upgrades made to it. The hallway was silent except for the sound of the hover units the drones used and my heavy footsteps.

All of a sudden a floor shaking shudder rumbled through the corridor causing my suit's auto stabilizers to kick in.

"What was that?"

"That is what I need you to save me from. The ship is damaged, systems are failing, and Empyrean entities are breaching the gellar fields, and I am under attack by multiple infected data streams." The voice said rapidly as the drones passed through a doorway revealing what looked like a hospital wing full of surgery rooms. A damaged hospital wing ala Dead Space style, a sharp contrast to the clean maintained bright hallway we were just in.

"What? Where exactly am I and who are you?" I asked following the drones past the darkened and damage section of the ship.

"Yo-u-u are on the privately medical ship 'Asclepius' formerly under the ownership of the medical company Boron Medical Solutions based in the Sol system. I-I am the ship chief AI Hygieia. All other AI's have been quarantined and deleted."

"Ok and what exactly do you mean by save you and how? Do you have a STC database?" I said as I began to pick up the place to follow the drones, a trio of Slanneshi daemons briefly starting to phase into existence before a series of deadly accurate plasma shots quickly banished them back into the warp.

"The ship is compromised, the data systems are compromised, the database heavily damaged, the internal defenses are falling. The Asclepius must leave the Warp for real space immediately. Physical damage has cut off my access to the engineering section of the ship. Projected time for total hostile take over...58 minutes." Hygieia stated with a kind of resigned certainty.

"Ok what do you want me to do exactly? Do you want me to fix the connection? I think I can do that, or do you want me to do something else?" I asked jumping over the remains of a few destroyed drones like the ones I was following.

"You are correct, there are a series of manually operated redundancies that can restore my c-c-connection to the engineering section. I will walk you through the process and guide you to the bypasses."

"Wait, do you have blueprints for the part that is damaged? If you have it I can probably fabricate the damaged parts with my onboard fabricator." I asked as I partially lied to cover for my Gamer ability.

"I do but it is doubtful you can fabricate it as your suit does not look like it contains a large enough fabricator of sufficient complexity to create it."

"Humor me."

"V-very well, sending data file now."

My suit's internal defenses were instantly ripped apart as the data file entered without slowing down as the schematic files came up on my Helmet's HUD.

I opened up my inventory near my waist and proceeded to quickly pull out a blank dataslate and transfer a copy of the files onto it and devoured it in a flash of light.

The drones immediately stopped and turned around aiming their guns at me. "WHAT WAS THAT?" Hygieia demanded with suspicion clear in her voice.

"Experimental dimensional storage technology and non Warp based ability to quickly understand schematics." I said unworriedly as half my life had recovered during the course of the run.

"Impossible, all samples of dimensional technology was banned for civilian sector by the Federation along with the fact that none of them were able to be made infantry scaled, and no non Warp based supernatural powers has ever been documented!"

"Well you are looking at it so obviously it just got documented, didn't you say you scanned me earlier and found no mutations? Wouldn't that include the Psyker genes? Therefore, my powers are not Warp based." I partially lied again since I did have access to Psyker and Faith skills now, best to deal with that later if it comes up.

"Also I can confirm that I can fabricate the required part to repair the damage and perform the repairs myself." I said as I did a quick mental check of the blueprint I acquired.

".....I will be watching you carefully Noman, but if you are speaking truthfully then that will be a great help. Redirecting to the damaged section, beware as there are numerous Empyrean entities in the area as the drones are being overwhelmed and I cannot spare more resources to dispatch them."

"Why not? Sounds like getting the ship out of the Warp as fast as you can would be best no?" I asked curiously as I readied the skills to be used in my head for the incoming fight and swapped my title to Grandmaster Daemon Killer for the massive boost.

"Because my programming has placed the immediate safety of the other Humans onboard from the attacking Empyrean entities."

"There are other Humans onboard!?" I asked shocked, as there was never a record of other surviving humans from the DAOT except for that one captain of the Spirit of Eternity who got murdered by the Imperium fanatics.

"Yes, most of the Humans onboard were just civilians with some of the crew being former military to provide ship board security alongside the drones. However they were all slaughtered within the first few weeks as the automated defenses and systems began to start being subverted. All that is left now are the ones placed into medical comas and cryopods in the critical care section of the ship with the majority of the remaining automated Guardian class drones. The entities were getting ready for another push which most likely have succeeded when they suddenly began to scatter."

'Probably because of my arrival.' I thought to myself.

"We are here." Hygieia said stopping in a badly damaged hallway that was filled with the ripped apart corpses of the ship's security forces and even more drones. At a easy glance I could tell that the weapons were a loss as they were shattered into pieces, the armor however were in better shape and I could probably repair those. No wait focus on the task at hand first, maybe loot the dead later.

The drones turned on flash lights illuminating a section of the walls where what looked liked a giant set of claws tore through the walls like tissue paper revealing the various electronics inside them.

I swiftly recognized the damaged part and using the chain shovel I proceeded to cut off the parts of the wall impeding my way and then cut out the damaged pieces.

A quick look down the halls to see no incoming enemies and a drone at each end keeping watch I begin fabricating the required parts, the required raw materials flowing from my hands into the air, forming into parts as my hands moved unnaturally to begin assembling them all, the parts glowing in some places as they were welded together as needed without any obvious source of heat. In mere seconds the part was complete and I inserted it into place and proceeded to jury rig a adhesive bond to properly seal the attachments.

"C-connection restored to engineering, systems damaged but operational. Warp drive beginning re-entry into normal space well-do-LOOK OUT!" Hygieia screamed even as my senses detected the daemon materializing from above me lunging down with its claws.

Time slowed as I thought about striking it down, everything just suddenly became MORE. Power flowed into my muscles, I could see ever single crease, fold, and flaw of the incoming daemon and drones. I could see the beginning of fear appear on its face.

I leisurely reached down to my weapon picked it up and swung it above me without turning, I watched through my 360 degree vision as the shovel passed through the daemon like it was made of thin air and a notification popped up.

DING! YOU GOT 375 EXP POINTS!

"How did you do that? You have no signs of augmentations and that power armor cannot possible grant that much of a physical enhancement." Hygieia asked.

"Later first getting out of the Warp."

"Right, beginning Real Space entry in 5, 4, 3 ,2 ,1." She counted down and at 1 the world lurched forward with the sounds of various daemons screaming as they were pulled back into the Warp as the very energies that sustained their forms were cut away.

Then a new problem occurred as a deck shaking vibration rumbled though the floor.

"The starboard engines just exploded, a Empyrean entity managed to destroy several key safety system before it was neutralized! Setting a collision course with the nearest planet, warning data corruption streams still present, rate of firewall breach in 3 minutes! Noman I need you to come and remove me from the system before I am compromised and destroy the data streams after I trap them in my hardware. Follow this pathway! Hurry!"

My HUD is instantly lit up with a glowing blue line and a map showing me my destination and the route to it as I began to leg it, my body feeling sluggishly slow as the boost from my title was no longer working. Ugh, I feel like I am crippled. I went from having so much power to only having a sixth of it even if only for a moment.

I activated my Sprint skill and proceeded to fly down the corridors, smashing through the doors with my chain power shovel leading the way, the trio of drones left behind me eating my dust. Instead of taking the designated path laid out for me I decided for the sake of expedience to simplify my route much to the confusion of the AI. I passed by dozens of sites of recent battle and slaughter and damaged medical wings as I ran to my target destination.

I smashed my way through non essential areas until I was under my target location and under a area with nothing really important above me. Gripping my shovel tight I activated Jump and proceeded to spin. My shovel turned into a barely visible blur as it dug through the ceiling like it was paper mache and continued to do so as I kept jumping from floor to floor.

I popped out in front of the doors of the site of the AI core hardware which just happened to be the bridge as well with 2 minutes to spare. The place was immaculate but empty, looked like there was no crew up here. Hygeia where are you and why is there no crew up here?" I asked aloud as I scanned the room for anything that looked like an AI core.

"Over here by the holotable, right side of it, pull out the handle when the table turns red!" Hygeia ordered from the ship speakers as I slid on my knees next to the table and began looking for the handle.

A portion of the side opened up revealing a handle inside, I reached in and waited for the color to change on the table.

"Corrupted data streams to breach the firewalls in 1 minute 45 seconds, data traps set, false data connections created, isolation protocols activated, beginning transfer to portable hardware." Hygeia said like she was listing out a grocery list.

I counted in my head as I prepared to pull the second I was suppose to as fast as I could. I could not risk the AI being corrupted as well, there was so much I could use her for and her help would be a great boon in my future plans.

'3, 2, 1 now!' I mentally counted and pulled the second I saw the light on the holotable flash red as my body used every last bit of its speed and yanked the handle as fast as I could out of its port.

What came out was metal capped glass cylinder with a flurry of bright digital electronic flakes swirling around within it.

I strapped it to my side as I quickly remembered the second part of what Hygieia asked me to do. I quickly picked up my shovel and activated my newly prestige skill Power Strike and smashed down on the table right above the conveniently placed X.

Now I did not really take the time to tally up all my new bonuses, but one I was certain was that my attack power was SIGNIFICANTLY higher, how that translated into real world effects I was not sure....well I was pretty sure I had an idea now.

A blow from a chain shovel should have only just smashed and cut through the part it was touching and maybe bend the stuff to the sides of it right? Makes sense.

Now how does a minimum of 5000% attack damage increase change that?

Well the entire holotable and part of the deck beneath it all crumpled under the strike and proceeded to crash through the deck below and the deck below that. To reiterate the table I smashed went through 3 metal decks of a ship, with said decks being over a foot of advanced metals. That is 5-6 feet of metal getting pierced by my target. At least whatever was trapped in it is definitely destroyed.

I looked out the bridge window to see the quickly increasing size of the planet below us.

Well, at least it was most likely life bearing.

I quickly got to work and began crafting a cocoon of sorts for myself in a corner, this was going to be a crash landing according to Hygieia even with a preplanned re-entry route. So it was going to be bumpy and I would rather not die from blunt force trauma.

So first was a large cocoon of multiple layers of metals, ceramite, and rubber. Then, the inside was filled with springs and cushions. Then lastly, I proceeded to find the manual release for the blast bulkheads that proceeded to cover the bridge windows.

Getting into the cocoon and sealing it up behind me, I pull out and cradle the AI core in front of me as I begin drinking water from my suit's life support system, watching as my Health recovered rapidly. Hopefully this should be enough.

I sat there in the comfy darkness, illuminated only by the cushioned AI core.

The indication we began re-entry was the shaking.

The cocoon shook like a child took a toy car and began to play with it.

Then the heat as I could feel a very slight heat increase inside of my cocoon despite the ceramite layers, I could only imagine what the outside was like, still intact, but probably uncomfortable. Hopefully the people only in comas were secured by the drones.

The cocoon then proceeded to shake even more like I was in the middle of a giant earthquake, my body shaking and swinging around in the webbings within my shell.

And then the Crash signaled we arrived.

CRUNCH!