The interior of the ship was far from utilitarian. It had an aesthetic that called out to Duke as if it had been grown together. Surfaces were smooth and accented with gold and brass vines intertwining to form the feel of an inviting garden. He half expected to see a garden gnome waiting for him.
Sar Borglyn clapped Duke on the back before being muscled out of the way by the much shorter Granhok. “You may control the whole of the Foundry, but the ships and shipbuilding is mine. Thank you very much. Now, stand aside while I show Duke around.”
The albino minotaur all but pushed Sar Borglyn back out the doorway before the larger minotaur shook his head, barely missing scraping his exaggerated horns on the sides of the doorway. He left the pair to explore the ship on their own.
“As you can see,” Granhok continued without missing a beat, “we have not just made utilitarian machines. We have made artwork that flows with deadly purpose. Each ship is more capable than anything else known of its size.”
“How did you all manage that? People have been building ships for…for a really long time. How did you manage to jump ahead of them in such a short span of time?”
“Ah, follow me and I’ll show you.” The smile of pride that spread across the minotaur’s face took Duke by surprise. Whereas the minotaurs of the dungeons were expressive enough to be lifelike, there was still something different about a truly living being. Duke was not sure if he would have picked it up without his Class and Abilities as it was something subtle and he could not put a finger on it. He absently filed it away to forget about looking into later.
They traversed a number of corridor and larger areas. Although the ship was automated enough to operate with only a single pilot, it was built for a much larger crew including marines, mechs, and other spacers. Duke started to ask about it but was interrupted as they came to the center of the ship. Granhok indicated a door that was all but seamlessly concealed in a hallway.
“This is the heart of the ship and the reason our ships are like nothing else out there. It will open for you and not many others.”
“Would it open for you?”
“Yes, it would,” he answered proudly.
Duke placed his hand on the door that was so well worked into the vinework that it was practically invisible. With an effortless silence, the door rose up into the wall, revealing a room that absolutely did not meet Duke’s expectations.
He stepped inside, exploring it with his eyes before he dared touch anything. The room itself was shaped as a faceted sphere with the facets being about a meter in diameter. The center of each facet had a vine extending inwards towards the center of the room where they all connected to a pulsating core. Or, as Duke looked closer, he realized that it was not a Mana Core – it was a Dungeon Core!
“Yes, our ships are powered by Dungeon Tech. The entire outer surface is essentially a monstrous Mana collector and the heart of it all is a single Dungeon Core.”
Duke was speechless. He had just destroyed a fleet of ships that were made out of warped Dungeon Cores. He wasn’t sure how he felt about this. He stared at the Core, trying to wrap his head around the implications when the Dungeon Core spoke to him.
“I see you are concerned, Emperor. While I appreciate your concern, I am quite happy with this arrangement. I will gather Mana from among the stars while protecting my crew. Together, we will annihilate those who would prey on us. All the time, I will continue to grow stronger and when my mission is complete, I will dismiss my crew and plant myself in just the right place to grow outwardly. Then I can feed and grow just like my brothers and sisters.”
“I’ve seen your brothers and sisters warped into ships to ferry about and protect the Dungeon Core harvesting operations of the Syndicate. I’ve had to fight them and pulled what was left of those Cores out of the ships themselves. It was ugly and terrible.”
“I understand, but I have not been warped into the shape of this ship. I am still the Core you see before me. I just have access to the entire ship through my connections. I can feel through them, but they truly can’t affect me. I draw Mana through them true enough and can send it back out if needed, but the ship is not me. There is no warping of Cores here.”
Granhok added, “Because the Cores are so connected to the ship, they can help fight and defend the ship through their same connections. For example, any Mana-based weapon that strikes the ship will be blunted as the Core absorbs as much of its Mana as possible immediately. Sure, that can be overloaded if sufficient attacks are applied, but it’s a massive step forward in ship defenses since most ships out there operate on some sort of magitech and have Mana-based weaponry.”
Duke nodded. “So that’s where all the automation is coming in then?”
“Yes, I can operate the entire ship myself should the pilot and crew become incapacitated, but we decided to not make that bit public. Most think that we are some sort of sophisticated computer or magical construct with a form of intelligence. We felt it better to not disabuse them of that misconception.”
“Good call. I have no idea who is training our pilots let alone who the pilots are. So much of this seems to have slipped past my control and I’m not comfortable with it all.”
“Emperor, your orders were to prepare for war. That is what we are doing. You cannot possibly oversee even a small portion of what is going on in here so trust in us to get it right. When it comes down to it, you will have no choice anyway. There’s too much for any one individual to control. The best you can do is set us up for success, provide direction, and let us do our jobs.”
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Duke decided not to continue arguing because the Dungeon Core was right. He couldn’t control everything, but he would control what he himself did and that would be enough. He knew that the Syndicate would be sending more trouble his way. What form it would take he wasn’t sure but he was not going to let his guard down again. Attacked from behind. Stupid rookie move. I am better than that!
The conversation dwindled after that and Duke finished the tour of the ship on the command bridge. S Duke stepped onto the bridge, he saw the single chair that dominated the center of the room. It was built like a cross between a lazy-boy and the seat from his fighter jet. He did not realize he had moved but the warm familiarity of the seat’s cushions took him in soothing him with the sense of home that he had not had in so long.
His mind soared through the sky, engines burning fuel as they pushed him deeper and deeper into the cushioning of the seat, commanding the world around him like only an air superiority fighter could. The sense of control and wonder flowed over him once again. It was the most comfortable and enlivening sensation and he reveled in it. The controls spread out before him, all within easy reach but he also sensed that they could be controlled through some sort of other interface that he was not ready to explore. Instead, he just sat back further in the chair and enjoyed it.
But it only lasted so long before reality kicked back in. He climbed back out of the chair and looked over the rest of the bridge. There were stations for the typical functions including navigations, communications, engineering, and weapons. He checked each station briefly, assuring himself that they could be easily understood and operated. Satisfied, he stepped back, nodding at Granhok.
“You approve?”
“You bet your ass, I approve. This is great!”
“Would you care for a demonstration on integration?”
“Do we have the space to do it here?”
“One or two combinations, sure. We would have to take the ships outside to do more than that. Are you ready for that?”
“No, I don’t think we are ready to show these ships off to the rest of the Cosmos just yet. What is the production time for one of these ships anyway?”
“Start to finish, we have gotten it down to nine months, but we can work on building multiple ships at once. So, our production is a bit better than three ships a month.”
Duke did the math in his head and after a few rounds of equations, he nearly slapped himself because it was a simple one-hundred-to-one time ratio so the more than three ships a month translated to over three hundred a month in reality. He smiled at the number but stopped himself, unsure if that would be enough. There were just too many unknowns for him to process.
“And they are all the same design?”
“Yes, the same design. It’s much easier to produce them like this. We will eventually get our build time down to one a month or possibly less as our crafters continue to level up their Skills. We only have a few Master-ranked crafters and they are focused on the final assembly. Making sure that the connections to the Cores are an extremely complex and delicate task. If the Cores themselves didn’t fortify the connections afterwards, this design would be too delicate to put into combat service.”
“OK, let’s see how they combine.”
“Very well. Go ahead and take the pilot’s seat.”
“I’m not trained on this ship.”
“That will make this an even better demonstration.”
Duke settled into the pilot’s seat once again and engaged the controls. His neglected Starship Pilot Skill sat at Untrained 1 and did not provide him with much insight in how to operate the ship. Despite that, the controls seemed relatively intuitive and he was able to get the ship started up without difficulty. He heard Granhok on the Communications system calling to another pilot to take his ship up for a combination demonstration.
Duke moved his ship to an open area of the hangar and saw on his displays another ship quickly moving to join him. He was still cautious on the controls, getting a feel for how the ship moved. It was very different from flying a jet where there was a single source of thrust that could be somewhat controlled aerodynamically. This ship had an entirely different method of movement.
Duke had no idea how it worked, but it wasn’t using thrust as he understood it. Instead, it applied some sort of 360 degree directional vectoring that allowed him to control the motion of the ship in ways that even his FLYING Ability didn’t match. He could literally move the ship in any direction regardless of its momentum. The more he got used to the controls, the more cautious he got with maneuvering the ship. He knew that he could crash this ship into others in an instant.
The call came over the comms system right to him, “OK, hold steady right there.”
Duke stopped all motion of the ship.
“That’s perfect. Look for the notification of a request to merge and accept it please.”
The notification was hard to miss, flashing bright red on the display in front of his eyes. Duke accepted the request and his ship rapidly shot towards the other, completely out of his control. After the moment of panic passed, he realized that this was by design. The two ships paused momentarily before they slammed together into a whole.
There was clearly some form of magic involved because one moment, Duke was grasping the arms of his chair in a deathgrip and the next, there was another pilot’s chair sitting next to him. The other pilot cackled with glee.
“That never gets old. What a rush. Even more fun than strafing a carrier!”
Duke looked over to see the enthusiastic orc pilot grinning back at him, her tusks highly polished and bleached white to accent the black starship-shaped studs embedded close to the tips. There were four studs, two on each tusk.
“Korza Vrek at your service.” She reached over a hand to shake Duke’s which he accepted. Her grip was typical for an orc – strong and confident.
“Great to meet you, Korza. Thanks for the terrifying demonstration.”
She laughed, slapping her hand on the arm of her chair. “Yes, the first time is usually more terrifying than thrilling. But you get used to it. Check out your system specifications to see what the combination has done for us.”
Duke did and was surprised by what he saw. The capabilities of the combined ship were about fifteen percent higher than the combination of the two ships’ individual capabilities.
“So, you see it. The synergies of the combined fleet are massive. Being able to separate and deal with threats individually will baffle our enemies. It is a significant advantage.”
“I am liking what I am seeing. Does the percentage increase continue as you add more ships in?”
“Each ship adds their own capabilities plus about fifteen percent more. It would be insane if the percentage was compounded but it doesn’t work that way.”
“Still, I’ll take it. This is awesome!”
“Indeed, Emperor, it is. Now, I am afraid that we have to put the ships back and let you move on with your tour.” Sar Borglyn’s voice and direction was not exactly welcome, but Duke knew he was right.
“OK, let me see if I can…” Duke activated the control to separate the ships. The response was not instant, but it took less than a second to completely separate. He flew his ship back to its starting point and reluctantly debarked at Sar Borglyn’s insistence.
