I need to talk to B-2!
30 Mar 2023Eli the Dangerous
You would not believe...I did eventually manage to convince myself I really wanted two modified guardian plasma thingies on my sidey instead of one and a rail. So I Set off to endure the process of acquiring them.
I got the "Cat" and I brought extra rovers for the case I got mobbed by angry-looking metal triangles.
This was months after Salivation tried to recommit xenocide, so he was supposed to have returned to the stardust from whence he came.
I managed to get some not-blue-blueprints for weapons, some parts from guardian guardians and several roverloads of artefacts. I flew back to the mBoonies where the evil corporation still peddles weapons. I had the Anomaly (Tutuu Tedudu) flown in. They took their sweet time installing and upgrading the weapon.
Weird workshop they have there. Men in white coats, the more familiar-looking tech types and, I swear, priests.
So I get my gun. I board the Anomaly (Tutuu Tedudu) and something feels off. An unseely feely if you grok. Now maybe it's just me feeling a little bad about bringing money to this atrocity of a company...
Anyway, I take off. I leave the system and I head to one of the systems the galaxy map says the Thargoids are evaluating. I want to see one of those Orthrussus...ses...sisters? I fly around, keeping my scanners peeled and investigating every level four alien ping... I'm flying around, playing music and occasionally dropping just to fly around a bit because a sidewinder is just a dream to fly. Like it's an extension of me.
There is this static crackle on my bridge PA. This is new.
I ignore it and continue wasting time with drawing lines in the void.
A fuel alarm sounds and I decide to dock at a port instead of scooping He3. I investigate a few more signal sources to no avail and zoom in the station.
As I sail through the slot... my weapons deploy. I unlock the "prime" button and manage to stow them before the station starts yelling at me.
I quickly plop the shieldless bundle on the appointed pad and turn off everything.
They have fiddled with my ship!
Yes of course they put the weapon on it. Yes I know it needs to be hooked up to my distributor. I know there are drivers to be installed, safety parameters recalibrated.... I know all that. I built her! I also know the obligatory ship computer inside out. It's a small single board computer and about a century out of date. A Raspberry Pi 186b in the best case. My new ship computer has the same case, the same connectors.. it looks identical from the outside, but on the inside it looks nothing like old tech. This is very new and very weird. It doesn't even look like human tech. There are some logic piles and busses I recognise, and then there is a blue-white glowing cross-like thing. One of the bars is longer on one end. It pulses slowly and almost seems.. alive?
I didn't touch it. It feels very very wrong!
I park the ship and have the Amsterdam Cab Mafia flown over.
I collect on some of the mushrooms I shredded, get on the A'dam and fly out to follow my fancy wherever it leads.
I totally forgot about this.
And then I hear Arty B-2 claim Salivation is not dead but tweaked some alien device to survive his suicide-combined-with-massacre. Then I picked up some broadcast that his essence, or soul or whatever it is succubi eat, is now in a guardian database.
Salivation is in my plasma blaster!
With my luck I picked exactly that guardian node that housed his essence. He may even have tweaked the guardian guardians... explains why I managed to get the stuff in the first place.
I have to find Arty!