Chain 116: Dead Space

Chain 116: Dead Space
Location: CMS Roanoke
Age: 36
Identity: Civilian (Drop-In)
Drawbacks: [+900] The Sequel Was Bad Anyway, Too Ugly To Live

[Free]      Master Haggler
[100/1900]  Supply Rooms
[300/1900]  Built-In Geo-Nav
[500/1900]  Infinitely Customizable
[700/1900]  Universal Ammunition
[1100/1900] A Mind Of Iron
[1500/1900] Modular Designs
[1600/1900] Power Nodes
[Free]      RIG
[1700/1900] Armor Plating (x2)
[1800/1900] Increased Inventory (x2)
[Free]      Discount
[1900/1900] Universal Clamps

So, you've probably heard this one before: Somewhere, on some backwater planet, in a backwater system, in a backwater sector of a backwater galaxy, a commander builds a metal extractor.

Except this particular commander's ACU is technically the size of a small gas giant, is orbiting a frozen world, and is more along the lines of cannibalizing the below planet with a molecular disassembler in order to recycle its raw materials and supplement its internal matter generators. It goes into a series of VI-operated probes - little more than a very advanced scanning package and an FTL drive - being slapped together via nanolathe across the surface of the warworld. A quarter million of them made simultaneously thanks to the multitasking abilities of FATHER filtered through the Magi Triumvirate that runs the warworld, the probes dispatched to every star within two hundred fifty light years. Every system will be mapped, every planet scanned, every last cell of biological material detailed.

This is a stopgap measure at best, of course - I don't have the time to create these by the BILLIONS. The Sentry Array, however, will come online within a year in the former location of the world being shredded, with the Roanoke orbiting it. Of course, the Sentry Array is itself the size of your average habitable world, so it's really no laughing matter, but it can map every single object in a galaxy bigger than a breadbox. Or, well, larger than the Statue of Liberty. Finding the Brethren Moons by that point will be child's play.

Finding the Ishimura and startling the hell out of everyone on it because a probe that strongly resembles the Monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey is interrupting its work didn't really help anything - things were starting to spin out of control on board by then. On the plus side, it did verify that scanning for necromorphs worked quite well, and it helped me fine-tune scanning for the power signatures of the Markers.

I arrived there via shuttle about the same time one Isaac Clark did, and it ended up being a co-op game with a much better result as I cheated just a few small things. Though he was rather perplexed by my decidedly non-standard armor still having a RIG on it, not to mention... you know, the plasma rifle. Not to mention the BFG 10k that I'd engineered from one of the BFK 9k's I'd salvaged from the previous jump. Which was more of an overglorified and overclocked plasma pistol with immense splash damage.

Of COURSE I gave him one, I couldn't have lived with myself if I didn't. And they were very effective when wielded against literally anything that was organic, live or dead. It was glorious.

In any event, once the Sentry Array was online, the probes were replaced with Hunter-Killers of the same shape. Rectangular, 100 meters by 400 meters by 900 meters. The sensor packages were minimal and replaced with as many guns as I could fit onto them, and they were seffective planet crackers all on their own. Or rather, moon crackers. It turns out that Brethren Moons are pretty scary if you're on them, but if you've got massive purpose-built Monoliths Of Doom, they're not half as worrisome. It's all about economies of scale, apparently.

And that's why you don't tempt a Jumper with Chosen Enemy: Undead. Because I can and WILL fuck you and fuck your marker, with my feet up, smoking a cigarillo.

Three of the Monoliths were sent to Sol - two surgically disabled all of the markers in the system by way of tractoring them off-world before destroying them, while one was actually tasked to construction and set up massive solar arrays in orbit to beam power back to Earth. Not quite unlimited power with practically no footprint like they might have gotten with the markers, but the stations I put up could be reproduced with their technology. Once the Unitologists stopped rioting, anyway.

Also, after we finished in the Ishimura, I rezzed Nicole Brennan and gave her a quick purification before I sent the two of them out. Because I'm a nice guy like that.