Chương 78: Volume Two - Chapter Fifteen - Minor Improvements

Sylvia felt a rush of satisfaction pressing into her mind the moment she stopped pulling the trigger on the volcano lance and she could see the devastation it had caused. It wasn't her own satisfaction. The feeling was being pumped into her from the Eternal. Well… perhaps some of it was her own. The volcano lance strike had slagged three orks and their squighog rides and injured another who was flung off his ride to crash into the ground. She looked at the temperature reading and winced.

Thirty seconds until she could fire again. So, she turned her attention onto her functioning siegebreaker canon and opened fire with it. The shots weren't nearly as accurate, so she had to walk them across to hit the orks. Still, when she managed to nail one in the head she felt another wave of glee from Eternal. The knight was a little more bloodthirsty than she was when it came to this kind of thing.

Sylvia shifted the volcano lance to the side the moment it was cooled down enough to fire again, then she swept it across the orkish frontline. That didn't kill as many orks, but it did injure and spook their squighogs, making the entire group break their flimsy formation. She picked out those that had fallen next. The remaining riders were being targeted by her men the most, and the constant lasfire was whittling them down.

A few more explosive shots near the orks, fired from her towering position above the trenches, was enough to put an end to the first wave of them. Kills Confirmed: 14 Orks New Point Total: 255 Not too bad, she supposed.

"Have you considered what to buy first?" Sylvia jumped. It had been a while since the other machine spirit had spoken to her.

"Greater weapons, Intruder."

"Those… are a priority," Sylvia said. She looked at the auspex, but the next group of orks, those loaded up in trucks, were still a decent distance away.

"But I think… we need to bring the Eternal Pride back to full functionality. I don't know if that is something that you can help with?"

"Of course! I have several options. If you're looking for self-repair systems, then I have a wide range you can pick from. There are some that function as attached servo skull-like drones with basic repair functionalities and others that resemble smaller micro-machines, down to nanomachine-sized systems. Seeing as how your current point-balance is relatively low, however, I would suggest a Micromachine Self-Repair System.

This is a small device, plugged into the cockpit, which connects itself to the knight's frame and sends out small teams of repair drones, none of which are larger than your hand. These carry several tools and raw materials, and can recycle smaller broken components and refabricate them." That sounded like the kind of archeotech that a titan might, maybe, have hidden away within itself. Or perhaps the kind of thing that a Magos Dominus might pull in the heat of battle.

"How long would that kind of thing take to return the Eternal to full functionality?" she asked.

"To full functionality? Two years, nine months, seven days. To a 'like-new' state? Seven years."

"That's both fast and not," she said.

"I understand. Truly, the advantage of such a system is its ability to repair critical systems in a matter of hours. At the moment, there are hundreds of nonfunctional systems on the Eternal. If purchased now, the Micromachine Self-Repair System would slowly bring those from a red state to an orange one. I expect that to take approximately three weeks. If you combine their constant work with other repair work, then the time to bring back the Eternal to full functionality will be further reduced."

Sylvia could see what she meant. It was like… When she was younger, her family had hired a younger magos to do maintenance on their knights. He had been able to do so, but it was startlingly slow compared to the repairs they received when their knights were battling at the front and where they had entire teams of maintenance personnel at their disposal.

"How much would this system cost?" she asked.

"Three hundred and fifteen points."

"Can the system be made to focus on certain things?" she asked.

"Yes. You'll find that the Eternal will be able to focus them. As will you, once you improve the MIU systems you are using."

"That seems sensible enough, then." She could repair the Eternal's legs. Maybe focus the system on maintaining the volcano lance, to increase its rate of fire back to what it ought to be under optimal conditions.

"Focus, squire." Sylvia looked up, squinting through one of the jittery auspex displays to see that the ork vehicles were getting closer. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. She winced as one of them fired a missile, but in typical ork fashion it flew off into the distance and exploded way off target.

Her men started to take potshots, but their standard-issue lasrifles didn't have the strength to really punch through armoured vehicles, though she did spot one lucky shot that took off the top half of a gretchin's head. She brought the volcano lance up, then focused on the fastest of the trucks. One searingly hot shot later, and Sylvia was dabbing at her face with a handkerchief to wipe the sweat away while the ork truck she had shot was spinning flaming cartwheels ahead of its pack.

The siegebreaker came into play next. It had more punch than the average lasrifle, and while she didn't have time to completely demolish her enemies, she could at least mission-kill some of their trucks so that her men could pick the rest off. It was a fine line to walk. If she focused too much on ensuring that she got the kill, then the orks she wasn't distracting might get to the trenches. On the other hand, she needed those points. The second wave of orks died relatively soon after they arrived.

She focused on any of their vehicles with mounted guns, then on any ork standing out in the open where she could nail them with a quick shot. The ground stopped shaking soon after the last of the orks died. Kills Confirmed: 17x Orks 9x Gretchin New Point Total: 685 Not bad!

"Okay. Let's start with that self-repair system," she said.

"Of course." New Purchase: Micromachine Self-Repair System Points Reduced to: 370 The machine came in a large box. Fortunately, it was one that was clearly designed to fold into itself, so she could dispose of it later. Sylvia had to unplug her MIU to opened it fully. What she found within was a clean, all-metal device very obviously designed to be tucked away into a corner of the cockpit that was currently unused. She grunted as she moved it around, then she placed it where it fit like a very precise puzzle piece.

If it wasn't for how clean and new it looked, she would have thought it was always there. Then the top of the box slid open and a trio of little mechanical spiders crawled out, scuttling along the wall until they found a panel and opened it up. Soon enough, two of them were crawling within.

"What are they doing?" she asked.

"Rewiring themselves into the Eternal Pride's systems. A lot of the early work that they're likely to do will involve rewiring and testing connections. There are many… inefficiencies in this knight frame. Patchwork atop patchwork." Sylvia winced. She wanted to deny it but… the Eternal was hundreds of years old, and had been through a lot of conflicts. Damage had been repaired often, and by different hands with different levels of capability. Even just looking around the inside of the cockpit proved as much.

There were dozens of panels that had slightly different colourations than their neighbours. And that wasn't to mention the panels that were outright missing. She shook her head. That could be fixed. It would be, now. Given a few years, apparently. She expected it to speed up, however. One day's fighting was enough to earn a self-repair system. What about two days? Three? A month? Sylvia's ears twitched.

"I think I need a better weapon's system," she said.

"Something more reliable."

"Of course. I did notice that the middle-most back mount is currently empty. It has a mechanized unit in place for a missile launcher system."

"Right," Sylvia said. She went through the shut down procedures, then hesitated at the exit hatch.

"Can you make a box look like… anything?"

"I see what you're going for. Yes. I can easily deliver any item in a crate of box that appears older if that is what you wish."

"It is," she said.

"Okay… what about a new siegebreaker?"

"An inefficient way to spend your points. But given your familiarity with the system… here. For three hundred and fifty points, I can provide you with a Castlekiller Type IX Heavy Gun Emplacement. Its appearance will be similar to a Siegebreaker, including a mount for a pair of missiles, but its tuning speed, durability, and accuracy will be a significant step up from the standard siegebreaker."

"... Do it," Sylvia said. New Purchase: Castlekiller Type IX Heavy Gun Emplacement. Points Reduced to: 20"Where would you like it delivered?"

"Give me a few minutes. I need to requisition a transport truck and have it get lost for a bit if we're going to sell this whole thing as me pulling the new gun from storage."

"Wise! Though at some point, you may find it difficult to sell the illusion."

"Yeah, but that point's not right here right now."