Chapter 40 - Teaser! (Patreon)

This chapter has been fighting me like a feral racoon, so I may need a day or two more to finish the polish on it. In the meantime, enjoy the teaser!

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The Flighty Temptress. Outside of Normal Space. Exact Location Unknown.

Once again I found myself in a small airlock, ready to suddenly open the outer door allowing me to be explosively shot out of the ship at truly ridiculous velocities on my way to perform a clandestine mission of great importance. What a life!

“Natasha, deactivate gravity plating in my location and prepare to open the outer airlock door,” I ordered, my eyes taking in my omnitool’s latest real time report on the state of my armor and all its connected systems. The dampening field was affecting my armor’s more advanced functions, the ones that required stored power from its onboard capacitors to complete, but it reported nearly 70% functionality.

“Gravity disengaged,” Natasha dutifully reported, just as I began floating away from the floor. I carefully pitched forward and placed my feet on the wall opposite the external airlock door and immediately activated my magnetic boots to lock onto the metal surface. “We’re in position and waiting for your order, father.”

I merely nodded, knowing that she would be able to see it. I pulled my jury rigged Romulan disrupter pistol from my right side and visually confirmed that everything was in order. As this was not my normal sidearm, it was not linked to my armor’s systems and thus capable of providing real-time information on its current operational status, including a current energy level or a damage report. B’Elanna had further improved its resistance to the dampening field by stripping the extremely limited isodesium we had in our possession off that Vidiian weapon, which really didn’t have the kind of functionality that would be useful to me for this mission, and applying the salvaged material to the outer casing of my improvised weapon through a form of powder coating and electrostatic bonding. The dampening field would still affect the disrupter beam as it left the weapon’s firing aperture, of course, but it would still be more powerful than it was before as the effect wasn’t instantaneous.