Corpo Age

Chapter 239: Taking a Back Seat

Aurora Corporation’s reaction after our little incident at their headquarters wasn’t as significant as it could have been. They didn’t go all hands on deck to find the perpetrators and mostly consolidated their assets.

Particularly, anything our captured executive touched was quickly changed to ensure any leaked intel wouldn’t hurt them. They were also trying to contain any news of an attack, covering up the entire incident. It looked like they were posed to move on with their lives. They just needed to find a suitable replacement for their missing employee and they could put the incident behind them.

While it could be said to be a heartless decision, it was also the most pragmatic one for corporations. If news of it could be contained, their losses were minimal, and it wasn’t worth expending more resources to just recover an expandable worker.

At the same time, it was also the one that worked out the best for us. No one was breathing down our necks. They could have gotten several investigators snooping around, but this was one of the better results of our raid.

“Now, the main issue is Strand. She’s been trying to contact Shake constantly and has been reaching out to our company as well,” Claire informed.

“We’re not assuming our identities as Shake nor Echo anymore,” I replied. “Too risky now. Aurora is probably lurking in the background collecting information. Just reply on our behalves. Say Shake and Echo are in a safe house somewhere for the foreseeable future.”

“Do you want to talk to them yourself, then? They don’t know your appearance as Rollo, right?”

“Hmm, it’s fine. You’ve been the one in contact with them. Rather not throw them off.”

“We’re going to give them the information we learned from that Brune guy, right?” Thorne chimed in. “It’s likely the group who kidnapped their families!”

“We should anyway, Rollo. Any casualties we can avoid is worth it.”

“Hmm, maybe not this time. They’ll just go fish information from this outlaw group. Doesn’t need a delicate touch or overwhelming force. We should use this time to prepare for the rescue operation when we find out exactly where Aurora holds these test subjects. This Trobax Lab on file doesn’t say where it is, but those outlaws should know something.”

In the meantime, I could continue to test out Aurora’s equipment. Rescuing people from a facility would entail close-quarter combat, which they specialize in. We’d need to prepare adequately

“Is that everything?” I asked.

“If you don’t plan on going, can you send me, then?” Thorne persistently asked.

“Thorne—look, you need to take a break and calm down.” I gave Claire a meaningful look, asking for her help. She was better at managing people than I was, that’s for sure.

“Thorne, I know you’re anxious and angry,” Claire said. “I am too. But we need to talk. Not jump into the action, but talk. Hmm, not here, though. Let’s do it on VR. Come.”

Faced with Claire’s pleas, Thorne could only silently assent. I silently slipped out of the room and returned to my workshop, leaving it all to Claire.

“Now then, Lanus, can I leave you with the rest of the tests?”

“Affirmative. Your assistance is no longer required.”

“Ouch. Then I’ll start going over the prototype of our starship, then.”

The harvest didn’t only come from Aurora Corporation. Our entire tour across various settlements was also a testbed for our spaceship design. Although we limited its specifications most of the time, stress tests could be done behind closed doors. What we tested for was more along the lines of user experience.

A starship contained numerous parts. It wasn’t something I could become proficient in all of a sudden, even with the knowledge given by the system. There were a lot of tweaks that needed to be made and functions to add. For example, we definitely wanted a brig on the ship.

I opened up the design software and viewed the current iteration of our ship. I had kept it small to make it easier to adjust during this testing stage, and the larger models would come later. However, after our recent adventures, I realized we needed to have more power projection across space, sooner than I thought.

It didn’t matter how powerful my troops were if they were stranded on Earth. I needed vessels that could bring them where I needed them.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

That’s why I began designing a troop carrier first. With stealth as our advantage, we didn’t exactly need to build a full-on battleship yet. What we needed was a stealthy carrier that could quietly raid our targets.

With that in mind, the first part was to ensure the exterior material could effectively hide from various sensors. This was a topic I had thoroughly explored. Sensors were mainly divided into passive sensors and active sensors.

The given was to ensure our ship could avoid passive detection such as—infrared, electromagnetic radiation, gravitational disturbances, and optical tracking.

For active sensors, it was a little more tricky. It depended on how strong our opponent’s active sensors were. There was no foolproof method here, so I could only do my best.

The new part that I needed to ensure performed well was the mechanism for our troops to board enemy assets. For a stealth ship, it couldn’t be something that used brute force. It would render it meaningless. That meant stuff like boarding pods or shuttles was a no-go. They were so cool, too.

Instead, I had to come up with another way. So far, we used our hacking program to open the entrances. It worked, but I refused to rely on it completely. There could be instances where the cyber security was more fortified than expected or in the event of active combat, the bulkhead doors couldn’t be opened. There were also the traditional physical barriers that had nothing to hack into as well.

We needed a more precise solution. The idea I came out with came from one of our old infiltration missions. Back when we infiltrated QuickLinks, we had cut through the glass windows of one of the buildings to enter. We used jammers that prevented the systems in the building from detecting the damage. It was exactly what we could add to our arsenal to breach into enemy ships or facilities.

“Hmm, any other ideas?” I muttered to myself while staring at my brainstorming list.

“Negative. I do not have the capability to innovate,” Lanus replied. “Suggestion. Use the player base in Legend of the Mythic War to come up with more ideas.”@@novelbin@@

“But that’s a fantasy game. There are no spaceships there—unless I add it? No, it doesn’t have to be within the same game. We’re an established name in the market now, so it isn’t impossible to enter into the more traditional genres of gaming. Lanus, have our team back in Elevate City to begin working on a space-themed game. Have it focus on starship customization.”

“Affirmative. Message relayed.”

I wouldn’t be getting any results from this initiative for a while, but it was better to start now than never. In the meantime, it was more than enough to implement what I had so far. Either that, or I took a look at existing space-sim games.

Either way, it wasn’t something to be decided within a day. Building ships took a long time. I had to start as fast as possible. Even then, it could take at least a year.

Hmm, if I wanted a few ships prepared for this raid to rescue test subjects, the fastest way is to refit existing vessels.

I controlled my SAID and placed a call to Grom, the Ship Right who had helped us with ships before. He had his own hangar, so he must have leads to vessels as well.

“Hello?”

“Grom, it’s me, Rollo.”

“The corpo. What do you want?”

“Do you have or know anyone who has any starships that are for sale?”

“I thought you were building your own. You need it as a testbed or something?”

“Precisely.”

“Hmm, I’ll send something over in a bit.”

Without letting me reply, the grumpy man ended the call.

With nothing to do, while waiting, I decided to take a detour in the virtual world. Sales have been growing steadily, and the player base has grown. I had just ordered my company to start developing a space-themed game, but I wanted to take a look at existing games as well.

I found the most popular game in the genre and launched into it right away. It spawned me in a spaceport, where I had a selection of starter crafts to choose from. Of course, there was nothing fancy, and had limited capabilities and customization options, but that wasn’t what I was here for.

Instead, I exited into the main hub and went to where all the players gathered. It was there that I could inspect what the veteran players were equipped with.

The most notable of them all was inevitably the colossal battleships. It had a huge frame with equally large armaments. It took me some time to finally find a ship that specialized in boarding action. I searched for an equivalent model online to see it in action.

To my surprise, what it employed wasn’t a stealthy way to cut a large hole into the enemy’s hull or open the airlocks. It used a swarm of drones to cut tiny holes to enter into the various vents and cabling. It would then reseal its entry point, making it difficult for anyone to detect anything wrong.

Hmm, I guess gamers have thought through everything, huh?

I shamelessly copied the idea down as I decided to recreate this scene in real life.

Drones just happen to be another topic I had been working on.

Our human resource issue was ongoing. It was both expensive and time-consuming to find enough people willing to relocate to space. Our recruitment drive had been working out, but that mainly addressed the dockworkers and engineering.

These drones here could fill in the gap in our security personnel.

Once I did all the research I could, I tuned back to the game and began playing. While they likely didn’t model their physics to be the same as reality, playing the game let me explore the tactics players used much more closely. There was a difference between learning and experiencing it.

My gaming session lasted until an alarm rang, reminding me that I had to allocate some time to the experts from Ferrumus Corporation. We had to work on our commercial particle beams together, and it was an opportunity for me to ask as many questions as I wanted about their spaceship designs.

Today ended up being more productive than I thought. I like it, it’s relaxing. I really needed it after our little space tour.

Unfortunately, good times never lasted. The next morning, we received an update from Strand regarding the intel we gave them.