Knowledge is having information. Wisdom is using it well.
"How old is this place?"
"Dunno. Might date all the way back to the collapse. We have one hell of a renovation project on our hands."
A blip appeared on a screen and the nearby console beeped in a surprisingly ferocious manner.
"Someone's coming this way."
"No shit, Sherlock. You ever operated a high caliber deck cannon?"
"I was a pilot. Not a gunner, a pilot. I took us from point A to point B and held the thing steady for the other guys. Nothing more, nothing less."
"Of course. We're doing this the old fashioned way. Go grab that jet pack you were so interested in five minutes ago."
"Thanks."
River scanned the horizon until she spotted a small speedboat with an oversized CRAM swivel gun bolted to the bow. One of the three men on the deck was waving a white flag in the early morning gloom. They came within earshot, and the flag bearer shouted out.
"We came 'ere lookin fer the rich ole geezer who ruled these parts, and we find someone who looks nuthin like 'im standin around in his ole fort! Come out with yer hands up and tell us what ye done with 'im!"
"Make me!"
"Ah, she's a feisty one. Think we can take her alone?"
"It's three against one and she has to fight with that bulky trash can weighing her down. SON OF A-"
The gunner's hat hit the water three seconds after the rest of him.
"Consider that your warning shot."
After dragging the gunner back on board, the boat sped out of firing range and around the island. Mark stepped out onto the deck in his utility suit. The rotor unfurled and Mark shot off toward the buzzsaw.
Unlike the makeshift power armor River wore, the utility suit was designed around anything except direct combat. It came equipped with a compact fold-up rotor and a set of small thrusters to allow for sustained movement in any direction, and much quieter than the compact, barebones jump-jet/rocket combo systems in the old rambots. Although nowhere near as blatantly powerful or badass looking, it was vastly more practical, and that's what mattered to Mark.
He crawled inside the bridge and the buzzsaw into the water. He flipped a switch and the AI whirred to life. He jumped down to the beach and hid behind a rock. As soon as the gun-laden warship passed the beach, the buzzsaw charged it. Mark silently latched onto the other side of the hull and waited for the cannon fire to begin. He turned to see what was keeping River from taking potshots, only to see that she wasn't manning either of the fort's deck guns.
"Heads up!"
He heard her before he saw her. To be more accurate, he heard the screams of her victims before he saw her. One pirate hurtled over the railing and into the sea. A window shattered. He clambered up onto the main deck as the last of the crew abandoned ship.
"You missed all the fun."
"You're bleeding. A lot."
"It's not my blood. At least, most of it isn't. I may have gotten a nosebleed from the G force."
"Good for you, but good luck taking on properly armed opponents. You know, the ones with guns that shoot bullets. We need a proper defensive setup."
"Good plan. First order of business: scrapping these crappy peashooters and getting a decent gun running. You ever used a construction console?"
"Never touched one in my life. If I crash the chopper, someone else fixes it."
"Nuh uh uh, not out here. In these waters the weak drown, the strong bleed out, and the smart stay afloat. I'll load up a project I have saved somewhere around here. We should have just enough resources stockpiled."
"What? What are you talking about here? A mining drill-"
"A battleship. A damn good one too."
"Still too vague. What's its armament? I need to know what we're working with here."
"It's big, it has two big turrets, one is rail assisted, and it has an anti-air Gatling. Seven forward torpedo tubes and a decoy buoy on each side. The whole thing is heavily shielded and run by a single steam turbine, heated by radioactive decay. It will never, ever run out of fuel, no matter how hard we push it."
"Where the hell are you getting schematics for all this tech?"
"Trial and error. Lots of trial and error. Check out the blueprint."
"Holy crap, you weren't kidding! Does it have much room to breathe in there?"
"Not yet, but there's some hollow spots left. I could move stuff there from the bridge. As weird as the railgun settings seem, don't touch em."
"Alright- why are they set to 10%?"
"So the ship doesn't capsize from the recoil, so we have sustained fire, and so the rest of the ship keeps running. It's powered entirely with electricity, so bad things happen if you mess with that. Should probably cram more RTGs in, it runs out of power in a minute, tops. Maybe if I knock the rails down to 5 and add more batteries..."
"Sounds like a plan. Should we put some more resource gatherers on here?"
"Definitely. We can scrap the marauder and the buzzsaw too. That should get us just enough to get the thing mostly operational."
