after the call 5 more days passed, and they were extremely productive days, the cloudtrain had 21 sections now, and a lot of them were full of salvaged materials, more tickles made a lot of difference in efficiency
Daniel had finally completed the M.A.R.U v4 blueprint, and thanks to some materials that were part of the ship that made his work easier this new maru could now be considered almost agile, but sadly just a low-fourth stage war machine
the 2 v3 maru's couldn't win even against the fourth stage spidercrab that was starving to death and ended up sacrificed like pawns, the v4 will not have this problem, 1 of them could fight it and win against the starved spidercrab, so of course, there would be a need for more with a well-fed one, according to Daniel's simulations
immediately Daniel who was excited and proud of the new maru ordered Tickles to make 10 of them, since a stronger enemy appeared on this planet, it was better to make preparations for the future
after a few hours, a v3 maru that was dismantling the ship found something strange in the unexplored depths of the buried ship, a lot of strange spheres were kept suspended in sticky bubbles, finally the spidercrab showed an almost crablike feature, those were eggs, and at the center, there was a much bigger black egg with a red hue
Daniel was happy, he could use the eggs to study and rear the delicious spidercrabs, so he sent down an environmental cell, and programmed the humidity and temperature to copy the environment the maru found them in, and after they where carefully moved in with all the piece of ceiling they were connected too, the maru carefully brought up the environmental cell
as the maru was flying it up to the train, one of the small eggs wasn't enclosed well enough, and during the transport detached from the bubbles, breaking on the floor, a shrill cry came from it, but nothing happened, apparently, all the spidercrab were already dead, so the new environmental cell was loaded in a new section, and the environmental cells section's became officially three
two more days passed, in three more the drop would be charged, but that was if Daniel survived
because suddenly a hill sized meteor started falling down from the sky, and like a feather, it landed in the desert, from the meteor 6 or 7 thousand spidercrabs came out, and on top of the meteor spaceship, like the rest wasn't enough, a female faced spidercrab was giving orders, surrounded by 6 male faced spider crabs
These seven of them were all at the fourth stage, while below, 900 something were third stage, and the rest were second and first
Daniel was thinking, that since he couldn't outrun any kind of spaceship, he had to prepare his strategy, and so he did
the lab section, the cells sections, and those containing important materials stayed behind together, basically, a 9 section cloud train, from below each of them, two phaser cannons appeared, and 2 v4 maru were standing on top, ready to protect Daniel, while the other 12 sections, who were mostly empty after crafting 10 v4 maru's, where in cloudtrain fighter mode with the phaser ready
in the meantime the 8 v4 and 6 v3 maru's, were ready to fight on the ground together with the 10 armed scouts, while Tickles went back to daniel, since he had no personal fighting ability
Daniel was looking at the spidercrabs leaders, while standing above the lab section, in full fluffy F.A.S.S.A v4 that with all the recent advancements he made could be much better than it is now
Daniel was staring at the spidercrabs even if they were hideous, remembering the taste of the legs, he immediately saw them as delicious
the horde of spidercrabs and Daniel's small unit were in a standoff looking at each other, the wild creatures wouldn't dare move without the female orders
she spoke in the universal language, and said "metal creatures, give us back the princess egg, or prepare to be destroyed"
Daniel said "how would we know that you would let us go"
and the female spidercrab said "we wouldn't gain anything by fighting you, only biological creatures interest us, I swear as the 38th princess under the rule of queen Blikazeen"
Daniel was curious about the talking spidercrab, apparently, they had a matriarchal society, why did almost every society he heard of was under a female rule?
but this didn't matter now, Daniel wanted to fill up the freezer, so he said "well too bad, I really like it, so it's mine"
the princess said "if that's your decision" then she made a creepy clicking sound
immediately the sea of spidercrab soldiers started walking towards the maru's, the v4 moved in a line in front of the rest, the cloudtrain fighters took position, and the train sneakily pointed the phaser cannon at the leader
but they still didn't open fire, when the spidercrab soldiers were a mt in front of the v4, in a synchronized manner they activated the wall shooter, a pile made of the spidercrab army was created, and all the cloudtrain fighters, phaser cannons shoot in the pile
this immediately destroyed almost half of the spidercrab army, they weren't used to fighting against powerful technology, the princess never expected something like this, but she had no time to think, because the train phaser cannon shoot directly at her, killing a guard and injuring two more that moved in the way to protect her
the princess was scared by this firepower, but the reality was that Daniel had no way to keep it up, the phasers consumed way too much energy, so the only real fighting force was composed of the maru, and the weak scouts
the rest of the spidercrab army continued its assault, walking over the corpses of their brethren, the maru used the obstacle formed by the corpses, they entered spear mode and started cutting down all the climbing spidercrabs
this last strategy didn't come from Daniel, Tickles said it was a suggestion, but it didn't say from where it came from
10 minutes before, verulus, sun federation
Phoebe and Sophia were having one of their pressure chats when the scout beside the holoscreen started to go a little mad
it activated and a voice came "requesting assistance, master is under attack"
Sophia worried said "show us"
immediately they saw the hill sized ship, landing down, and the spidercrabs coming out, they also saw Daniel's forces take position instead of running
Phoebe jumped up and said "it's the hive"
Sophia who had recognized her nemesis, threw them a disgusted look and asked "why is he staying?"
the scout said "speed insufficient, master decided to stay and fight"
Phoebe said "what are these things fighting capabilities?"
the scout said "cloudtrain fighter fitted with double low-fourth stage phaser, every section has enough power for 6 shoots before the energy runs out, maru v4 spear mode capabilities increased by 31% from the v3, wall cannon can be used ten times, or single fourth stage phaser can be used twice, this is master current strategy" the scout showed in a simulated 3d image the wall than phaser strategy
Phoebe said "that's good, afterwards use the body's as an obstacle and attack in spear mode the ones climbing"
the scout said "suggesting . . . master accepted the suggestion"
then they saw the short conversation while they were supplying energy to the scout, Daniel had no idea who this spidercrab was, and quite frankly, neither did the two women, but the both of them recognized the name Blikazeen
Phoebe said "I hope he doesn't let them escape alive"
Sophia said "those are 7 fourth stage hive creatures, and one of them it's a princess, you should worry about his safety"
Phoebe looked surprised and said "I forgot you never saw him play"
as she said those words the attack started, and they saw the hive army getting shredded, and the guard dying to protect the princess
back to the lifeless desert planet, a few seconds later
the princess of the hive was looking at the small metal creature in the back, she could feel the smell of blood and death come from this tiny figure
this was Daniel, who was already thinking about retrieving more legs and freezing them, that was all good food, he didn't want to waste it
but he shouldn't be this arrogant, the princess wasn't stupid, and noticing Daniel wasn't shooting, understood that he had probably had some limitation in the use of that powerful weapon
this gave her a chance, if she could bring the princess egg to the queen, the death of her soldiers would be more than worth it, so she didn't retreat, she changed her strategy
being cultivators, these creatures were obviously not limited to physical attack, the third stage that survived started shooting some sort of liquid, while the circle of guards closed better around the princess
Daniel saw the new attack, but the shields had already been improved to high-third stage, and if the antigravity was on, those non-energy based attacks would just push them back, without making any real damage
sadly the v3 maru's were not as lucky being shredded by the new attack, the old model was nowhere near as capable as the v4, and one by one they exploded
in the meantime the agile scouts were untouched by the attacks and were shredding the first stage cannon fodders, diminishing the spidercrabs advantage, their numbers
Daniel changed strategy again, even if the cloudtrain fighters, were absolutely the opposite of aerodynamic, it didn't matter, with the antigravity, and the inertial shield, no gravity or wind could stand in their way, the small thrusters were able to push them to incredible speeds, so he ordered them to start flying casually around like they were looking for a target
while the princess, her guards, and the third stage spidercrabs, were distracted by the air show, the maru v4 used the walls again and 4 of them shoot a powerful laser in the pile, shaving numbers again, this time focusing on the third stage spidercrabs before they could even react, they did the wall again, and the other 4 shoot the lasers, killing most of the third stage spidercrabs in this ambush
immediately, Bleen understood that she had been played, and sent 4 guards to deal with the v4 maru
as soon as the 4 guards were fighting with the maru's, the casually moving airshow showed its true intention, 2 shoots each were suddenly fired at the 3 guards and the princess
the guards were all killed, but the princess just lost a limb, the 8 sections suddenly started to fall to the ground like they lost power
seeing this the princess was excited, she was close to victory, soon the few metal creatures remaining will surrender since she still had 5 fourth stage and a thousand soldiers
she ordered her guards and soldiers to keep going, she hadn't noticed that 3 sections had disappeared, greed blinded her, and the sections that were hidden behind a sand dune flew low and appeared suddenly the princess had no chance to regret before dying
suddenly the falling section regained energy, their fall stopped and they shoot at the maddened guards killing them, the rest of the army, was dispatched shortly after, with the death of the female they just stopped fighting, and were butchered by Daniel's forces
he immediately ordered the remaining maru's to recover dinner, and assessed the damage, the scouts were surprisingly all intact, but all the v3 were in pieces, and 6 v4 were also seriously damaged, the relentless attack was vicious
he ordered Tickles to recycle the v3, repair the v4, then start recycling again and build 10 more v4, just in case
the cloudtrain composed itself and entered charge mode, while the maru's started cleaning the spidercrab army
Daniel then sent the scouts to investigate what booty he could get from the meteor ship, he found more eggs, but they were all normal he would simply put them together with the others
for the rest of the starship was made of strange materials he didn't know, that was also strangely alive too, this planet seemed to attract living ship's
sadly since it wasn't science, it could only be considered the cultivator version of biomechanical technology, daniel took some samples and what should be a data storage unit, but his interest wasn't ignited, especially since there were few metals he could use after a preliminary search and they were worst than the Biomech ship he was already dismantling
what really surprised him, was that he found 10 people chained up in a cell, injured but still alive, and all of them wore the sun federation army uniform