Chapter 171: Chapter 166

“I christen you… Purifier!”

 

Cait smashed the bottle of pre-war champagne against the bow of the ship, and then the destroyer slipped into the waters with a thunderous crash of waves. As this was a public event, the coast near Quincy was used to launch the new human-crewed ships.

 

It was a big showing of our coastal navy, and I’d opened up the naming of the ships to public voting. Even after filtering out the more inappropriate names, it was one hell of a competition. Media pieces were actually made for some of the running names, which directly helped names like ‘Ms Wernock’s Gift’ and ‘Anna Lynn’s Reminder’. Both names were presented to the audience through a very heavy-handed ‘aww’ perspective, ensuring that they made it to the top five most voted names. The former was sent in by an elementary class for their much beloved homeroom teacher, while the latter was a young woman’s gift for her sailor fiance.

 

Of course I abused my authority to make sure that the lucky seaman got assigned to that ship no matter what happened.

 

Some joke names also made the cut, like ‘Big Hard-’ and ‘Shippy Shipperson’, though so did overdramatic names like ‘Purifier’ and ‘Stormcalmer’. Over all, there were plenty enough names for the thirty or so ‘human’ vessels to make up the Nexus Enforcer’s fleet. It was more than enough for the moment to patrol our coast and provide some naval projection, while allowing some people to scratch a particular ocean-going itch.

 

The Nexus’ Automated Navy was far less publicized and designed for more than just coastal patrol. A total of a hundred and fourteen vessels, consisting of light cruisers, corvettes and destroyers sharked the Nexus’ small patch of the Atlantic. 

 

So far, they have been used to investigate oil rigs and sea-drifting settlements. The oil rigs were mostly Enclave controlled, with varying degrees of isolation. Some had no Vertibirds or other such means to connect with the rest of the Enclave network. A few more had recently evacuated their VIPs, leaving only the ignorant lower ranking personnel to keep the converted bases running.

 

There were also oil rigs that for some reason or another been populated with ghouls, mindless cannibals, and on one occasion a cult of oil-soaked madmen. Regardless of the background, all the hostile offshore platforms, Enclave or not, were used for additional training exercise for the Companies.

 

The same went for the floating shantytowns we found adrift in the sea. Rusting oil tankers and cruise ships were populated with all manner of communities. Most were peaceful and eager to meet people from the ‘soft land’, a few were fish-worshiping loonies that were harmless enough, but the fleet finally got to test their guns on one particularly barnacle-covered mess of a cruise ship.

 

Other sea-settlements had called the floating wreck the Glowing Doom. Thankfully, it was only conventionally irradiated, prickling with fanged, overgrown barnacles, shellfish the size of super mutants, and coral-laced ghouls.

 

After taking samples, the NAN blasted cut the Glowing Doom up with white laser cannons, and then incinerated the pieces and boiled the ocean with PPC volleys. The smell had been bad enough that the girls and the other observers kept away from seafood for a few days.

 

Beyond that little action though, there was little else to draw the navy’s attention. So they were set to patrolling alongside the Minutemen navy. I didn’t want to bother with crossing the ocean just yet, not when there was still plenty of the Americas to tame first.

 

Speaking of taming… 

 

I waited for Cait to finish her photo op and walk over. “So…that’s the last for the day?” she asked me, and to the redhead’s relief I nodded. “Good,” she sighed out as she massaged her cheeks. “Don’t know how you fucking do it, but all that smiling is making my face sore.” The remark was directed to Curie and Nat, who both simply grinned and shrugged at Cait.

 

“Face it, Cait,” Piper quipped, “We’re not all equipped to deal with the public.” My favorite raven-haired girl waggled her eyebrows at me. “All we’re good for is taking Sev’s dick, right?”

 

I just shook my head while Cait sniggered and Nat sighed some exasperation. “Sis…”

 

“What? You’ve heard worse from the others.”

 

“We’re in public though, the mics might pick out your words.”

Piper rolled her eyes. “As if it’s major news to anyone.” She snapped her head to me. “Anyway, what’s next, Sev? You said something about the beach?”

 

I gave the girls a bright smile, which somehow earned frowns in response. “Yep. Got a trip up north for a visit to the Mirelurk Coast.”

 

“And why are we going up there?” Curie asked politely.

 

“To reward the last queen standing.”

 

The mirelurk battle royale had, over the months, finally resulted in a clear victor. It was the Castle Crushers that assimilated or obliterated all opposition, the Nahant Nasties had been long eliminated unfortunately. The mirelurk queens of the oversized colony formed a ruling coalition of sorts, which had given them a significant numbers advantage over the other mirelurk colonies with their traditional single queen setup.

 

Then, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Castle Crushers suffered a civil war as the queens decided that they each wanted to be the sole ruler, and the infighting that followed saw the colony population plummet down to just under fifty mirelurks and one badly mauled queen.

 

Mauled enough for us to hopefully exploit. Because unlike Deathclaws, these mutated crustaceans had very little in the way of brains to uplift as a whole. But that didn’t mean we couldn’t tame the colony.

 

Edward, Sarah, Dr Li and some other researchers from Ix joined our flight north to the nesting site. The wounded queen was found easily enough, being tagged by an eyebot. Stealth boys were handed out and activated, and we left the Quetzal to navigate the maze of chittering crustaceans. The newest iteration of our Stealth Boys muted most sounds and rendered the user almost completely invisible save for the faintest of distortions when they moved. Sure, we left footprints on the sand, but the mirelurks didn’t seem to notice or care about it.

 

Our small expedition reached the main nest without incident, and right in the middle of the egg clusters, the dormant queen lay curled up as she healed. A few larger ‘royal guard’ mirelurks skittered nearby, but they were just as oblivious to our presence as their fellows.

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Edward and Sarah took the lead, and we made sure not to disturb any eggs or step into any pools of seawater. Strangely, while they cared little for sand vibrations without any identifiable threats, we found that mirelurks reacted strongly to water disturbance. Their eggs too were sensitive to contact, to the point that even a light drizzle could trigger mass premature hatchings. Only the particular tapping of mirelurks could keep the larva from bursting out of their shells.

 

It was thanks to that sensitivity that the queen’s body lay in a clearing, free from any egg clusters and well out of the way from the patrolling royal guards. We did a quick check to make sure the area was secure, and then I helped the scientists lay down a perimeter of blocky devices. 

 

We held our breaths as the stealth projectors created a light distorting dome around us and the queen, but thankfully, our biologists’ prediction was right on the money. So long as the queen remained asleep, and none of the ichor-pheromones were in the air, the mirelurks in the next didn’t give a damn that their queen had suddenly vanished from the visible spectrum.

 

We deactivated out Stealth Boys, and those of us with guns readied ourselves as Edward spoke up. 

 

“Testing.”

 

The scientists in particular let out  triumphant sighs as the commander’s voice did not cause a reaction to the mirelurks beyond the stealth field. The sound dampening had worked just as well as the light distortion, and the mirelurks ignored us. So far, Plan A was progressing smoothly. 

 

“Right then, straight to work,” Madison ordered crisply. “Sedative, now.”

 

Edward, Sarah and Cait stood guard as Madison, Curie and the field researchers worked. Piper, Nat and I just watched the operation with interest. The sedative was delivered by aerosol dispersal near the queen’s gills. The massive creature slumped visibly as the cocktail took effect, putting her into a deep sleep. Then small electric saws were brought out to carefully cut away at the chitin on the queen’s head.

 

It took several minutes of wet whirring before the top was exposed, and a burst of disinfectant was sprayed in the air to kill any alarm pheromones that might be emitted by the wound.

 

Curie and Madison took point after that, wielding scalpels and tweezers with practiced ease while the other lab coats monitored the queen’s condition, cleaned up dribbling ichor, and did other tasks in the meantime. 

 

“Positioning chip,” Curie stated calmly. “And…done. Proceeding to integrate the biochip...”

 

“Vitals are normal, no fluctuations in brain activity,” one of the scientists reported.

 

I couldn’t see the brain from where I stood, but my console view noticed the changes to the mirelurk queen as the biochip derived from Institute synth chip tech was plugged into her brain, so to speak. An intelligence stat popped up, which meant that the queen had just gained some form of sapience. It was still at 0.00032 compared to a human’s flat 1.0, but still, a non-zero is not a zero.

 

Madison squatted by a portable terminal and squinted at the monitor as her finger worked the keyboard. “Accessing telemetry. Confirming successful integration. Beginning programming…”

 

It had to be bare bones programming, of course. Abiding by Nora’s vehement defense of ethics meant that the enhancement we’re providing the queen would not come with any puppet strings attached. Not directly. What the biochip provided instead was an overt change to the mirelurk queen’s brain growth, to allow for the establishment of higher mental functions.

 

Madison furiously typed away while Curie monitored the biochip’s direct functions on a separate terminal. More disinfectant was sprayed in the air, just to get the stench out of our noses. If not for the fact that mirelurk colonies really, really relied on the presence of their queen, we’d have done this back in Ix or Tleilax.

 

It took a good half hour of coding before Madison finally sighed out, “Finished.”. Then healing guns were produced, and a short burst was fired at the queen’s head.

 

“One more time,” Dr Li ordered as she glared at her terminal. She leaned closer to the screen after the next blast of healing rays, and then leaned back with relief. “It worked,” she muttered with a faint smile. “Development of additional growths detected. The brain is slowly growing beyond the usual size. Genetic code is also mutating within parameters.”

 

My console view confirmed that for a fact; the mirelurk queen’s intelligence related stats were slowly but surely climbing. Maybe in a week’s time it’d hit two decimal places.

 

A small cheer arose from the scientists, with some applause directed at Curie who was responsible for most of the biochip’s development. After double checking the figures again, Madison called for the chitin plate to be placed back on the queen’s head, and a full healing blast helped to fully recover the head, but the whole battered body as well.

 

Can’t have our new investment die from her battle wounds, can we?

 

We reactivated our Stealth Boys after cleaning up, and then deactivated the stealth projectors. Then it was simply leaving the way we came in and getting back to our Quetzal.

 

“Mission complete,” I declared once we took to the skies again. “The operation to bioengineer a mirelurk queen is a runaway success.” I took a moment to let the researchers cheer their hearts out. 

 

“Now, all we gotta do is monitor the colony and in a few weeks time come back to check on them.”

 

Hopefully by the end of the month, we’ll have us some friendly mirelurks who don’t mind working for ratkin meat.

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