Core establishment, p.1
Core Establishment, page 1
Core Establishment
Dimensional Dungeon Cores
Book 1
Jonathan Brooks
Cover Design: Yvonne Less, Art 4 Artists
Edited by: Celestian Rince and Ellen Klowden
Copyright ©2021 Jonathan Brooks
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
The following is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, businesses, corporations, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to any actual persons, places, or events is purely coincidental.
Cover Design Copyright ©2021 Yvonne Less, Art 4 Artists
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all my Patrons on Patreon who are supporting me through my writing endeavors, while also giving me valuable feedback on my works-in-progress!
In addition, I want to give a shout-out to all my beta-readers – thank you all so much for your input!
Brett Siegel
Brian O’Neil
Brian Oles
Christopher Burr
Daniel Bergeron
Dehlia Kaian
Grant Harrell
James Henley
Joshua Chausse
Kegan Hall
Kelly Linzey
Michael Huber
Nate Martin
Rickie Brown
Sean Hall
Zack Devney
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Author’s Note
Books by Jonathan Brooks
Footnotes/Tables
Foreword
Dimensional Dungeon Cores is technically a continuation of my complete Station Cores series (links to the eBook and audiobook for the Complete Box Set are at the end of this book). However, you can still thoroughly enjoy this story without having read a single word of the previous series. Those who have experienced the awesomeness that is Milton and his Station Core will recognize many references to the series.
In addition, there are a lot of fun stats in this book that have been included in the footnote; these stats are completely optional to look at, but those who enjoy a visual representation of different stat tables or additional information can dig into them. Those who don’t care for stats or just want to enjoy the flow of the story without all of the distractions won’t miss anything if they choose to ignore them.
However you choose to experience this book, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
Chapter 1
“Evasive maneuvers! Fire everything we’ve got!”
Milton lurched to the side as his ship was hit by another volley of what appeared to be missiles with explosive warheads. At least, that was what his sensors said they were, though the exact nature of them was a bit of an unknown.
I guess that’s because our systems are nearly 5,000 years out of date.
He pushed that untimely thought out of his mind as he easily recovered his balance, though at the same time he absently noted that he had broken his wrist while catching himself from falling. Thankfully, injuries like that didn’t actually hurt him; when Milton was controlling his synthetic avatar, he could choose to ignore such mundane things as distracting physical sensations, if that was what he chose.
“And what, by the Goddess, does that mean?!” he heard shouted back at him from one of the control stations.
Milton looked toward the speaker, who was frantically pushing the various blinking holographic buttons on his console. The Proctan appeared entirely out of his depth, for which Milton couldn’t blame him; science fiction in relation to spaceships had never been his expertise, though he had seen more than his fair share of movies and TV shows. Therefore, “Evasive maneuvers” and “Fire everything we’ve got” had sounded a lot like something he should be saying in this particular instance.
“Brint!” another voice, one from another Proctan in front of a different console, shouted back at the confused Weapons Tech. “Just touch those contacts on your screen there, and the defensive weaponry should engage automatically; I’ll handle trying to get out of this mess.”
“Oh…okay. On it, Whisp!”
Guidance Officer Whisp and Weapons Tech Brint were slight misnomers, if only for the fact that Milton had literally made up those terms only a few hours ago when they were ready to attempt their trans-dimensional drive journey to reach Collective space. I guess we should’ve practiced a bit with our systems before we left; but then again, I wasn’t expecting us to get ambushed immediately after arriving.
“I don’t know how this happened again, Milton,” he suddenly heard at his side. Milton briefly glanced away from the viewing screen to see ALANNA in her diminutive form covered in her usual skin-tight, stretchable, deep-purple one-piece outfit floating next to him. “This is exactly what happened to the Promory—”
Whatever else she was going to say was cut off as yet another barrage of spaceship-borne projectiles slammed into the right (is that what they call starboard?) side of their Defender-Class Battlecruiser. It was a fancy name for a fancy ship, but he still didn’t know nearly enough about it despite literally building it from scratch not that long ago.
This time, the impact knocked him off his feet, though he managed to catch himself before he smashed his head into the nearest command bridge wall. As he got to his feet, he glanced at the viewscreen again and saw three of his Escort-Class Cruisers burst with an explosive decompression of their inner atmospheres, pierced by the explosive tips of even more missiles that had been shot by the opposing fleet of ships.
A fleet of ships that was originally nearly 5 times the size of his own, though with the destruction of 3 out of his 10 Escort-Class Cruisers and deaths of their bridge crews, it was now more like 6 times the size.
Milton quickly pulled up the short-range sensor data feeding into his fleet of ships, noticing for the first time that he was actually down 4 of his Cruisers. Quickly rewinding the time of the sensor recordings, he saw that one of the Cruisers had been savaged by some sort of multi-colored lasers that shot out of the left flank of the opposing fleet, tearing through the metal plating of his ship like some sort of long-range cheese slicer.
It had all happened in a matter of seconds, when his crew was still reeling from the transitional emergence of that odd dimension where they were able to travel great distances in a short amount of time. Even his avatar had felt a little of the sensation of being compacted and then shoved through a tiny hole in space, though he fortunately didn’t feel the aftereffects of the transition to their normal dimension. In those precious seconds when his friends were sick from the experience, this random fleet of ships that appeared to have been just passing by their arrival point turned toward them and started firing, without any type of communication.
“Gilly? You’re the only one of us that has any type of long-range weaponry – or at least you should have it, anyway.”
His contact with the captain of their Assault-Class Dreadnought, their only ship that was specifically designed for these types of encounters, was unnecessary. Gilly, the Proctan in charge of the ship, barely acknowledged his communication before her ship erupted in a mass of every type of weapon she had at her disposal. Even as he watched them leaving the ship, he recognized them (from the blueprints utilized in the creation of the ship) as Neutrino Missiles, Focused Gamma Emissions, and a trio of familiar full-sized Particle Accelerators. Other than the Accelerator – which he knew would accelerate a large mass of subatomic particles at high velocity, tearing apart the molecular bonds of anything it contacted – the weaponry was a bit of a mystery. Not for the first (nor the last) time, he wished he had dug a little bit more into the weapon systems of his ships before he left Proctus.
However, ALANNA had been so insistent that they leave and see what was going on with The Collective that he stupidly put it off until it was too late. As much as he’d like to blame his assistant, he knew that it was his own failing; his only defense was the fact that arriving in the heart of Collective space— near the home planet where the Collective government was centralized – was supposed to be the safest destination, at least according to ALANNA. Then again, the information we have is extremely out of date.
The weapons slammed into the lead ships, which were all the same size and had the same appearance; they wer e nearly half the size of his 2 Defender-Class Battlecruisers, which were nearly a half-mile in length, but instead of the sleek design of his own ships, the attackers were relatively box-like in appearance. Not quite “Borg”, though; more like “massive shipping container”. Their shape didn’t seem to prevent their maneuverability, however, as 4 of the 5 lead ships managed to dodge most of the ordinance shot their way. The fifth ship took the brunt of the attack by Gilly and her Dreadnought, and the enemy ship seemed to melt into a slag of metal in less than a second, destroyed utterly by the combined efforts of the Focused Gamma Emissions and the Particle Accelerator.
As for his own ship, Brint was pushing holographic buttons on his console at a frantic pace, and familiar weapons of his own shot out at the approaching fleet, where it appeared to do a little damage – but not nearly enough. The weapons on their Defender-Class ships weren’t very powerful; if he were to equate it to something he was familiar with, he would say that his Battlecruiser was more of a tank that could soak up damage with very little in the way of offense. The Dreadnought was like a powerful spellcaster, with long-range spells that could absolutely devastate their target.
Unfortunately, the old name for spellcasters came to mind as the opposing fleet turned their attention on the Dreadnought and unleashed another volley at the Assault-Class ship: Glass Cannons.
“Move to intercept this wave of attacks!” Milton shouted, though he took control of his Defender-Class Battlecruiser himself when he noticed that Whisp was on the floor of the bridge, a portion of her head caved in where she had slammed into something hard during the last attack. Brint glanced at her unmoving form quickly before turning back to his own control panel, his teeth gritted in grief. The poor Proctan never enjoyed seeing those he loved die, after all.
The engines on the Battlecruiser were powerful, but his movement toward the Dreadnought was too late. Milton’s ship lurched as it took a small portion of the missiles and a few of the multi-colored laser shots on its hull, but the majority slammed into the larger attack ship with less protective armor plating. He managed to keep his feet from absorbing some of the attack, but he was knocked to his knees when the Dreadnought exploded shortly thereafter. The shockwave of the Zero-point Energy reactor inside of the large ship rippled across the intervening space and shook Milton’s ship, tossing Brint out of his chair and into the bridge wall, snapping his neck. Darn. Gotta do all of this by myself, I guess.
By the time he recovered, he looked at the viewscreen again to see that the hostile fleet was already firing again, this time focusing on his ship. Oh, no.
“We’re on our way! Get out of here, Milton!”
The sudden communications coming from the rest of his fleet intruded on his mind, and he saw that the other Defender-Class Battlecruiser was nearly in front of his own ship, and the remaining 6 Escort Cruisers were right behind it.
“They’re right, Milton Frederick,” ALANNA said from next to him again. She appeared as put together as always, as if all of the shaking and damage to the ship hadn’t affected her at all. Which it didn’t, of course, because being formed of nanites meant that his assistant could appear essentially any way she wanted. “This might be like when Promory was destroyed, but it’s also completely different. It’s not just your Station Core aboard this ship, but all of the people you brought along, as well.”
She was right. If Milton was destroyed, the 25,000 Proctans he had brought with him on this expedition would also permanently die. He had to leave, and he had to leave now.
“Is the trans-dimensional drive still operational?” he asked out loud, though he could see for himself that it was… technically… ready. It required a few minutes of cooldown before it could be utilized safely again, but he figured it was long enough; plus, he didn’t have time to wait any longer.
The missiles and laser from the enemy fleet impacted the other Defender-Class Battlecruiser, lighting it up with an extensive explosion. Connecting with the other ship, he saw that it had been essentially crippled, as additional explosions devastated its insides, though it didn’t break apart. Instead, it was essentially a hunk of metal now floating dead in space – which made for a fairly good shield, he thought.
As he charged his trans-dimensional drive, he maneuvered his ship behind the half-destroyed Battlecruiser in front of him as another wave of attacks arrived to destroy him. The Escort-Class ships managed to maneuver in time to add to the protection, but it was just barely enough. A few missiles managed to squeeze through the gaps in the wall of ships protecting him, causing him to lose his feet again. This time, there was no preventing his avatar’s descent to the scrap heap as it crashed through the viewscreen, where it was subsequently mangled and electrocuted. Thankfully, he had already retreated his focus back from his synthetic body to his Core, right smack in the middle of the Battlecruiser where it was located in the safest area possible. At least, it would normally be safe, though against the assault with which the hostile fleet was peppering his own ships, it wouldn’t stay safe for long.
His own Battlecruiser was beat up, though not severely; regardless, it couldn’t take much more of a pounding before something critical was damaged and he would be defenseless. As for his fleet, all but 2 of the Escort-Class Cruisers had been destroyed from the last volley, though the debris left over from their wreckages was still acting like a good physical shield.
Another wave of ordinance was fired from the attacking fleet to finish the job, but Milton could feel that his trans-dimensional drive was charged up and ready to use. A second before the missiles and multi-colored lasers finished off the damaged-yet-serviceable Escort-Class ships, he contacted those left on board.
“Thank you for your sacrifice. I’m sure I’ll see you all soon.”
There was a brief acknowledgement of their fate that echoed back to him, right before they exploded in a fiery conflagration of shrapnel. They didn’t manage to block all of the projectiles, unfortunately, but that didn’t matter too much to Milton; before they were able to hit his ship, he activated the trans-dimensional drive and was compacted down and shoved through a tiny hole into another dimension.
Chapter 2
“That didn’t work out so well, ALANNA.”
He couldn’t help the accusatory tone of his voice from reaching his assistant, who was staring at his mangled synthetic avatar that was half-in and half-out of the broken viewscreen. Thankfully, Milton didn’t need the viewscreen to actually observe what was outside of the ship, because the exterior was filled with all different kinds of integrated sensors that were a lot more powerful than the smaller sensor orbs he was accustomed to using. They weren’t quite as flexible as the floating sensor orbs he’d used back on Proctus, because they couldn’t be detached and sent out in a direction of his choosing, but they made up for that lack of locomotion by having sensitive and longer-range detection radii.
Regardless, it wasn’t as if there was a lot to see outside of the ship. Moving through this particular dimension, utilized by the trans-dimensional drive, was a unique experience. Milton wasn’t, by any means, an expert on multi-dimensional properties – especially since all he really knew about them was what he had seen on TV or in movies – but he was fairly certain that the dimension they were traveling through was probably one of the strangest out there.
Trying to even look out beyond his space-faring vehicle was a lesson in futility, because nothing he saw or his sensors picked up made any sense. Rather than seeing the void of space and stars in the distance all around them, it was instead a distorted and constantly churning maelstrom of multi-colored light streaks with no natural form or substance to them. Milton was convinced that if he had a stomach, he would be throwing up the contents of said organ if he was forced to look at the nauseating dimension for more than a few seconds.
Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how it was perceived), Milton didn’t have to worry about making his fragile body sick from those observations. Having his consciousness installed inside of a giant metal egg-shaped Station Core had its benefits, after all. Not having a living body anymore was a minor price to pay for being connected to the ship and controlling everything within it, as well as essentially being immortal. At least, immortal in the sense that he wouldn’t die of old age; if the ship was destroyed, there was every chance that his Station Core would be destroyed right along with it, despite being made entirely of Tritanium. He had gotten lucky once, when the Promory had been blown apart, sending him drifting through space for more than 4,000 years; he didn’t dare think that he would be that lucky again.
