Chapter 4 Hacking And Ship Class
Chapter 4 Hacking And Ship Class
Thankfully, I found the SC tucked away beside the pilot's seat which takes the form of a wristband that you can wear. When activated, a holographic screen would be projected that I can interact with by touch.
I tried to explore the functions of the SC a little and found that aside from the usual game menu settings that were missing, pretty much all the other functions were still there.
Good enough for me.
I strapped it to my wrist and went back to the pirate ship, plugging the device into their terminal to download their map data.
Then I realised that I actually needed to hack into their systems and disable their security to access that data.
Oh shit... If this means I need to know programming, I'm fucked.
But it seems like luck was still smiling down on me as I realised the screen on my Codex has changed to resemble the hacking minigame that I was familiar with in the game.
On the screen were several words and numbers scattered across the screen and the required word and number was displayed at the very top. To clear the minigame, I just needed to search for the word and number within the mess and I will be able to unlock it.
[Data Download Successful]
The SC chirped, prompting me to unplug the cable from the pirate ship's terminal.
Didn't even take me a minute. Easy~
I then opened up the map display and a star system was projected up into the air in front of me.
It seems like the pirates only have a map of the local system which shows a single star with four planets orbiting around it.
All four planets seemed to be uninhabitable but there was a station orbiting the second planet from the star with a note that read 'Keyes Orbital Mining Station.
Near the fourth planet was an asteroid field and there was a similar marking there that read 'Home Base'. I'm guessing that must be the pirate hideout.
Of course, there's no way I'm going to assault it myself, but this information might be useful later so I just kept a note of it for now.
Currently, I'm more interested in the location labelled Keyes Orbital Mining Station.
An Orbital Mining Station meant there were people and people that aren't pirates is a source of information for me to get my bearings. Perhaps I can find a more complete map that would tell me if I was still in the game's universe since I don't remember such a station being in the game.
This only reinforces the possibility that I'm most likely not in the game but another universe instead.
Well, no use speculating right now so might as well just head towards the station first.
I tapped on my SC and linked the controls of the pirate ship's with my own ship, effectively making it into a single 'ship' as long as it was tethered to mine.
This was one of the ways that you could transport a ship to another location which is especially used in cases where one of the ships has broken down and needed towing. Though of course, this is used in the cases of small sized ships like the current ones.
Although for me, I mostly use this mechanic to tow disabled enemy ships back to a station to sell it for a quick profit.
Now that I've looted the room, I was left with one place I have yet to check... Their cargo storage.
I missed it the first time since the entrance was a hatch half hidden under a pile of discarded clothes in one corner of the dining room. I only spotted it by accident when I tripped over the clothes pile and kicked at it in irritation to reveal the hatch.
Armed with my blaster and a rifle once more, I prepared to open the hatch that led to the cargo storage in case there were more pirates hidden there.
I yanked open the hatch and peeked over the edge with my blaster at the ready, only to see a rather clean room below that had several crates and boxes pushed to the corners of the room.
Breathing out a sigh when I saw the room had no other signs of life, I descended the ladder to check what was stored down here.
The boxes weren't locked so it was a simple thing of just opening them up to see what was stored in them.
A few backup energy cells for the engines... Some extra ammunition for guns... A crate of food... Meh.
These might sell for a couple hundred credits at least I guess, which was better than nothing considering my current financial situation.
I was hoping that being pirates, they might have already robbed someone and had some valuable loot stored here but my luck wasn't that good it seems.
I relocated some of the food, ammunition and energy cells to my ship for storage while intending to sell the rest.
Now that everything was prepared, there was nothing left for me to do except to wait until my ship arrived at the mining station.
That gave me the time to check out the thing that saved my life.
I held up the rectangular box to the light, which I now know for sure was some kind of personal shield device.
This wasn't something present in the game, which I suppose wasn't really needed since the game had health bars and you could take a rocket launcher to the face as long as you had enough health to tank it.
But here... A well placed bullet in between the eyes is enough to kill you. You don't have health bars to tank damage here which is why there's personal shield devices here I guess.
I'm also guessing these are quite expensive since only one guy out of the five pirates had this and I'm willing to bet he was the leader too. Or maybe since they were pirates, they don't have access to the conventional market to get these kinds of things and he stole it off from someone? Who knows?
The shield managed to withstand about half of a full mag fired from a ballistic assault rifle, which I suppose was not that bad but it also meant you can't just stand there and tank hits all day.
Now I wonder if it protects you against melee attacks? Does a punch get through the shields or does it also stop the punch from hitting you?
Well, I'm not going to punch myself to find out either way... I'll just search it up later if I remember to do so.
I was just in the midst of attaching the shield device back on my belt when the console in front of me started beeping, signalling our imminent arrival at the orbital mining station.
Wait... Are they even open to having visitors? Do I even have identification on me?
Crap...
Perhaps I should start a ship's log so that I can record down things that happened to appear more legitimate... Is it too late now? Fuck it, let's just do it.
bookpower