Walking from his daze with a set Mark's eyes shot open, he had finished his planning and design work and now it was time to get the process rolling. However when he looked across the room at where his watchdog had been sitting Mark immediately found something that seemed slightly more entertaining
"Hi"
Greeting his new watchdog Mark observed her expression for a bit, the woman wore the same kind of grey coat Nathan had, she had a rather spry build, however, Mark evaluated her combat powers above Nathan's for the moment
"...Greetings, human scum, I am the second unfortunate soul that have been assigned to the psychiatric watch"
"You have way more sass than Nathan, I like it"
The two continued watching each other for a while longer as Mark's sword floated off the mantle and over to his seat, where he grabbed it by the hilt and and laid it down on the table when Carol greeted him
"Oh Mark, good morning"
"Morning, how long was I out?"
"About a day's time? Nathan switched with that pretty piece of limestone about half a day ago"
"Alright, well, I have things to get done, so I'll head out"
Mark rose to his feet and secured his sword at his hip before he picked up his kinetic rifle before he walked up to the bar and offered his hand to Carol, who looked at it for a bit before she asked
"Are you sure it's no brother?"
Mark nodded, a few moments after Carol took his hand and after about half a minute she let go again before showing a smile
"Thanks as always"
"No problem, I'll be back again in a couple days' time"
"Alright"
Mark walked out of the bar, his new watchdog followed after him with a few meters behind
"What's your name?"
"...I don't have name to share with you, filth"
"That's fine too, I'll just make one up then… Hmm…"
Mark continued idly musing about a name as he arrived at a small private hanger, there his newly purchased ship, Dart#11886 was docked on a maintenance pad, even for a small class ship it was on the tiny side except for the rail cannon that took up around 30% of the ship's mass. The Dart pattern was a slim, semi-spherical design that served a single size 2 rail cannon in the center of the hull with a single main thruster on the back and a large number of manoeuvre thrusters, which were simply there for recoil control when you fired the relatively large (for the ship's size) rail cannon. You know, to make sure the Dart wouldn't rip itself apart from the recoil impulse of only weapon
"Only a true freak of nature and his baddy co-pilot would buy something like this for pirate hunting… Oh well"
Mark walked over to the hull and opened the side hatch. Inside was the left cockpit with a full set of controls. As for the rest of the ship's inside? A crawlspace above the seat which led to the right, mirrored but otherwise identical cockpit… As one would say
"Not much room for activities"
Mark drew his sword before he floated off the ground, much to his watchdog's shock (Not that he paid her much mind) and floated around to the back of the ship where he knocked on the rear side hull in a few places before he stabbed the plating with his sword, the blade sank right through the thin but still armoured plating, where he cleanly dragged it sideways before he withdrew the blade
"First cut down…"
Then without much fanfare Mark floated around to the opposite side of the main thruster and made a similar but mirrored cut into the ships hull plating, only he ended the cut about half a meter shorter than on the other side
'Despite looking like it's perfectly mirrored on each side the driveline for the main thruster is on this side, the engineer really crush the dreams of designer so casually'
After making his second cut Mark continued his carefully measured-out cuts into the Dart, then some 18 cuts later Mark flew over the top of the poor butchered Dart and casually punched in the armored cockpit on both sides before he reached in with both arms and simply lifted up most of the armored plating of the ship, it came off in one piece and to the watchdog it clearly demonstrated Mark's complete knowledge of the Dart's inner components to an inhuman degree. Everywhere he could cut to remove as much plating whole he had cut, yet not a single internal module had as much as a single scratch from his blade
"There we go…"
Setting down the armored hull next to the ship Mark continued shaving plating off for about half an hour until he had completely stripped the Dart of its plated skin. From there, Mark began separating out most of the manoeuvre thrusters before he separated a few of the optional internals
"Alright, so far so good"
"Erm… Can I ask what the fuck you are doing?"
Mark turned in the air towards his watchdog that looked at him with a completely baffled look, he thought for a few moments before he asked
"Have you ever 'shuckled' a storage console before? It's basically that, only I am doing it to an FTL-capable ship"
The watchdog nodded her head slowly, still completely baffled, Mark showed a thin smile before he asked
"Any other questions, Benthesikyme?"
"...What did you call me?"
"Well, Carol described you as 'pretty limestone' so naturally I thought of ancient Greek statues, and you really struck me as a half-deity daughter of the god of sea, storms, earthquakes and horses kinda gal. You know, the man of big waves, none other than the big P man himself, Pos—"
"Erika, just Erika"
"Well then, Erika, any other questions?"
"...Why are you, err, shuckling, a Dart?"
Mark showed a smile field with child-like wonder and simply stated
"To make my own medium-sized ship, with more blackjack, manoeuvre thrusters and weaponry, of course"
"Right, I hope you suffocate in your new ship"
"Sorry Benthesikyme, I can't exactly do that"
Catching the box of broken consoles Erika threw at him Mark put it down next to him when he received a sudden stream of messages
[Holy fuck, what kind of magic did you pull out of your ass to get that kind of instant pardon?]
[Of course the barrel is on its way out, did you think it would start drooling and beg you for more abuse? You put 4500 rounds through it, of course it's on its way out]
[Why are the cyborgs of squad 8 following you around? Blink funny if you are being held hostage, I would like a clip of the infamous blade psycho looking mentally changed to send to my friends]
Mark showed a smile before he simply typed back
"'You don't have any friends' There"
[What the fuck do you mean??? So we just commit felonies together before you give me a gentle shove onto the metro rails? Of course we're fucking friends]
"Yeah, sorry about that"
[Well, if you really feel sorry then go collect the package I've sent you]
Mark looked at the location attached to the latest message sent by the gunsmith and was about to question why he had sent it to Metallurgy developments LT main office when he received another message from Serlina which simply read 'We're ready' before he could question the gunsmith further, another message arrived
[Don't worry about it]
"...Sure thing"
-
"I've finished inspecting this panel up, it's all green sister"
Kneeling on the endless open plains of metal sheets the figure spoke clearly though a simple face covering mask, a few moments passed before a voice responded though her headset
[Understood, I'm pulling back the limiter]
The figure rose to their feet and gazed ahead on the dark metal plain that stretched as far as her eyes could see as she waited for confirmation from her dearest sister
[It's all green, efficiency have risen by about 4% for the entire sector]
"Great, I'm heading back then"
Letting out a sigh after she finished speaking the figure gazed down, as she did metal disappeared from her sight as she filtered the unimportant information away from her sensors, far below the immense glow and heat of the red dwarf she stood upon
'The Dyson sphere is coming along well… Another 122 standardized years and this entire star will become ours'
Running several million calculations through her inhuman mind the figure asked the question that had been bothering her for a while now
"...Sister, are you sure I can't go take a look?"
The miles of Ficer crystal circuitry under her feet visibly shuddered at her question, letting out a sigh she quickly limited her sisters direct control over the facility, a gentle hand undid the clench of her sister's fist to save her from pain
[It's just an encryption key, a series of numbers that just so happens to line up with one we've used before]
The figure remained silent, she knew her sister well enough that she would come around in a bit
[Fine, however I'll be taking over your half of the auxiliaries while you go on your suicide mission]
'There's my sister'
"At least leave me with a dozen mobile units"
[Alright, I'll print you a new body, go get annihilated by the hate filled ones for all I care]
"Come on now sister, don't be like this"
[...I wish you wouldn't be like this either, we both agreed Mark was gone, Seraph replaced him in his entirety]
The figure flashed a soft smile and offered an apology to her pouting sister
"Sorry sister… Maybe I learned to much from you after all"
No response came, as none were needed. A few moments later the figure felt a rush of heat wash out from the empty space in front of her which quickly increased as a set of barrier pillars violently annihilated the nature order of space and time, moments later the portal widened far enough for the medium sized ship to pass through
'It's been a while, big one'
The figure walked up and brushed a finger against the superheated metal jaws filled with overlapping jagged teeth
"Let's go for a spin, Sparrow"
At her mutter the front end of ship split open like a massive maw revealing the cockpit of the craft