As Orion walked, he frowned as he tried to find a way to improve. "Let's see what you can do."
One of the things he knew he had to improve for sure was his second heart.
Another thing he wanted to improve was his weapon systems given the fact it was empty at this moment.
'Let start small.'
He pulled out his dagger, its alloy blade catching the faint light from the broken ceiling.
With a thought, he began to scan the weapon.
The familiar grid pattern shimmered across his vision as a light projected from it and began to analyzed the weapon.
{Analyzing structures... }
Slowly, a schematic built itself in the interface, rendering the dagger's composition, balance, and edge geometry.
The readout displayed metallurgy percentages, forging temperature ranges, even the molecular lattice.
"Good," Orion muttered, impressed. The X-Core could break down materials and mechanics.
{Scan Complete}
{1st Armament recorded: Short Dagger}
He wide smile appeared on his face and he immediately tried to scan his assalt weapon.
The same process began but as he pressed further, trying to extract the weapon's function, a warning pulsed in his vision.
{Error: Incomplete Data.}
{Ammunition systems not recognized.}
{Weapon not registered.}
His brows tightened together as he came to a simple conclusion.
'I see so kinetic weapons that require a separate ammunition do not scan.'
The dagger scanned fine, but anything that required separate ammunition such as guns, projectile launchers... was beyond the X-Core's grasp.
It couldn't replicate or simulate what it couldn't produce internally.
He let the dagger fall back into its sheath, a quiet clink against the ruined silence.
This could mean that he could only scan energy-class weapons, lasers-class weapons, plasma-class weapons or anything self-contained.
Cold weapons, like his dagger or a sword, still registered because they were complete forms in themselves.
That also meant that his dependence on energy would increase... Another reason to find a better power source.
As he walked through the ruins, although he couldn't find any bodies their weapons were still left behind.
And one such weapon was a pistol.
The pistol was half-buried beneath a slab of composite, its casing scored and the muzzle clogged with grit.
Orion nearly missed it... his fingers closed on the unfamiliar weight and shape before his mind immediately processed what it was: an EN-2 "Courier," a compact laser-class sidearm.
The only reason he could even recognize it was because his database had arranged all the information in his mind so even long forgotten images could now be remembered easily.
From the description he remembered from school, it was not a very reliable weapon, but exactly the kind of self-contained weapon the X-Core could understand.
Up close it was beautiful in an industrial, efficient way... compact chassis, integrated cooling fins, a tiny diode for recoil mitigation.
The casing was cold under his fingertips but he ignored that and immediately got to scanning.
{Analyzing structures... }
Following the previous procedures, his HUD blinked as it mapped the pistol's external geometry, then dove deeper, going through the alloy readings and the internal energy pathways.
Lines of data folded into place in his field of vision: emitter array, capacitor matrix, charge threshold, safety interlocks.
A small progress bar slid across the top of the display.
{SCAN COMPLETE}
{2nd Armament recorded: EN-2 Courier (laser-class)}
Relief was a physical thing, while he did know that he could scan it... He wasn't very sure and now he was.
Looking at the pistol, he slotted it into one of his work belt harness and fed it a salvaged cell.
The HUD registered the transfer: CELL: 1/3 — 1.2 kW.
Not a lot, but enough for a handful of well-placed shots.
Handling, however, was another matter.
While scanning told him how it worked; it didn't teach him how to use it.
He remembered the mercs' movements from the fight and the videos he watched.
However even though those snippets stitched themselves into a rough mental pattern, they wasn't enough information to actually put them into a viable fighting partern.
He tested the grip, the balance, the tiny trigger. A cautious squeeze sent a ghost of light across the room... a harmless, low-power pulse that sizzled the wall. The feel was right.
Orion tucked the pistol into his workbelt holster, checked around for spare cells, and listened to the thunder of the battle above, which still rolled like distant surf.
He kept the gun even though he had copied it simply because he didn't want to use his own energy... While his energy did regenerate, he decided to use it only when he had no other choice.
It was only It was a small advantage, but in a place like this, it might be enough.
***
As he walked further, although the battlefield was silent, except for the soft crackle of fires eating through shattered equipment corpses began to reappear.
'I see so something dragged the other corpses further into the ruins... Most likely those weird creatures... If they took that much i wonder just how many they are down there.' Orion thought as he quickened his pace.
'Yeah, I really don't want to find out.'
Orion picked his way through the corpses of mercenaries and guards, keeping his movements efficient, deliberate.
He wasn't here to mourn; he was here to survive.
He soon realized an issue... He was wearing his regular engineering uniform.
How was he going to explain his physical changes to everyone, even if he did there was a high chance... No, he was absolutely sure they would experiment on him.
He was sure as hell not going to let that happen and neither was he going back to the life he used to live.
'I should be able to do this.'
He immediately pulled off his clothes standing naked... He closed his eyes and the X-Core responded to his intent.
At his thought, black tiny cells Pulled out of his cells and rippled over his skin, shifting and folding until it resembled a worn set of combat fatigues.
It was still his battle armour just with a different look, now it looked like patched gear any mercenary might throw together.
He added extra seams and pockets across the chest, thighs, and belt line... functional, but very messy enough to seem human.
Thankfully, he had previous grown his hair and beards a little, it was long enough so it took very little effort to make himself look lost.
Since he wasn't going back to working as an engineer he might as well get his start up funds.
'I mean you guys wouldn't be using it again... I promise I will make good use of it on your behalf.' Orion silently pledged.
He crouched beside the first body and pried loose a crystal shard about the size for a grown man's thumb from one of his pockets: it called a CredShard, one of the ways of storing credit offline... It was like a mini-portable bank just like his credchip.
A good start.
Another corpse yielded a holo-comm, high-grade with encrypted bands... expensive, and it should be easy to offload on a black-market tech broker.
He stuffed it into one of his new thigh pockets.
The next merc had opti-lenses, cracked but repairable.
Orion pocketed those as well, along with the occasional trinket: plasma cutters, ration packs, even a half-empty vial of stim.
Anything with resale value went into his suit pocket and larger items into his bag.
At the edge of the field he found the real prize: a damaged memory bank embedded in a shattered battlesuit.
Its casing sparked faintly, but he confirmed it was still functional.
{Connection Available}
The notification popped up immediately he touched it.
Orion connected without hesitation.
{Connecting to Databank.}
{Connection successful.}
{Downloading.... (1%... 2%...4%)}
The flood of data was disorienting information...
{Downloading mercenary's personal log... }
{Downloading mission manifests and objectives... }
{Downloading combat engagement recordings (video + audio)... }
{Downloading tactical overlays and HUD replay data... }
{Downloading weapon loadouts and firing logs... }
{Downloading damage reports and structural integrity logs... }
{Downloading impact vectors and ballistic traces... }
{Downloading armour plating schematics and material composition files... }
{Downloading power cores information and capacitor charge/discharge history... }
{Downloading mobility telemetry (g-forces, maneuver logs)... }
{Downloading sprint/hover profiles... }
{Downloading biometric data (heart rate, adrenaline spikes)... }
{Downloading neural-link transcripts and thought-command timestamps... }
{Downloading AI co-processor interaction logs and decision traces... }
{Downloading training regimens and motion-capture fighting combos... }
{Downloading stealth and evasion routines... }
{Downloading signature-masking and cloak indices... }
{Downloading targeting vectors and lock duration logs... }
{Downloading black box last-known-position and breadcrumb trail... }
{Downloading salvage and repair history... }
{Downloading parts replaced and maintenance cycles... }
{Downloading firmware versions and installed patches... }
{Downloading corrupted sector indexes and bad-block map... }
{Downloading encryption keys and auth token fragments... }
{Downloading faction affiliations and contract ledgers... }
{Downloading payment records and black-market transactions... }
{Downloading safehouse coordinates and dead-drop caches... }
{Downloading confidential dossiers and person-of-interest files... }
{Downloading interrogation recordings and extracted confessions... }
{Downloading psychological evaluations and loyalty test results... }
{Downloading kill logs and confirmed kill context notes... }
{Downloading sabotage plans and breach protocols... }
{Downloading infiltration blueprints and entry schematics... }
{Downloading experimental tech notes and prototype telemetry... }
{Downloading chemical/biological exposure logs... }
{Downloading containment and decon procedures... }
{Downloading environmental sensor readings (radiation, atmosphere)... }
{Downloading terrain maps and choke-point analyses... }
{Downloading ambush site recon and trigger diagrams... }
{Downloading forensic scans of recovered enemy tech... }
{Downloading reverse-engineering notes... }
{Downloading tradecraft notes (false IDs, cover stories)...}
{Downloading legal status files (warrants, blacklists)... }
{Downloading personal artifacts (scanned letters, photos, memos)... }
{Downloading psychological trigger markers and manipulation flags... }
{Downloading blackmail files and leverage dossiers... }
{Downloading recruitment lists and ally rosters... }
{Downloading mission debts and favors owed ledgers... }
{Downloading corrupted file fragments (checksum headers)... }
{Downloading priority salvage manifest... }
{Downloading notes from field upgrades and jury-rigs... }
{Downloading ambient audio captures for acoustic forensics... }
{Downloading boot sequence timestamps and last shutdown record... }
{Downloading recovery instructions for immobilized suit... }
{Downloading evidence of tampering and foreign implant signatures... }
{Download complete — integrity: PARTIAL. Some sectors corrupted, timestamps fragmented.}
{Enough information gathered.}
{System upgrade... Available.}
{System upgrading... }
'Shit.'
And that was the last thing he saw... Again.