RNP Chapter 26 Mechanical Body Implantation and Upgrade Plan
Chapter 26 Mechanical Body Implantation and Upgrade Plan
Subspace travel has entered its third week.
The Black Pearl continued its journey through the chaotic sea, but the word "smooth" began to become relative. The colors outside the portholes churned more violently than in the previous two weeks, with vortices of purple and red occasionally crashing against the void shield, creating visible ripples. The ship's vibrations were no longer stable, sometimes low and muffled like thunder, sometimes sharp and metallic.
The people on the bridge are used to it.
"Another wave of fluctuations," Sierra's voice came through the navigation console. "Expected to last for several hours. The Void Shield is under safe pressure, but we recommend slowing down."
Marcus glanced at Liu En. Liu En nodded. The deceleration command was issued. Confirmation came from the engine room: weapons systems were on standby, and the veteran patrol entered level two alert. Everything was operating within the established procedures.
Liu En stood up from his command seat and walked to the porthole. A purple chaos churned outside the glass, occasionally coalescing into blurry, incomplete shapes before dissipating. The communicator rang. A voice from the engine room sounded tense: "Captain, the pressure fluctuation in the No. 3 cooling circuit exceeds the standard value."
Liu En turned and walked towards the passageway. "I'll go take a look."
The engine room is on the lower deck. The No. 3 cooling circuit isn't seriously damaged; an aging valve is causing pressure instability. The engine room crew has already cut off the branch line, so the main system is unaffected. Liu En stood beside the valve, tightening several bolts with tools while focusing his attention on the valve core—atomic recombination restored the sealing surface to its smooth state. The entire process took less than a minute.
"Try it again." The pointer on the dial came to a steady stop within the standard range. "Back to normal, Captain."
Liu En nodded and turned to leave.
On his way back to the bridge, he encountered Marcus. The old naval lieutenant commander was standing in front of a porthole, looking out into the subspace.
"Captain," Marcus turned around, "I've served in the Navy for twenty-three years, been on seven ships, and done hundreds of warp voyages. This ship is the most stable."
Liu En did not speak.
"I'm not trying to flatter you," Marcus added, "In the same warp storm, any other ship would be shaking like it's about to fall apart. The Black Pearl only experienced a slight fluctuation in cooling circuit pressure. I don't know how you did it, but this ship is the best I've ever seen."
Liu En paused for a moment, then said, "Take good care of it, and it will last a long time."
Marcus smiled and said nothing more.
In the afternoon, Liu En noticed a detail while eating in the cafeteria.
Lars, sitting in the corner—the veteran who gave him the laser pistol—struggled to hold his cutlery with his left hand while eating. His left hand was a prosthetic, replaced during his service; after nearly twenty years, the joints were noticeably stiff, and his grip was not precise enough. Several other veterans nearby were in similar situations: some walked with a slight limp, some had their mechanical glasses' sights flickering intermittently, and some made a dry, grinding sound from their shoulders when they raised their hands.
In the Imperium, mechanical implants are never merely "replacement for lost limbs." They are enhancements, modifications. Many veterans of the Astragalus Army voluntarily opted for enhanced prosthetics during their service. A military-grade prosthetic arm is five times stronger than a biological arm, and its built-in gyroscope and stabilizer significantly improves aiming accuracy. Leg implants can incorporate miniature jump thrusters. Eye implants integrate multiple tactical functions, including thermal imaging, rangefinding, and target marking.
But the price these implants come at is that they age. Joint damping materials fail, servo motors demagnetize, sensor signals drift, and the capacity of built-in batteries declines year by year. In the Imperial regular army, these implants are regularly returned to the factory for maintenance, or even replaced outright. But these veterans have already retired. They return to society with these semi-aged machines, neglected and unrepaired, left to make do. They work, but are far from being truly "good."
Liu En put down his cutlery and went through the thought in his mind. Five hundred veterans, remnants of the Astral Army and the Planetary Defense Force. Most of them had mechanical implants that had been used for more than ten or even twenty years, and their performance was no longer optimal.
After finishing his meal, he returned to his private workshop.
Opening the locker, several rows of mechanical implants were neatly stacked inside—spare parts he had sculpted in his spare time while on Lucis. Military-grade, not the cheap stuff from a secondhand market. The servo motors in the robotic arms used high-torque brushless models, with a gripping force 1.5 times that of standard military models and improved reaction speed. The weight-bearing joints of the robotic legs employed a multi-hydraulic buffer structure derived from powered armor technology. The eye implants integrated optical zoom, thermal imaging, low-light enhancement, and a tactical network interface. There were also bionic spines, subcutaneous armor, and lung capacity enhancement devices—all stocked in the Black Pearl's lockers.
I just kept it as a spare part, thinking I might need it someday. Now it seems the time has come.
He closed the cabinet door, picked up the communicator, and dialed Dr. Liz's channel.
"Dr. Liz, there's something I need your cooperation with."
"Captain, please speak."
"The Black Pearl has a batch of spare military-grade mechanical implants—mechanical arms, mechanical legs, eye implants, and bionic spines, a complete set. I plan to upgrade them for the veterans on board for free. It's a benefit for the Black Pearl, and also a necessary measure to improve the overall combat effectiveness of the team."
Liss paused for a second. "This is great news. Many veterans' implants really need replacing; some are even affecting their daily lives. What does the Captain need me to do?"
"You will be responsible for assessing each person's physical condition and determining the implant update and fitting plan. You will be the lead surgeon, and I will provide the equipment and necessary technical support."
"Understood. When to start?"
"Tomorrow. First up, Lars. His left arm will be replaced."
After hanging up, Liu En dialed Phyllis's channel again.
"Phyllis, inform all veterans: The Black Pearl will be providing free military-grade mechanical implants to those in need. From prosthetics to eye implants, the whole set is available. It's free. It will be done in batches, and Dr. Phyllis will make the arrangements."
Phyllis's voice held a hint of surprise: "Military grade? The complete set? Captain, this batch of equipment... is no small amount."
"The ship's inventory. It's our own, we'll replace it if necessary."
Phyllis smiled. "Understood. I'll send out the notification right away."
The news spread faster than Liu En had anticipated. By evening, people in the canteen were already talking about it.
"Have you heard? The captain is going to update our implants."
"Free? Really?"
"How could a notice issued by Lady Phyllis be false?"
"I've been using this leg for fifteen years, and it's incredibly slow to react..."
"What's that? The rangefinding function of this eye stopped working last year, so I rely entirely on feeling when shooting targets."
At eight o'clock the next morning, Lars appeared at the door of the infirmary on time.
Dr. Liz was ready. Testing instruments and data panels were on the table, and next to it was an operating table covered with sterile drapes. She first had Lars sit down and carefully examined the condition of his left arm's mechanical components. The joint damping rubber rings had hardened, with fine cracks on the surface; the servo motors showed significant response delays; and the grip force sensor's signal drift caused the gripping force to fluctuate.
Liss shook her head and made a few notes on the data panel. "It really should be replaced. Captain, did you bring the spares?"
Liu En pushed a cart down the corridor, carrying a brand-new robotic arm. It had a dark gray ceramic-steel composite armor shell, precision brushless servo motors at the joints, and micro-tool interfaces integrated into the fingertips. Its grip strength was designed to be 1.5 times that of the standard military model, with improved response speed, and it included a built-in gyroscope and stabilizer.
Lars glanced at it and couldn't look away. "This...this is a Voss-type military arm? I saw it once when I served in the Astronautical Army. It was issued to Stormtroopers. We ordinary soldiers shouldn't even dream of it."
Liu En didn't reply, but simply nodded.
Liz took the robotic arm, carefully checked the interface specifications, and confirmed that it matched the neural ports on Lars's stump. Then she had Lars lie on the operating table and began administering local anesthesia. Liu En stood by, watching her methodically disassemble the old arm, clean the interface nerves, install the new arm, and synchronize sensor signals. The entire process lasted nearly two hours.
"Let's give it a try." Liz took a step back.
Lars sat up, raised his left arm, clenched his fist, opened it, and gripped it. Each movement was as fluid as a biological arm, the servo motor responding with almost no delay. He picked up an empty cup from the table, gripped it gently—the pressure was so precise that the cup didn't budge. He then picked up a pen and twirled it between his fingers twice.
"By the God-Emperor..." Lars's voice trembled slightly, "I've never used an arm that feels so comfortable in my life. This grip strength, this precision, is so many times better than my old one."
He stood up, stretched his arms, and then made a shooting motion—his left arm naturally rose to his eyes, as steady as if it were locked in mid-air. The built-in stabilizer automatically compensated for the slight tremors in his muscles, and the aiming line remained perfectly still.
Lars turned to Liu En, his lips moved, and finally he only said one sentence: "Captain, this arm... is worth half my life. Thank you."
"Use it well," Liu En said. "Don't make excuses if you can't hit the target in the future."
Lars grinned.
When he walked out of the infirmary, there were already people waiting in the corridor. Several veterans peeked inside, and when they saw Lars carrying the brand-new Worth-type military arm out, their expressions changed from curiosity to envy.
"Lars, how's it going?"
Lars raised his left arm and clenched his fist in front of them, the servo motor emitting a steady hum. "Ten times stronger than before. The captain said, from now on, no excuses during target practice."
The veterans exchanged glances, their eyes filled with something new—not gratitude, but trust.
The next person to arrive was Coleman, a veteran artilleryman with twenty-six years of service. His right leg's mechanical body had been in use for almost eighteen years, and the weight-bearing joints were severely worn, causing his center of gravity to shift involuntarily when walking. After assessment, Liz confirmed that it needed to be replaced. Liu En took out a spare right leg from the locker—also a Voss military type, with a joint using a multi-hydraulic cushioning structure derived from power armor technology. After Coleman put on his new leg, he walked back and forth in the infirmary several times, his steps as steady as if nailed to the ground. He tried jumping, and the hydraulic buffers in his knee joint perfectly absorbed the impact.
"God Emperor..." Coleman stood there for a long time, as if readjusting to the new center of gravity brought by his legs. Finally, he raised his head and gave Liu En a standard military salute. No further words were exchanged.
Day 3, Day 4, Day 5. One person each day, sometimes two. Some veterans only needed to have one prosthetic arm replaced, while others needed their entire forearm and shoulder area replaced. Some had their mechanical lenses replaced, and others had their lower body fitted with bionic spinal braces.
Liz was in charge of the surgery and adjustments, while Liu En was responsible for providing the equipment. The two worked together more and more seamlessly. Liu En noticed that Liz never asked where these military-grade implants came from. She would just glance at them and silently do her job.
A week later, the atmosphere in the cafeteria was noticeably different.
Veterans with new implants walk with a spring in their step, no longer needing to carefully control the force of their robotic arms while eating. Lars tested the aiming accuracy of his new arm at the firing range, achieving his best score since retirement. Coleman performed a series of tactical rolls on the training field, the hydraulic cushioning of his new legs making him feel ten years younger. Observers with new eye modules can read the identification codes of distant cargo ships through the porthole while on night duty on the bridge.
The news spread among the crew—"The captain paid out of his own pocket to replace everyone's implants with military-grade ones," and "The benefits on the Black Pearl are even better than those of the Imperial Navy."
Liu En sat in the commander's seat, listening to the intermittent chatter on the communication channel. He wasn't trying to win people over. Or rather, it wasn't just about winning people over. These people had entrusted their lives to him, to the Black Pearl, so he should give them the best equipment, the best living conditions, and the best medical care. A usable arm, a stable leg, and a pair of far-sighted eyes—these weren't acts of charity; they were what they deserved. Moreover, five hundred upgraded robotic arms and five hundred pairs of more acute robotic eyes would genuinely enhance the Black Pearl's combat capabilities.