Red Queen was indeed working pretty hard on the upgrades of the Obscurus, and she had already completed many updates on the starship to the point where its combat prowess was being increased by around 30%.
At the same time, other aspects of the spaceships were being enhanced like the Shields and the Hyperdrive Engines that were now being adjusted to have some elements of the Warp Engines.
The Red Queen was attempting to create an even more advanced form of the Engine, based on information that was publically available on the Imperial NetSphere and the ExtraNet. As the dutiful Artificial Intelligence, she was working non-stop, though this also resulted in the total lack of Universe Credits.
She was spending the money at a staggering speed on the various materials and things that she needed for the upgrades of the spaceship. He was rather eager to see the Obscurus in real combat after the upgrades.
For the following few days, they were gathering information about the Ziras IV. and the situation with the Archanids there now that they had accepted the mission to exterminate the Archanid Nest within the planet.
They needed to meticulously prepare for the fight and create plans for dealing with the Arachnids. To this day, the Arachnid Swarm is the most dangerous foe that the Eternal Empire of the Asurya has ever faced.
Due to that, they needed to have a proper plan against the Arachnids, and they were also gathering information on the known species of the Arachnids that were confirmed on the Ziras IV., because that was of the utmost importance.
The Arachnids had probably more than one hundred confirmed species that were properly cataloged and researched, but that was just a wild guess.
It was most probably far more, especially in the deeper bug territories, but nobody really returned alive from there, or it would be more prudent to say nobody dared to send their science expeditions to research the bugs.
This task was something that Arcturus and Zehal were working on together because Jeniael wasn't clearly much of a tinker and couldn't really help them in this. Which was, according to the Heiress Apparent of the House Alvix, a blessing from the heavens itself.
At the same time, Arcturus took her on the tour of his spaceship because he gave her the promise that he would give her a tour of the spaceship.
Zehal, as someone who was basically an engineer and scientist, was rather surprised that she already finished several courses at the Imperial Science Academy and held two Doctorates in Aerophysics and Computer Engineering, and was already working on another one.
So saying that she was smart would be a great insult to someone like her, because she was a prime definition of the word "genius". Zehal was certainly rather impressed by the technological level of the Obscurus; even though it wasn't a state-of-the-art Imperial Warship, it wasn't actually that far.
"It can be seen that you have invested a lot of resources into this kind of ship, even though the design is a bit impractical. I guess that you chose it because you like the intimidation tacts and aim for the typical Juggernaut?"
Zehal asked as they missed another group of the construction droids that were working on something under the control of the Red Queen.
"Yeah... even though the pyramid-shape of the Obscurus isn't really practical for being a typical warship, if it's buffed to extremes with the additional Shields, powerful Power Generators, and tons of weapons, it would be able to take on the entire fleets on its own."
That was something that he had in his mind for a long time.
He had already prepared the Dark Matter Generators based on the Dark Matter Engines that were recovered from the different High-Level Civilizations that he had obtained during the invasion of the Alaric Star Domain from the derelict space hulks.
If everything went according to plan, his plan was to turn the starship into a semi star fortress. Not to mention the ridiculous amount of resources and money it would take. Even thinking about it made his head spin.
"That is actually a good idea... do you have any more facilities here aside from the ones that you already showed me, or are we done with the tour?"
In the end, the starship Obscurus was rather big, so the tour took them a lot.
"No, aside from the sparring room, there is nothing. Though, now that we have finished the tour, would you care to show me your ability? From the publically known information, the Deus Technicus is a very powerful Super-High Risk Psyker Ability."
Becuase this was only sparring match whose sole purpose was to get a grasp on her abilities, they were not really pushing it too much.
He saw how she was controlling the nanobots and when several of the blades that were created from the nanobots nearly chopped off his head off, Arcturus decided that it was a prime time to end the spar.
With the ability to freely control any kind of technology due to the Deus Technicus, she was extremely powerful.
What made things even more interesting was the fact that due to the Deus Technicus not having any direct offensive capabilities and it being something that was used to control Technology of all kinds, it was one-of-kind of Super-High Risk Psyker Abilities that had extremely low consumption of the Psionic Energy.
Arcturus knew that Zehal was obviously skilled in Psionics, so it wouldn't have been wise to engage her in real combat because she would have some nasty surprises for her opponents.
"It was a good spar. We should go finish the compilation about the known bug types on the Ziras IV., in some of the reports I read that there they have confirmed the presence of the Superbrain Bug."
He said that as they ended the spar, they still had a lot of work to do, and it was just the two of them who were doing the work. Jeniael was essentially freed from it because, realistically speaking, she would just create a bigger mess from it.
She wasn't good at doing the things like this, not to mention doing something that was more or like intellectual work. While it would be wrong to call her stupid because that was certainly very far from the truth, she wasn't a tinker and wasn't someone who had an aptitude for it...
Jeniael was more of a muscle brain that would throw punches at first and ask questions later.
"If they have one of the brain bugs on the Ziras IV. it could become rather nasty down there..."
The Brain Bugs, as they were called, were one of the most problematic aspects of the Arachnid Swarms because they were the hyper-intelligent bugs that had computing capabilities no less than any advanced artificial intelligence employed in the High-Level Civilization and High-Level Star Nations like the Eternal Empire of the Asurya.
And the presence of the Brain Bug or, possibly worse, the Superbrain Bug would mean that there would be an entire army of the bugs ready to fight till the last warrior for the colony that they had on the Ziras IV. if it came to it.
The presence of the Brain Bugs meant that the Archanids were colonizing the planet because the Brain Bugs were something akin to the leaders of the Arachnids due to their superior intellect and their Psionic abilities that were far above the rest of the Archanids.
Sans some specifically bred bugs for the Psionic Arts.
"It could be just rumors... hopefully."
Arcturus attempted to think positively, at least for the first time in his life, but even he himself wasn't convinced entirely by that statement because he didn't really believe that.
He felt that they would indeed encounter there some Brain Bug.
At least they wouldn't really need to enter the Superbrain Bug, because if the presence of one was confirmed on the Ziras IV., they could abort the mission and report the status to the Imperial Military so the military could send there an extermination team.
"Most often, there is always some amount of truth in every rumor, but on this one, I agree with you. This mission is already dangerous enough as it is, even without the presence of Brain Bug, much less the Superbrain Bug variation."
Zehal agreed with Arcturus and the more they went through the information about the Arachnid presence on the Ziras IV., the more disturbed she became. Most of the information gathered on the bugs on that planet was incomplete or vague, and the intelligence reports were not really the best ones on this one.
"Lately, Red Queen has been working on constructing a mean cannon, like a really big thing on the top of the Obscurus... I don't really know the progression on that, but according to the preliminary calculations, it should be powerful enough to erase a smaller city from the face of the world once it's complete. If you can get it working together with the Red Queen by the end of our journey to the Ziras IV., then we would have a backup plan if everything goes wrong, even though bombing up the Arachnid Nest in the unknown territory isn't really the best idea around."
This was one of the latest projects on which the Red Queen spent a considerable amount of the Universe Credits.