Start the Game (Galactogon: Book #1) (15 page)

“In that case, along with the EM cannons, I’d upgrade the tail turret too,” Haggis spoke up again. “Since, honestly, we’ll find ourselves running away pretty often.”

The only player who was perfectly happy with my ship was Miloš, since the marine armor and blasters were entirely his own. Typically, a frigate carries a space marine for only one reason—to board an enemy vessel, so all of Miloš’s equipment was entirely his own.

Having put together the list of my crew’s needs, I raised my eyebrows in astonishment. The estimate that the boys had given me, including cost of labor, amounted to two million credits. After taking her 60% cut of the Raq, Marina had bought the other 40% that I had, paying me the market rate for this resource. As a result, I had the money on hand, but when it came to spending it on ship upgrades…
Galactogon
really was a dreadful drain on the family budget.

“Alright, it’s decided. We’re getting the upgrades,” I concluded, barely believing the words coming out of my own mouth. “In a few hours we’ll be landing on Qirlats. We’ll take a day’s break. Everyone fixes everything that he deems necessary, while staying within the budget.” I assigned each crew member a limit on what he could spend. “We’ll reconvene exactly 24 hours after landfall and take off to see what we’ve made of
The Space Cucumber
. We’ll have to work hard to get that money back…”

Chapter 5

Meeting Hilvar and the First Missions

In actual fact,
everything turned out much better than any of us had imagined. In the process of leveling out frigate to C-class, Marina did something no
Galactogon
player had ever done before—she became our patron of sorts.

“Surgeon, the Captain wants a word with you.” About an hour after our crew meeting, one of
Alexandria
’s crew approached me. “Come with me, I’ll take you to her.”

Instead being taken to the captain’s deck as I had expected, I was brought to the cruiser’s repair hangar where the repairs to
The Space Cucumber
were underway. Marina was standing several steps from frigate, which glimmered and distorted in the force field surrounding it. She was carefully listening to her engineer who was explaining something to her animatedly.

“I’ve never heard of a player escaping from the Training Sector before,” said the captain of
Alexandria
without even looking at me, “so I will consider you to be the first. I was quite pleased that you didn’t act like some princess and start bargaining for every byte of the data. And since the contents of your PDA are invaluable, I’ve decided to make you a present. Here it is!”

The force field vanished, relinquishing
The Space Cucumber
to my sight.

“Please forgive me, but a frigate outfitted with its stock equipment is a very sorry thing indeed. When I mentioned that I wasn’t into collecting garbage, I wasn’t equivocating one bit. Your
The Space Cucumber
was just a heap of scrap, but now…Obviously she has plenty of room for improvement—but that’s your problem now. If we’re going to be allies, I’d prefer not to lose you to the first bandit that comes along.”

While Marina was explaining the reasons for her patronage, I plugged my PDA into the onboard computer and tried my best to contain my excitement: a class-A powercore; two class-A EM cannons in the bow and one more in the stern; a brand new torpedo autoloader, including the torpedoes themselves; an upgraded computer; an upgraded life support system; an upgraded…

I got the impression that not a single piece of the old
The Space Cucumber
remained on board this ship—except for her name of course. Even the hull had been worked on—Marina’s engineers had mounted absorbers along its length, allowing us to take a hit from a beam weapon in the event that an EM cannon had knocked out our shields.

“This is must have cost so…” I stuttered, trying to skirt any talk of money. But Marina read my mind.

“According to my people, the upgrades cost us seven million. A brand new frigate costs about seventeen. Don’t make that face. Besides the cost of labor to upgrade this stuff, I didn’t spend a single credit. A pirate with a big ship is a lucrative occupation, especially when it comes to collecting various metal scrap…though, that’s not true. I had to spend money on increasing her class and leveling her—but that was a reasonable expenditure, given the info you gave us. While we were at it, we managed to offload some of our cargo. I don’t keep frigates in my service but I just can’t bring myself to throw away or sell even useless equipment. I think, we can say we’re even now, you and I.”

“We sure are,” I muttered, abashed. “I’m not even sure that I’ll be able to avoid being in your debt now…”

“Anything’s possible,” Marina smiled. “And consider changing her name. Ship names aren’t supposed include definite articles, you know. Alright, enjoy her, I’m off…”

“Wait,” I stopped the girl and, as if deciding to show all my cards, added, “that wasn’t everything that we stole from the Training Sector.”

“Not everything?”

“Nope. There’s another thing.” Opening my inventory, I produced the safe I tore from the general’s office and placed in my journeyman’s satchel. “With all due respect, I don’t like being in anyone’s debt.”

“Lisp, I need you down here at the frigate ASAP!” Marina instantly barked into her comm unit, transfixed by the safe. “Where’d you get it,” she asked, barely managing her emotions.

“The general’s office. I’ll tell you right off the bat—I have no idea what’s in it. Could even be a bomb. So…”

“D’you call me, Cap?” Lisp appeared beside us.

“Yes. Your next assignment is right there.” The girl nodded at the safe. “Put on some class-A protection and get to work. I don’t want the ship damaged.”

“Five seconds,” said Lisp, squatting down by the safe. “Huh! Where’d you find this antique?”

“Antique?” I echoed surprised.

“Uh-huh. Safes with mechanical locks were released in
Galactogon
only during the first few years. After that, they switched to electronic locks…Cap, we’ll nee a bit more than five minutes here. I’d even venture to ask for an hour.”

“Do what you have to,” Marina nodded in confirmation. “Surgeon, you’ll have to forgive me, but you and your crew will have to remain on board my ship for a little while longer. I want to know what’s inside the safe.”

We ended up having to wait six hours.

As soon as the door fell off (there were no booby traps thankfully), Marina invited me to be the first to see what was inside the opened safe. I was its lawful owner, after all. Inside, I saw five sheets of paper covered with a crooked Qualian scribble. It was the first time I’d seen handwriting in a game—even in
Runlustia
, a medieval game, the Emperor’s edicts were printed with special typewriters. In the futuristic world of
Galactogon
, on the other hand, finding a handwritten text was like finding a trespassing mammoth in the jungles of the Amazon.

I passed the sheet to Marina, who became absorbed in reading it, while all I could do was sigh plaintively—having no knowledge of Qualian, the document may as well have been Chinese to me.

“Anton, I need you in the repair hangar ASAP,” the girl said into her comm. It took Marina about five minutes to read one of the sheets, shake her head in puzzlement, reread it again, curse, read it a third time and call her XO.

“What do you think?” she asked the player when he appeared.

“That’s impossible…” muttered Anton, having read the text. “It’s simply not possible!”

“I’m of the same mind. Surgeon, could you tell us please how you got this safe?”

Shrugging my shoulders, I selected another part of my logs, approached the closest screen and began to transmit my ransacking of General Trank’s office. Based on how things were going, Marina should have just asked me for all of my logs dating back to the beginning of my time in
Galactogon
.

“Hmm,” said Anton as soon as the video ended, “looks like greed’s no sin after all.”

“You can say that again. Lisp!” Marina turned to her engineer, who was fiddling with some equipment beside my ship. “I’m convening an emergency officers meeting! You have thirty minutes.”

“This is all very wonderful,” I said, placing the other four sheets of the general’s scribbles back in my inventory. Unlike items that were equipped on a player, it was impossible to take something from his personal inventory without his permission.
Galactogon
’s developers had made this tiny concession to the preservation of property rights. “Only, we still haven’t determined how much these papers are worth.”

“You can’t be…” the girl began but instantly cut herself off, thinking better of it. “Okay, what do you want?”

“At the moment, I do not want anything. My ship, I can see, has been upgraded. I’ve got money too. I guess all I need is information. A leg up in the piracy business. I’d like to know how to best build my career in piracy: whom to target, whom to befriend and whom to avoid. Which clans or guilds are trustworthy and approachable and which ones will try to kill a pirate on sight. You’re not the only one who needs information, you see.”

“Why are you in
Galactogon
?” Marina suddenly asked.

“Not for the fun of it—believe me. I have a certain private purpose and the more highly-placed the locals I interact with, the closer I’ll be to it. Is it a deal?”

“Deal,” the girl agreed. “You’ll get the info you want.”

“Marina?” Anton asked with surprise.

“I’ve made my decision! Surgeon reminded me of the time when…Never mind, forget it. It’s in the past! Everyone start getting ready. We’re going to Qirlats.”

If flying through deep space could evoke a feeling of unlimited freedom, then landing on a planet offered nothing but a couple of gray hairs. Like all cruisers,
Alexandria
was not designed for planetary descents, so my crew and I made the landing in
The Space Cucumber
. Initially, I had a few moments to marvel at the beauty of the fully urbanized planet beneath us, which appeared to be basically one enormous city. The more we descended, however, the more I had to focus on controlling our craft.

The air traffic controller’s banter was a particularly nice detail:

“Come in
The Space Cucumber
, bearing 10, berth 336, we’ll bring you in…Change of plans,
The Space Cucumber
: set bearing to 27, berth 8225…
The Space Cucumber
, your approach has been altered again, set bearing to 443, berth 2201, we’ll bring you in…”

Marina and her shuttle plummeted off far below us, whereas I (as a newcomer to the planet) had to dart endlessly from one side of the planet to the other, relying on ATC’s instructions and the landing guide beam that my ship was following. Interceptors, frigates, shuttles and scouts whizzed all around us. I felt like we had found our way into a great swarm and the slightest mistake would lead to
The Space Cucumber
’s destruction. I’d never wish such a landing on anyone.

“Purpose of your stay on Qirlats?” No sooner had we settled in our berth than three locals approached our ship. Introducing themselves as customs agents, they scanned the ship from her nose to her tail in search of any contraband. Once they had determined that we were clean, the customs agents began to ask us questions.

“A meeting with Hilvar,” I replied. Marina had told me right away that on this planet everything that a player did was scrupulously recorded and thus affected his Rapport with the authorities. Accordingly, she advised that we conduct ourselves as honestly as possible. Although Qirlats enjoyed the status of a neutral state that was a member of the Confederation, in actual fact, this was one of the resupply bases for
Galactogon
’s pirates—both the official and the unaffiliated ones. The important thing was not to bring in any contraband and to pay your customs duties.

“The berthing fee is one thousand credits a day. Your minimum stay must be two days. The invoice has been sent to your PDA,” said one of the customs agents, after which we left the ship and emerged into the city.

“Where’d they put you?” Marina asked, as soon as I called her comm.

“Berth 2201.”

“Stay there. We’ll come for you in a second.”

As the forums helpfully informed me, until the time when my Rapport with the planet’s locals reached 100, the Qirlatsi authorities would treat me accordingly—I could expect peripheral public berths, constant jerking around during landing and customs inspections. Such were the rules throughout all the planets of the Confederacy. Those who wished to get away from the main in-game empires, just have to live with it. However, once you completed a hundred or so missions, the situation would change drastically and you would begin to feel loved and wanted. Just like in the real world.

“Allow me to express my veneration for the great captain,” said a blue-skinned Precian pirate, all but prostrating himself on the floor before us. Marina had brought us to a small and inconspicuous building that resembled a barn but was actually the center of the planet’s administration. The unofficial one, that is. Passing through the main entrance, we found ourselves in an enormous space without any barriers. Dim light chined through the few dirty windows, barely illuminating the floor and having no effect whatsoever on the gloom beneath the ceiling. “What brings the right hand of the Corsican to our planet?”

“I need to see Hilvar,” said the girl, completely ignoring the Precian rolling around at her feet. She was looking somewhere ceilingward, as if that was where the local boss was.

“What does the Corsican wish with Hilvar?” inquired a creaky voice. The gloom at the ceiling began to roil with something. My suit’s motion sensors outlined a barrel-shaped silhouette of a torso. Then my infrared sensors kicked in and I made out the five foot tall body of a Precian. He held a piece of fried meat that resembled a chicken leg in one hand and was aiming a blaster at us with his other hand. Despite the fact that it would take a minute for a C-class blaster to penetrate an A-class suit of marine armor—a length of time sufficient for us to kill everything in a hundred yard radius—finding oneself facing the business end of a blaster did not feel like a warm welcome.