Start the Game (Galactogon: Book #1) (30 page)

Right after the wedding ceremony, Eunice and I signed new contracts for the contest so that, from now on, if one of us was to find the check, the other would automatically receive an exact copy. In essence, we were no longer competitors, having become equal partners. This was why I ordered Stan to send her all the information there was about my character—there was no point at all in hiding anything from each other now.

“You know, Lex,” said Eunice in a much warmer tone as soon as she had familiarized with my game history, “I was wrong. Maybe you didn’t realize it, but to be perfectly honest I thought you were an utter newb—even if you did manage to augment your Daphne with a personality matrix. But there’s no newb on the planet that could do what this says you did. Can you show me how you managed to get all this? I’m asking only because I really don’t feel like sitting in the nursery for another seven weeks. I only have four months left to play until I go on leave and I’d like to use them to their utmost.”

“Stan, pull up the video logs from my game. Let’s watch a movie…”

“But—I thought there’s no solitary in the Training Sector..?

…

“What is a KRIEG?

…

“Get out of here! Did you really make a hyperjump from an asteroid?

…

“A klamir?!”

We spent the next three hours watching my exploits in
Galactogon
. Eunice’s exclamations ran the gamut from initial mockery and dissatisfaction to surprise and even reverence towards the end. When the movie ended, there was a short silence during which we sat and considered what we had seen. Even I, having gone through all these events myself over the last two months, could hardly imagine that I had managed to acquire so much. A unique ship with ancient technology, three locals who were my crew and who were ready to go conquer
Galactogon
whenever—not just when they felt like it—a mysterious mission involving the KRIEG…I had so many things to do in
Galactogon
now, in addition to my search for the prize planet, that I simply had no idea of when I could even get around to doing all of them. Just the planet with the secret Uldan base would involve god-only-knew how much effort—and I still had to figure out how to even get to it. I found it unlikely that the Precians would simply let me waltz into their capital system and go digging around one of the moons in their sky. Heck, they wouldn’t let me anywhere near the system at all…

“I can’t possibly do all this,” Eunice said wistfully. “Even if I start over from scratch and get into solitary, I’ll still have to spend a month sitting in it. It’s easier to finish my training and come out as a recruit. One way or another it’s still two months. Damn!”

“Unless of course I come and break you out,” I laughed, suggesting the first thing that popped into my mind. Considering that Training Sectors were guarded by Grand Arbiters, the most powerful ships in
Galactogon
, this was a completely insane idea. No ship could even come close to the planet where the recruits were being trained.

“Break me out?” Euncie looked at me pensively, after which her eyes glazed over—the girl sank deep in thought. “A jailbreak…”

“Listen, that was a joke,” I backpedaled. “There’s no way to get a player out of a Training Sector. No one’s even come close.”

“No one’s ever come close to stealing a frigate full of Raq and flying it out either. Nope, no one’s even come close…As for attacking the Training Sector—I saw in the movie that you have a pretty good relationship with Kiddo, right?”

“Let’s say I do,” I agreed. “We’re kind of like partners.”

“She is the only player who’s managed to attack the Qualian Training Sector and gotten away with it. That raid happened a year ago. The players still remember it with reverence. It was the only time that some players managed to knock out a Grand Arbiter. Of course,
Alexandria
was destroyed in the process, but Marina proved that nothing was impossible.”

“I’m not about to risk
Yalrock
,” I instantly bristled. “She doesn’t have a cruiser’s firepower. A Grand Arbiter wouldn’t even notice me.”

“That’s the point though. There’s no need to get into a fight,” smirked Eunice. “While you were sitting in solitary and getting your klamir, I found out quite a bit about what other players do in this game. Marina started that battle herself. She wanted to see if a Grand Arbiter really couldn’t be destroyed—but before that she did everything she wanted to in the Training Sector. She landed on the planet, placed a planet destroyer—that’s a type of bomb—and flew away in peace. She only got into the battle once she was almost out of the system. I only have four more months, Lex. If we don’t manage to find the prize planet in that time, you’ll have to keep looking on your own. I’ll have to drop out. Help me escape.”

“Listen Eunice, this is pure madness…” I began to refuse, but fell quiet, encountering the girl’s pleading eyes. In the end, this was just a game and even if
Yalrock
got destroyed, she would come back—all I’d have to do first was bind her to a homeworld. After all was said and done, if I decided to pass on this exploit…why, I simply wouldn’t forgive myself later: I had had the chance to do something heroic and instead I took the safe route? Wasn’t I paladin finally?

“Alright, get me all the info you can about your Sector—the planet’s name, where it is, where I can land on it, where the extraction point should be, what the system defenses are. I need to know everything there is, so I can react properly to any changing circumstances. As soon as
Galactogon
comes back on line, I’ll speak with Marina. I’ll try to find out from her how she managed to land on the planet. Without any further information at the moment, I suggest we plan on breaking you out in a week—that will give us time and ensure that we don’t relax too much.”

“Okay,” the girl’s eyes lit up with the promise of work. Even though we were both adults, our habit of earning our living through games showed itself—we were both ready to set off on this adventure like it was nothing. After all, any adventure could bring profit. “Tell me, where’s the bathroom around here?”

“Straight down the hall and on the right. My bedroom’s on the second floor, but I typically sleep in the living room. You can have all of the first floor. There’re two bedrooms here, pick whichever. There’s a kitchen here, but I don’t use it. That’s what Stan is for. I’ve basically put him in charge of all everyday issues. If you have any questions, let me know. I’m off to bed. We’ve got a hard day ahead of us tomorrow…”

“Master, Eunice wishes you to come down to her,” came Stan’s voice as soon as I got under my sheets. Aside from having no front door, the second floor wasn’t much different from the first. The same exact two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, bathroom. Maybe I could call the technicians and have them move my capsule up here? I’d run into the girl less that way. Any way you spun it, she was very pretty and sooner or later I’d start to hit on her. Did I need that? “She says that she can’t go to sleep in a strange new house—without first hearing a bedtime story. Forgive my lack of tact, but Eunice has another request—she wishes me to warn you that it’s not proper to read bedtime stories without having first showered.”

Two hours later, I discovered that I would go on living on the first floor after all…

Chapter 11

Yalrock
’s First Battle

Welcome to the updated
Galactogon
! You may find the changelog in the updates section of the official knowledge base.

The following modification has been made to the “Star Wolf” Achievement: Your ship’s stats have increased by 10%.

A vast tome of notifications
rushed past my eyes, telling me about the new additions to the game. However, I ignored everything concerning the new patch. I already knew all this and was much more interested in two things: how my crew was doing and the missions list. Over my almost two months in the game, I had come across some mystifying situations which could have been interpreted to have been missions. So the first thing I did was examine the UI for the new button with an icon of a scroll, clicked it and got down to reading.

“A Pirate I Was Meant To Be – Part 1”: Destroy 150 interceptors (11 of 150 destroyed), or 125 scouts (0 of 125 destroyed), or 100 shuttles (0 of 100 destroyed), or 75 monitors (0 of 75 destroyed), or 50 frigates (0 of 50 destroyed), or 20 albendas (0 of 20 destroyed), or 10 cruisers (1 of 10 destroyed).

Mission Reward: “A Pirate I Was Meant To Be – Part 2.”

Failure Penalty: None.

My progress in this first mission upset me a lot. As I understood it, Wally and the crew had already sent several ships to their graveyards and made some progress—which, however, had not counted for me. That was no good…It was nice that the list had grown somewhat with several extra ships, but I would still have to catch up with my boys.

“Treasure Hunter”: Find your way to the secret Uldan base located on a moon of the planet Zalva.

Mission Reward: Unknown.

Failure Penalty: None.

Mission Key: Klamir
Yalrock.

This mission is available only to owners of a klamir.

The second mission upset me as well. Of course if I ever did find my way to the ancients’ secret base, I’d pillage it until there was nothing left, taking anything I could. But I had basically no chance of getting onto a moon of the Precian capital. As I understood it, imperial core systems were off-limits to players without an invitation. And even if I did somehow obtain one of those, I’d be allowed to travel through the system only under armed escort—something I didn’t want to deal with at all. I wasn’t about to split my loot with the Precians. It looked like this mission would remain as chaff in my journal until the end of my gaming career.

“The KRIEG”: Tell the Precian Rrgord that the Qualians have completed the KRIEG, as well as how you discovered this information.

Mission Reward: Unknown.

Failure Penalty: Unknown.

This mission may not be delegated to another player.

I had to read this description several times before I sighed deeply and painfully. This mission, which I had assumed would bring me an ample reward, basically turned out to be a trivial sidequest. I couldn’t complete it on my own, as I had to work on finding that check and I couldn’t sell it to someone else either. By the look of it, Rrgord would have to remain in the dark about the KRIEG, since I wouldn’t go looking for him on purpose.

“Engineer, give me a planetary status report,” I said, taking the captain’s seat and noticing that the marine-rhino-harvester had finished mining the Elo lode. I was about to go back to the main game world, but I decided to listen to the old man’s advice and check out Blood Island some more. Eunice and I had agreed that she would spend the day finding out the name of the planet she was undergoing training on—and, if possible, its coordinates. I still had to make several calls on my comm, but I’d get to that in due time. First—the planet’s status.

“Blood Island is capable of sustaining life. Its particularities are that it has no active Planetary Spirit. As far as resources go, scanners reveal only three Elo lodes, of which we have already exhausted the largest one. Blood Island’s landmass consists of two continents that comprise 60% of the planetary surface…”

“Hang on,” I interrupted the report. “What do you mean there’s no active Planetary Spirit? Does it not exist at all, do I have to buy it somewhere, or does it simply need to be activated?”

“The Spirit may be activated,” replied the snake. “In that case, in the event of destruction, you will be resurrected on Blood Island. To activate the Spirit, you must give me the command to activate it and bind you to it. The process will take thirty minutes.”

“Do it!” I ordered my engineer, barely suppressing a squeal of joy. The calculations suggested that the distance between Blood Island and the explored part of
Galactogon
was about an hour’s flight in hyperspace—with the option of popping out into reality during the jump. As a result, if
Yalrock
was destroyed, there’d be no danger to me. Having a backup spaceport that was unaffiliated with an empire or the Confederacy was a pretty nice advantage. For example, I could sell it to Marina, the captain of
Alexandria
. A pirate who had made enemies with most of
Galactogon
would jump at such an opportunity.

By the way!

The ship’s hull rippled as the snake left its station and plunged straight down into the planetary surface—however, I didn’t have time for pretty effects. I had only half an hour to resolve a whole host of issues. I figured I’d start with the most pressing one.

“Marina, how are you? This is Surgeon.”

“I can’t really talk right now. I’ll ask Anton to get in touch with you,” the girl replied. I didn’t know whether she was telling the truth or this was some kind of ritual in which I’d have to go through the help to earn the right to an audience—and I didn’t much care. If I could only talk to Anton, then Anton it would be. But before disconnecting, I managed to blurt out:

“Reason I’m calling is a planet I’ve found that’s an hour’s flight from the populated systems. I just activated its Planetary Spirit. I’ll wait for your call.”

Wally was next on my list. I had to touch base with him about the mission progress. Judging by the mission description, my human crew’s wanton destruction of locals was in no way furthering my own mission progress. Last time I’d checked there had been eleven destroyed interceptors and so it remained now. This was no way to build Rapport with Hilvar.

However, I never got a chance to discuss this with Wally because my comm suddenly lit up and began squealing madly, informing me that someone wished to talk to me.

“I’m listening,” I said, surprised by the call. Only a few players knew my number in the game—and I had just spoken with about half of them.

“Surgeon, this is Marina,” came the voice of
Alexandria
’s captain. “What’s up with that planet?”

It turned out—or at least Marina claimed so—that she had been in a meeting when I had called. Due to the recent patch, a portion of the Confederate planets had declared war on the pirates. According to the administrations who had remained loyal, the new common enemy required a unified front and therefore splitting up forces to make sure the pirates didn’t cause trouble would be a drain on resources. As a result, a majority of Confederate space had decided to refuse to harbor the Brotherhood of the Jolly Roger any longer, and many pirates, Marina included, had begun looking for a new place of residence. Marina didn’t mention how she felt about my unexpected offer—though it was dead obvious that she now suspected that I had a mole in her crew. Coincidences like this were simply impossible. And I wasn’t going to waste my breath convincing her otherwise.

I told her honestly how I found the planet, how I named it in commemoration of my first ship and how I activated the Planetary Spirit. I didn’t give her the exact coordinates, however. The time had come to make a deal.

“What do you want?” Marina asked straight out as soon as I was done. “I gave your crew a ship. We’re partners. You have plenty of money. Seeing as how you haven’t yet mentioned the coordinates, you want something from me. Get on with it.”

“I need to break a player out of a Training Sector,” I replied. “And I need to do it in the next week or so. I need to know how you managed to land on a hostile planet without drawing aggro from the planetary defenses.”

“Are you offering me the planet in exchange for simple info?” I could hear unvarnished sarcasm in the pirate’s voice. “Or are you going to want my help too—as my ally and all? I’m not big on sending my cruiser to the graveyard again.”

“All I want is information. I’ll deal with the Grand Arbiters myself. I just want to grab the player and get out. You don’t happen to know what’ll happen if an unbound player dies above the Training Sector? Where will he respawn? The ship’s homeworld—since he doesn’t have a homeworld of his own—or back in the Sector? Seems like an interesting question,” I added already for my own benefit. When I had begun planning Eunice’s escape, I quickly encountered this befuddling question—what would happen if she died and ended up back on the training planet? If so, our efforts would all be in vain.

“We don’t know that at the moment,” Marina’s XO, Anton spoke up on the comm. “No one’s died on the Training Sector yet. At least until we saw your little adventure there. Not everyone manages to acquire a pacifier.”

“Sorry, forgot to mention—you’re on speakerphone,” explained Marina. “The entire officer corps of
Alexandria
can hear you at the moment.”

“What’s up all,” I said, still considering Eunice’s escape plan. “So what about that info—will you share it? And I mean share it—since I’ll give you the planet’s coordinates either way. I got nothing to hide from my allies.”

“We’ll consider your offer and get back to you around lunch. You’re going to be in
Galactogon
all day, right?”

“Yup. I’m planning on staying late. Listen, Marina, it’s a dumb question but since we’re already talking, have you found out anything about that Rrgord guy? What’s up with that mysterious Precian?”

“Erm…” a pregnant silence filled the ether. “Did you read the changelog at all or what?”

“Obvi,” I said surprised. “But what does the new patch have to do with a Precian I was told to find long before the patch? The devs wouldn’t mess with continuity like that.”

“Right…Tell me, what is the main change in the new patch?”

“Marina, I am flattered that you want to try your Socrates on me, but let’s do this a little more directly, okay? Just tell me straight out—did you find out who Rrgord is or not? I won’t figure out your hints either way.”

“He’s the Precian prince who’s been kidnapped by the invading Zatrathi. He is being held captive with the other eleven figureheads of the ruling dynasties. Rrgord, or ‘The Libertine,’ as he is called—he is the only Precian who has an enormous frigate that’s controlled by only one being—is the heir apparent for the Precian throne. According to the lore, Rrgord grew up far away from the game’s main events and was carefully protected. Few knew anything about him—so it’s all the more surprising that you managed to stumble across a local that mentioned him. There are no other Precians named Rrgord.”

The Libertine…

I felt an immense sense of relief when Marina told me all this—I had been wrong after all. Yalrock hadn’t been talking about Hilvar—the freedom loving pirate, no! He had meant Rrgord, the heir of the Precian Empire, who’d been kidnapped by the Zatrathi.  Thus, the only local who could surely tell me where to look for the prize planet had become the focus of the entire game. Rescuing him on my own was out of the question, and joining with other players to fight the Zatrathi…Well, it wouldn’t be long before they’d requisition my
Yalrock
for the sake of saving the universe or whatever.

I sent Marina the coordinates to Blood Island and signed out of the game. I didn’t feel like talking to Wally anymore. I needed to get Eunice to sign out so I could discuss the new developments with her. Did it even make sense to extract her from the Sector, now that it was impossible to free Rrgord?

“Stan, pull Eunice out of
Galactogon
, will you?” I said as soon as I’d emerged from my capsule. The house that we’d found ourselves locked in had been designed for only one gaming capsule, so the cables from the new one were now strewn all over the floor. The technicians had tried to bind them together of course and hide them as best they could, but still it wouldn’t be too unlikely of an accident if I snagged one with my foot and yanked it out.

“That’s unfortunate,” said Eunice when I told her the news. “Although…On the one hand, it sucks, but on the other, we know for sure now who could help us find the prize planet. We just need to figure out how to get past the Zatrathi. Have you tested the ship already?”

“No. I spoke with Marina. She promised to send me some info about how she managed to land in the Training Sector. After that, I figured I should talk to you first. Did you find out your planet’s coordinates?”

“Not yet. I got the name, though. I’m on Vozban in a system called Gantanil-3. The planetary defenses seem pretty standard—two Grand Arbiters and six orbital stations. I haven’t gotten around to reading up about the system garrison, but I’d guess that it is quite significant. I can’t even imagine how Marina managed to pull it off.”