Making the Grade (Omnia Online Series Book 2) (9 page)

Damn he missed his scout armor.

Drake closed the car door and started making his way toward the area where he thought the wisps of a smoke was coming from.  It should only be 50 to 70 meters into the trees.

Drake thought he heard a noise off to his left at a distance, but when he turned to look he couldn’t see anything through the trees.  He couldn’t sense anything but trees and bushes in that direction either.

It was a bright morning, but as Drake entered the dense woods, the trees quickly ate what sunlight there was, leaving only a dense, shadowy landscape. Drake paused to let his eyes adjust a little.

Drake continued forward slowly, not trusting his eyes so much in the gloom.  He pushed his psionic senses out to their limit.

After moving about 40 yards into the forest, Drake finally sensed someone hiding up in a tree just off to his left.  By the size and shape of the person, Drake was confident he was dealing with an adult male Human.

Drake could only imagine two reasons someone would hide up in a tree if they heard and air-car land.  They were either afraid of being hunted, or they were hunting. 

This made Drake either a hunter or prey in their eyes, and neither was a good thing for Drake because it portended a conflict.

Drake started to back away from what he suspected to be a trap.  He would find a way to draw the man out, or go around him to the location of the smoke.

That was when he sensed a short man behind him.  By the size of this man, he might be a Dwarf, and he was walking up behind Drake.

Now it was evident to Drake that he was the hunted in this game.

He didn’t sense a gun in the hand of either man, but the Dwarf was carrying what felt like a thick branch or club in his right hand.

Drake had just a second to decide what to do in this situation.  Try to get in close and use the stunner, or draw and use his blaster.

If it were one man, Drake would have used the stunner, but he was outnumbered, and one man had a weapon of sorts.

Drake drew his heavy blaster and aimed it at the Dwarf.

“Come no closer or I’ll shoot.” said Drake.

Drake was having trouble focusing on both men and using his gun at the same time.  He needed more practice at combining the use of psionic’s while using a weapon, and tracking more than one target.  He would have to suggest that to Samantha, as something new in his training.

The Dwarf dropped his club and put up his hands.

“Don’t shoot.” He said, but his voice sounded weak, like a half whisper.

At that moment Drake sensed the Human coming up behind him.  He was in a pickle.

Drake made up his mind to move, and with the Dwarf’s arms up, he chose to move in his direction.  He reached across and pulled his stunner out with his left hand and ran toward the Dwarf.

The Dwarf noticed Drake moving at him too late to react, he was just bringing his arms back down when Drake moved past him to his left. 

Just as Drake passed the Dwarf, he pushed the stunner into the man's chest and pressed the trigger.  There was a loud crackle sound, and as Drake ran past it seemed like the Dwarf might have fallen, but Drake was too focused on not running into any trees in the gloom to try to find out what happened.

He only ran about 20 yards, and then he ducked behind a tree and tried to circle back around.  Once again, he pushed out his psionic senses.

Drake wasn’t being followed.  He wondered if the human might be trying to help the Dwarf, or he could just be reluctant to chase an armed man through the woods alone.  Especially after seeing the Dwarf go down.

Drake wasn’t confident the Dwarf was knocked out but decided that delay only favored the men, giving them time to lay another trap for him.

Drake returned the way he came, and didn’t sense anyone on the way back; he hoped he wasn’t getting lost.  Of course, Samantha should still be able to connect to the air-car, so if he got desperate he could have her have the car horn honk…

‘Did air-cars that were self-driving even have horns?’
thought Drake.
‘Shit, wrong time to think about that… focus.’

When Drake finally got near where he thought he encountered the Dwarf, the short man was still there and unconscious.

Drake couldn’t sense the other person near, so he stopped to bind the Dwarves wrist and ankles, then bound them together, so the Dwarf looked like a roped calf, all tied up for branding.  The image came to Drake of a rodeo he once saw.  It made him grin for a moment.

‘Now where was the man, and why did they try trapping him?’
thought Drake.

Drake could not sense anything within his six-meter range, but he thought he heard something off in the direction of the tree that the man had previously hidden in.  That was also the direction he thought the smoke came from.

Drake left the comatose Dwarf and move toward the noise.  After binding the Dwarf, Drake’s weapons were back on his belt.  Drake decided to use the stunner for now since he hadn’t seen any real weapons yet, and he didn’t want to kill the man without even knowing what this was about.  He could always drop it from his right hand if he needed to draw his blaster fast.

Drake finally made it to the area where there was a small fire.  He couldn’t see the man, but there were two people tied up under a lean-to.

From what Drake could tell, one was a female Elf and the other a Karura of unknown sex.  Drake had the suspicion that he’d found Fiona’s mother.  But Drake remained silent and outside the edge of the camp.  He still could not see the Human man.

Then he sensed the man, he seemed to be trying to sneak up on Drakes right.  He must have picked up the club the dwarf was carrying since Drake sensed he had it in his right hand.

The odds had changed, but Drake was now sure that the men were guilty of kidnapping, or this was a really weird case of adult multi-species roleplaying.

Drake dropped the stunner, then drew and pointed the blaster at the man.

“Stop where you are, and live,” said Drake.

The man rushed Drake.

Drake fired off two shots.  The first hitting the man in his stomach, but the second only catching a glancing hit off his left arm.

For some reason, the first shot didn’t drop the charging man.  But it did knock him off balance as he swung the club forward, throwing off both the aim and the force of the club.

Drake had been expecting the two shots to take the man down.  His confidence that the two shots would end the fight, left him unprepared for what happened next.

Being unprepared to dodge out of the way of the man and his club, Drake could avoid neither.  As the man stumbled forward, the club swung in lower than expected.

Drake tried blocking the club with his left arm, but it went under his arm and hit him in the lower ribs.  Drake was thrown to the side, and both he and the man fell to the ground.

When the club hit Drake in the ribs, he felt a sharp lancing pain and heard a cracking sound, either from his ribs or the club. As Drake tried to recover from the fall, he couldn’t breathe for a moment.

He could see the other man trying to stand back up, and just as he was lifting his blaster to take another shot at the man, he caught a breath, that caused lancing pain through his ribs and body.

Damn that felt familiar, he remembered the last time he broke his ribs, it felt the same.

The pain caused Drake to have trouble bringing his weapon to bear.

Drake’s enemy got to his knees and picked up the club while Drake tried to control his arm and the heavy blaster that had never before felt so heavy in his hand.

Drake fired off his shot before the man could bring his club to bear.  He hit the man at the top of his chest, just where his neck and torso met.

The shot threw the man back, and he landed back on the ground.

The man still wasn’t out of the fight, though, which again surprised Drake.  The pain and damage should be shutting down the man’s nervous system, but he was somehow ignoring it.

Drake was still having trouble breathing and aiming his weapon.  On seeing the men still trying to get up with his club, he said, “Stop or I’ll have to kill you.”

The man ignored Drake.  Drake was beginning to suspect that he was on drugs or something.

Using both his hands to control the blaster, Drake fired two more shots at the man.  One more shot hit him on the side of the chest and the last on the side of his head.

The man fell to the ground and stopped moving.

Drake hoped the man was dead, but he needed to see to his own problems first.

He holstered his weapon and moving very slowly he pulled out his field first aid kit.

He then injected himself with a pain reliever.  He was careful this time to buy one that was non-narcotic, but highly effective at numbing pain like that caused by severe trauma, which is how Drake felt at the moment.

Then Drake injected himself with a military grade nanite booster.  This booster cost more than the standard emergency nanite boosters, but they were supposed to work twice as fast.

Drake then looked at the area where the club hit him.  The Blast-Vest must have absorbed part of the blow.  The area was an angry red color, and normally except for the nanites he would be severely bruised soon.  He poked at the area some and could not feel any bones that were badly broken, so he hoped he could move without a rib bone puncturing his lungs.  He would need to get a proper medical checkup after this one.

Drake was about to enter the camp, and check up on the captives when he realized he had a problem.  He didn’t have his viboro-blade to cut them loose.

Drake was pretty sure these two men had no more companions out here, or the rest of the party would have come running to the sound of fighting.  And the camp was not large enough for more than a few people.

Drake returned to the air-car, first stopping to check on the Dwarf.  After dealing with a man who seemed like he was unkillable, Drake suspected these men might be on some sort of drugs, so he stopped to double up the restraints on the Dwarf.  One set should be enough to prevent even the Hulk from breaking loose, but Dwarves were strong, and who knows what the Hulk might be like on drugs.

The car was still shut up and locked when Drake arrived, but Fiona wasn’t staying low, she was looking all around.  Drake suspected she heard the shots because she was also holding his carbine.

She looked relieved to see Drake, and she opened up the car door and started running to him like she was going to hug him. She must not have seen how he was favoring his left side.

“Stop, stop, don’t touch the ribs.” Drake tried to shout, but with his ribs still hurting even through the drug, he was just loud enough to get her attention.

The relieved look turned to one of concern.

“What happened, are you all right?” asked the girl.

“I’ll be ok, I think I have a couple broken ribs, though.” said Drake.

“Listen, I need the knife… actually, why don’t you come with me? No, no, leave the rifle, just lock the car up and bring the knife.” Drake directed.

Drake returned to the camp with Fiona in tow, she seemed surprised to see the comatose Dwarf, and maybe a bit shocked to see the dead man a little off to one side.

When Fiona got to the camp, though, she let out a surprised sound of joy at seeing the other Karurian.  Drake took this to be the answer to his question about whether she was Amethyst.

Drake didn’t need to remind Fiona to cut the two women free.  And then daughter and mother were soon embracing each other.

The female Elf turned out to be Trelinta Drea, a colleague of Amethyst’s.  They were captured about four days ago, and the men managed to hide from the search party.  According to the ladies, the men had said something about waiting for them to be picked up, but after Drake asked if they could remember anything more.  Both the women said that the men didn’t talk much, just that their ‘master’ would be waiting for them, and that they’d be leaving soon.

Drake found this to be only a little helpful.  Whatever was going on out here, there was an organization of some sort involved, and a ‘master’ of some kind.

Drake took some time to locate the stunner he lost in the fight, now that he was getting ready to leave.  The two men had very little in the way of gear, and there would be so little space in the air-car that Drake wasn’t interested in some old beat up cooking equipment, and the dull knife he found.

Whatever this group was, they weren’t well equipped, that was for sure.  Drake found the whole thing odd.  Slavers or pirates would have the proper equipment and weapons, this was something else, and Drake didn’t know what yet.

The Dwarf was just starting to come out of the knockout effect of the stunner.  Drake tagged him with the stunner again over the objections of the rescued ladies.

The men apparently didn’t treat them badly, and even shared what little food they could find with their captives.  So the women were just relieved to be going home, and not too eager to see more pain done to their captor.

Honestly, Drake couldn’t give a shit about how they felt about the Dwarf; he just didn’t want trouble in the ground car while delivering the man to the authorities in the nearby town of Straffwood.

Drake was in no condition to drag the Dwarf to the air-car by himself.  But with the help of the ladies, they managed to get him into the back seat.

The air-car was designed for four adult passengers, which left Fiona sitting in her mom’s lap as they made the trip back to town.

Drake felt conflicted about the outcome.  He was supposed to be doing this sort of thing for money, and free work wouldn’t lift his ship.  But he felt good, helping this girl and her family out, and life wasn’t all about the money.

Yet, this was kind of a scouting mission for a paying job, so it all worked out.  At least he hoped it would, or he would never get his ship off the pad it was sitting on.

***

The local police were glad to take custody of the Dwarf.  It turned out he matched one of the missing persons on the list Samantha’s research put together.

Drake was only at the camp for about ten minutes, but for each minute he spent in the forest, it felt like he spent an hour talking to the local town police about what happen and why.  

While giving his report to the police Drake was taken to the local clinic to have his injuries checked.

Drake was having his ribs wrapped with bandages when he found out that the comatose Dwarf was being rushed off to another facility, after being examined.  Drake suspected that they were taking him to a hospital for some reason, maybe even to Vastal. 

Drake had two fractured ribs, but after he’d told the people at the clinic that he already took a nanite booster, the only thing they could add was some wrapping to help stabilize the ribs and a bill for Drake to pay.

Drake thought it was nice to see the hero getting his rewards.

Before Drake left the clinic, he was told that a patrol was sent out to the location Drake had given them.  They found the camp, but there was no body.

Drake thought everything was all wrapped up when he finally met Fiona’s father.

Drake was there for the family reunion, and tried to make his escape but not soon enough.  After the relief of seeing her family together, Fiona asked Drake if he would take her on as an apprentice.

She told Drake that at the age of 12 standard years, it was normal for a Karurian to leave her home and seek out professional training with a Karurian master.  They called this time in their life their fledging.  Fiona’s family hadn’t been able to find her an acceptable position, but since he was a hero who saved them, she was sure Drake would be a great Master to learn her trade from.

Drake, who knew that he was just learning his new trade had to disappoint the young girl.

“Sorry, but I don’t think I’m what your people would feel is a master at my trade.  So I think you’ll need to find someone else to train you.  By the way, what did you think you could learn from me?” asked Drake.

“I want to work as an information specialist, working with computers.” said the now sad-eyed girl, “I figured that with your access to the Guild and Samantha, I could learn my trade while helping you.”

Drake paused to think about her offer.  He knew he could use someone good at gathering information, which Samantha couldn’t find.  And while looking into the girl's big sad eyes, he was tempted to give into her request.  But then he was struck with a sense of sanity for a moment.

Taking the girl on as an assistant, forget about the apprentice thing, might be helpful, but it would turn his whole life around.  How could he spend time in his virtual home if he had to be in Omnia all the time, which is what would happen if he had to take care of the young Karurian?

“How about a counter offer.” said Drake “I don’t know if having you on my team is a good idea, and you don’t know me well enough either.  Just a minute while I bring Samantha in on this conversation.”

“Sam, what do you think of Fiona’s situation and offer?” asked Drake.

“We should talk in private, Drake.” replied Samantha.

Drake asked Fiona to wait a minute while he and Samantha talked about her offer to join his… company?  Drake returned to the air-car and closed the door to get some privacy to talk to Samantha.

Drake thought about the offer he made to Gordon, to come and join him in the game, but he was thinking of that as a partnership.  But could it really be a partnership, if Drake owned the ship and all the expensive equipment?  Wouldn’t it be better to call it a company, where people were paid a share based on their contribution?  Like a small ship's company, or a mercenary company.  If that were the case, then would Fiona make a good employee?

After the car door had closed, Drake asked, “So what do you think?”

“I believe we might try giving her a task or two and see if she can be some help.  But bringing her in as full-time crew will change the way you now play.  That’s if you want to keep her in the dark about the nature of her world.  Remember, she’s an NPC, and it might cause trouble if she were to learn that this is a game.” replied Samantha.

“But something is happening that might force you to change the way you play anyway.  My contacts among the A.I.s are talking about the upcoming changes to the Omnia game this next week.  Intelecom management has been concerned that some of the alpha group are isolating themselves too much in their virtual homes, and not taking part in the Omnia game.  So they plan on setting strict limits on how much time each week you can spend in your virtual home.  I hear they’re planning to limit people to an average of 4 hours a day or a total of 28 hours a week in their virtual homes.” said Samantha.

For Drake this was a significant change, he would actually have to live in the Omnia game world, and what about his training?

“But what about my training and the benefits offered by the virtual training room?” asked Drake.

“Intelecom has already extended the advantages of the virtual training room to in-game virtual training rooms.  Many places, like your Guild Hall, already have virtual training rooms for rent.  Now the people with the gold level of subscriptions will find the benefits of their virtual training rooms have transferred to the rental training rooms when they use them.” said Samantha.

“This is better in some ways since it will allow for group training.  So you can take Fiona into a holographic training room, and she can access the advantages of your gold account to learn skills, but only when you’re present also,” said Samantha.

Drake could see how that would be a big help if he was going to have NPC’s on his team.

“Why is Intelecom doing this?” asked Drake.

“Like I said, some people have been just living in their virtual homes, some of them checked out the game and for some reason just decided to stay in their own safe zone, at least that’s the theory.  Intelecom can’t read their minds, so they can only guess, but… Intelecom feels that playing in the game is the purpose of the pods and that self-isolation is unhealthy.  They’re going to offer those people the chance to either enter the game or return the game pod.” said Samantha.

Drake heard her reasoning, but he was certain that Samantha had edited what she wanted to say just a minute ago, which means that there were more reasons than those she stated for Intelecom’s wanting people to play in the game instead of just turning into a strange sort of vegetable.

Drake took a minute to absorb this information.

“Ok, so if we bring Fiona on as crew, she can train in the virtual training room in the Guild Hall, as long as I’m there with her?” said Drake. “That could be helpful; she could study computers while I study flight or engineering?”

“Well engineering, yes, but she would be part of your environment, so if you’re in the flight simulator, you’re going to have to find something she can do on the virtual ship your flying.  It might be useful to train her on comms, sensors or even gunnery,” replied Samantha.

Samantha continued, “Drake, I have a suggestion.  Why not hire her temporarily part time; she can work with you on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays after your training time with Allacia.  You can then find out if she can be helpful and she can see what she’s getting into.  You could even rent a Guild training room and see how that works for you both.”

Drake had been thinking along the same line.

“So do you think you can help both with Fiona and me at the same time, Samantha?” asked Drake.

“Yes, I’ve been under-utilized up to now; I might find it fun to act as a young girls mentor.  She’ll need some sort of information device, like a tablet for us to communicate.  I could use the ships system, but there are no cameras or holo-displays in some parts of the ship.” replied Samantha.