Start the Game (Galactogon: Book #1) (9 page)

“The blue one is ours, I’ll tell you what to do!”

We couldn’t help but grab four repair bots along our way to the ship. Since repair was Lestran’s main occupation, he was fully capable of not only controlling these strange, arachnoid creatures, but could also fix my armor with their help. Over the past hour, I had gotten so used to my suit, that I didn’t even notice it anymore. That which had initially struck me as incredibly inconvenient (for example, the HUD) was gradually beginning to seem ideal to me. Maybe I should become a marine after all?

The entrance to the ship was right behind the forward bulkhead. With a trembling hand, Lestran put the access key to the door, which instantly opened with a slight hiss of steam.

“Look at that! Alright, Surgeon—let’s figure out whose ship this is now rather than later. The system is asking me about it—which one of us should I register as its owner?”

“Me,” I replied without a second thought. “One of us can’t fly it. You said so yourself, so we’ll play together. But if it weren’t for me, you’d still be doing the Training Sector over and over again. That’s number one. Number two is that since we’re heading to meet up with some pirates, the ship owner has to be the one whom they’re interested in. Otherwise they’ll just attack us, take the ship and then tell us to get lost. I already received a notification that
Galactogon
’s shadow guilds are curious about me. Have you gotten one?” I turned to Lestran, eloquently tipping my head to one side.

“Well then the robots are mine!” Lestran burbled petulantly. “And we split the loot 50-50!”

“That works for me.”

“What a greedy pig you are,” my partner said, still unwilling to calm down. He did something on the panel before him and I received a pretty welcome notification:

You have earned the “Captain” Achievement. You are now the owner of a spaceship.

You have acquired a space frigate. Weight: 250,000. Item class: D-77. For a detailed description of the frigate, please consult the ship’s manual.

You are the first player to own this frigate and have the right to change its name. The current name is
Dratistan
.

Uh, excuse me, but no! I have very little desire to go flying around in something called the
Dratistan
.

“Couldn’t think of anything more clever?” quipped Lestran, when the ship’s name changed. “Sit here. I’ll explain to you what sequence you need to press the buttons in. I’ll sit beside you and plot our course. Do you even have a slight idea of where we need to go?”

“I do. First into space and then to some backwater planet without resources. We’ll leave the ship there, then pop out of the game and check out the instructions. I won’t take a single step further until I know how to fly. By the way, how are you on time?”

“I’m fine. I’ve got a month at least.” Lestran pointed at a dark-red, almost maroon, button and continued, “Check it out, first we need to start the reactor and after that…”

I listened eagerly to Lestran’s introductory lecture on piloting a space frigate. Of course, I could absorb the entire process this very night by finding some emulators, but at the moment we needed to take off and fly away, having broken through the planetary defense ring—and that, as my partner pointed out, was a problem in and of itself. Especially, he underscored, for a ship with a name like ours.

Listening attentively and writing down the sequence of commands, I smiled to myself: Today would see the maiden voyage of
The Space Cucumber
. My Stan would be happy to hear the news…

Chapter 3

Flight

“I’m starting the engines,”
Lestran narrated his conjurations over the control panel. In principle, one person was enough to fly a space frigate, but you had to choose either between flying the thing or manning the shields and guns. The control mechanics did not allow for both to be done at the same time.

“Frigate
Dratistan
, please explain your engine start,” a voice instantly demanded over the intercom.

“We are conducting a test fire of the engines and reactor,” Lestran replied, signaling me to stay quiet. “They’ve been acting up lately and we haven’t been able to figure out why. I mean, we already took the hyperdrive apart and changed the power cells—nothing helps.”

“The facility is currently on high alert. Please cease all testing procedures on the frigate.”

“Guys, guys, what are you talking about? If I don’t find the problem, General Trank will eat me bones and all! He personally ordered us to get the frigate working like new!”

“I don’t know anything about that,” the voice replied less confidently. “Shut down your engines immediately!”

“Understood. As you wish. Please state your name and rank so I can pass it on the general. You know yourself what happens when his orders aren’t followed—so I’d like an official prohibition against further repairs. Please give me your name and I will happily shut off these damn engines!”

“Alright, alright. I’m sending over a marine squad to protect you while you run your tests.” It seemed that the general had such a reputation on this base that arguing with him was dangerous to one’s wellbeing. “Signing off!”

“And now our future is in your hands, Surgeon. We’ll need to destroy that marine squad quickly. You’ll only get one shot off—after that it’ll be a melee.”

“No there won’t.” I jumped up from my seat and ran to the ship’s exit. “Follow me!”

The bodies of the three engineers we taught to fly had not vanished (according to the forums, if you take a local’s equipment, his body will vanish after a minute, but if you leave the equipment, his body will vanish only after 24 hours—a convenient feature when you’re in the midst of a large battle). Running up to the bodies, I began to strip one of its clothes. After that, I shoved it under the ship and heaped some tools on it—hoping against hope that it would vanish before the marines arrived.

“If they start shooting, we won’t get off the planet,” I told Lestran when he caught up with me. “You have experience as an engineer, even if remotely. It’s time to use what they taught you. Put this on—you’re going to pretend to be a Qualian worker.”

“Not a bad idea but where do you want me to get the gray skin and third eye?” sneered my partner, nevertheless stripping the second corpse. Using the pacifier I pulled the third worker closer to us, undressed him and also concealed him under some instruments—if we were going to risk it, I was going all in.

“Hey—anyone alive in there?” No sooner had I managed to hide the body than the squad leader’s voice echoed in the hangar. Lestran needed only a few moments to put on the engineer’s robe and pull the hood over his head. I, meanwhile, thanked
Galactogon
’s mechanic of allowing me to change clothes without removing my armor for the n
th
time.

“Over here!” I yelled, waving at the three marines that had popped up into the air. These guys were so good at controlling their suits that I even started to feel a little shame about my own clumsiness. I could fly too theoretically speaking, but in actual fact… “Since we’re not allowed to be inside the frigate, we decided to test out this faulty armor. What a heap of junk…How do you boys even move in them?”

My irritation seemed so natural that, gently landing on the floor, the marines merely smirked.

“And who asked you to squeeze into it?” asked the squad leader. He was wearing a newer-generation suit, which had some kind of weapon that didn’t look like a blaster mounted on its right shoulder. The other two troopers were wearing the same suit as I was, with the slight difference that theirs were still in one piece.

“Just my natural propensity to do dumb stuff and wanting to prove to myself that I could. Something’s jammed in it though—it’s not letting me get out. Now I’ll have to ask the senior engineer to help me take it off…Hey, listen, fellas—do you know any special commands for this thing? It just wouldn’t do to make an engineer work in marine armor!”

“Sorry, bud,” the squad leader was in such a good mood that he even clapped me on the shoulder, “we’ve got nothing like that. You’ll have to hold on—the only way is to cut you out. We’ve seen this kind of thing with that model—sometimes the release latch gets stuck. By the way, where’d you get that thing anyway?”

“Recruit training,” I went on spinning my tall tale. “Someone trusted those bunglers with a real suit and they managed to break it half to death! I got it running with some elbow grease and good old Qualian knowhow and then decided to test it out myself…Darn those newbs! I have another question, by the way: What’s going on in the Training Sector? Why are you boys running around, keeping us from testing engines? As far as I recall, and I’ve been here—well, I can’t even remember how long I’ve been here—as far as I recall, nothing like this has every happened before!”

“One of the recruits went Section 8. He managed to get his hands on a pacifier and wiped out several scores of civilians. Our assignment is to neutralize the psycho.”

“Well, you better check this one right away!” I pointed at Lestran, who gave such a start at my words that his hood slipped off his head. It was too late to hide his face, so my partner proudly raised his head and looked defiantly first at the lieutenant and then at me. There was so much determination in his eyes that I even felt happy to have such a partner—even now, he wasn’t about to betray me.

“Recruit Lestran,” said the lieutenant, having checked his PDA. “According to our data, he is recorded as missing—all the other recruits have been found.”

“What do you mean ‘missing’? I’ve been sweating those frigate engines with this engineer since this morning, trying to find the problem, and you guys have him as missing? How is he going to get his experience points?”

Once again, I sounded so genuinely baffled that the marine became stumped himself.

“Okay, I will make a note that Recruit Lestran has been located…You said he’s been here since this morning?”

“Ten o’clock to be precise. Or, wait, no,” I cut myself off, pretended to check my PDA, cursed the armor for getting in my way and muttered something along the lines of “how do you people live in these things.” Finally, I clarified: “Ten-o’-three, in the a.m.”

“I’ll log it. Okay. We’re going to take a spin around the hangar to make sure that our renegade isn’t hiding here somewhere. After that, you two can go on with your engine tests.”

“Before we get back into the ship, have one of your guys check him from head to toe,” I proposed. “I’d rather not feel like there’s an orbital station about to come down on me.”

“Sure, no problem. Alright boys, let’s go,” ordered the lieutenant and the three of them flew up into the air.

“Maybe you should be an actor?” Lestran whispered, stepping up beside me. I really didn’t want to leave until the bodies of the real engineers had vanished—who knows what kind of questions the marines would start asking if they stumbled upon them. By my estimations, there were only a few seconds until…

“What’s that noise?” one of the marines asked, banking elegantly over us, once the clatter of falling tools resounded across the entire hangar—the bodies had finally vanished.

“I’m learning how to walk!” I muttered irately in reply and took an exaggerated step forward, teetering to keep my balance. “It’s not enough that this junk heap is malfunctioning—these damn servos will end up breaking my leg in half!”

To be honest, I was risking a bit too much by speaking so informally. However, my brief acquaintance with
Galactogon
had taught me that the locals were capable of anything, so the best thing was to stick to the matter at hand. An engineer stuck in a suit of armor, in my opinion, would have been more than merely irritated with everyone around him—he would also seem like he’d happily tear in half the guy that brought him the faulty equipment to begin with. I could only hope I wasn’t overplaying it.

“We’ve checked the hangar. No sign of the escaped recruit!” reported the lieutenant, returning to us. “You may go on with your tests—the ship is clear!”

“You boys coming with us?” I asked just in case.

“No, we will continue our search. Good luck with your repairs—and getting out of that suit!”

“How long did you prepare for that?” Lestran asked shocked when we turned back to the frigate. “To lie so well and react to the situation without showing your nerves…When you called me a recruit, I almost soiled my pants! I was ready to kill you then, but you it turns out had it all thought out.”

I didn’t say anything but just kept walking to the frigate—at first unsteadily, while the marines were still in the hangar, and then quickly, turning on my thrusters, flying into the ship and landing into my seat, relieved. A shiver coursed through my body and a fit of nervous laughter overtook me, almost forcing me to the floor—I’d never had to bluff so hard, even in
Runlustia
.

Forcing myself to calm down, I explained to Lestran the reason for my laughter—had the lieutenant asked my name, I would’ve been a goner. Had the lieutenant asked for my supervisor’s name, I would’ve been a goner. Had the lieutenant asked anything at all, I would’ve been a goner…However, the grizzled warrior had only seen a reasonable guy dressed in the same suit as his soldiers, which naturally led him to feel some sympathy towards me. This was precisely what I had tried to bet on, making a show of my clumsiness. Improbable, but it worked!

“Frigate
Dratistan
, you are cleared for launch through door number two,” said the by now familiar voice when we got back into our seats. Instantly, a giant door in the ceiling above the ship began to slide open.

“Roger that,” Lestran said happily, getting ready to do his magic over the control panel.

I, however, felt like pushing out luck some more. Understanding perfectly well that I was risking everything that we had achieved up until that moment, I pressed the call button and said into the open channel, “I have a question—who’s the wise guy who decided to disarm the frigate? For optimal testing conditions, we need a full loadout, including torpedoes and a full cargo hold. We’re as light as a feather right now and feathers don’t do well in combat! I’m not prepared to sign off on our tests under these conditions!”

Lestran had showed me how to work the shields and armaments, and I had been shocked to discover that our frigate was as toothless as a babe—the beam cannons had no energy cells, the torpedoes had been unloaded, the hold was empty. I should have probably kept my mouth shut, but…

“Pursuant to Directive 7742.33, all space vessels stored in the hangar must…” the voice began surprised, but I went on risking it. It’s not like anyone was closing the hangar door, after all…

“We submitted a request for comprehensive tests! With a complete battle loadout! Please get in touch with General Trank—he will confirm that I personally asked for his signature! Goddamn it, how much more crap can you put us through! If you don’t immediately load the frigate’s holds with Raq, return the energy cells and torpedoes—you’ll have to repair this frigate yourselves! I’m sick of this! I tell you, my entire division will quit and go to Shylak XIV—they need good engineers over there! Then, you can explain everything to the general yourself. The lieutenant already told us about the renegade recruit—but what do we have to do with that? We’ve already been checked over so thoroughly, that…”

“Raq?” There was so much astonishment in the dispatcher’s voice that I even smiled. If this were real life, I basically would have just asked him to fill the ship’s cargo holds with gold.

“Obviously,” I answered without hesitating. From what I had read in solitary, Raq was one of the heaviest and at the same time most valuable resources in the game. “We need to check the ship at maximum capacity. If I could stuff a neutron star in here, I’d do it without a second thought!”

“I don’t see your request anywhere,” the voice replied, faltering.

“Excuse me, who am I speaking to?”

“Junior Comms Center Dispatcher Gartil.”

“Ah, I see…Pass me up to someone a bit more senior then, Junior Dispatcher Gartil.”

“I am unable to do that, sir.” (Oh look—I had been knighted!) “All our manpower has been channeled into finding the AWOL recruit…”

“How long have you been working here?” Ignoring Lestran’s imprecations to end the conversation and get off this planet as soon as possible, I put a finger to my helmet, indicating that I wanted to be left alone.

“One month already, sir!”

“I see…Okay sonny, forgive me but I have no choice. I’m terminating the testing procedure.”

“Please wait!” A hint of determination appeared in Gartil’s voice. “I’ll find that request later—I’m ordering a full load out now! Sir?”