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One day earlier
The game that bends reality
Near space, in the vicinity of planet Earth
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“THE BIRDY HAS FLOWN the coop!” Starship Pilot Dmitry Zheltov’s disappointed voice made me shudder and unstick my tightly closed eyes.
I found it easier to bear the high G-forces like that, with my eyes closed. And when the frigate took off from such a massive planet, at times we got up to 5 G. Oh well, it was my own fault. I asked them to rush the takeoff and fix only the what was truly necessary. And our three malfunctioning gravity compensators, in the estimation of the repair bots, did not make the cut.
My teeth clenched in strain; I was squinting at the radar screen. Damn! We didn’t make it. My Tolili-Ukh X frigate had just gained elevation and punched through the atmosphere, while the La-Shin Faction Kurimiru shuttle had already entered a hyperspace jump. We were just some five minutes late... Although most likely the enemies were watching for our takeoff and would have slipped through our fingers regardless.
“Navigator, were you able to determine their trajectory?” It was tremendously difficult to speak. My Gnat’s meager 17 Constitution made it a real slog to do anything worthwhile in such high G forces. Nevertheless, I was holding out for the time being and didn’t even put on my +1 Constitution rings this time because, as the famous captain of a star frigate, I needed to get used to this kind of thing.
“Yes, Leng Gnat. I was able to establish the vector of their hyperspace jump. Calculating end point now... uh...” old Ayukh stroked his nose with a huge paw, his other paw operating the instrument panel at tremendous speed. The seasoned Geckho seemingly didn’t even notice the 5 G’s. “The Kasti-Utsh system, as we thought. But they’ve taken a rather strange angle, too far from the space station. They’ll be off by almost a million miles.”
Based on the movement of his meaty lips, the Navigator was saying totally different numbers and units of measure, but I was already used to the game automatically tailoring that information to make it easier for me to comprehend.
“Almost a million miles? Does that put them outside the security zone of the Kasti-Utsh III space station? But that’s great news! We’ll be able to intercept them! Ayukh, begin calculating a hyperjump to those coordinates! Dmitry, as soon as we leave orbit, prepare the ship for a long-distance jump. The Navigator will provide vector. Actually... Both of you hold up. No rush.” I removed my headphones and, overcoming the forces in my arms and legs, turned my mobile armchair dashingly and scooted over to the copilot’s workstation.
Sitting there now was San-Doon Taki-Bu. A highly experienced level-91 Pilot who had long helmed Leng Thumor-Anhu La-Fin’s antigrav, he was currently on his first trip to space in a real starship. I could sense the Pilot’s emotional background: very tense. And seemingly the G-forces from the spaceship’s takeoff had nothing to do with it. San-Doon was clearly shy to be in the presence of the ruler of the First Directory and was so scared of making a bad impression on me that his knees were quavering. That must have been evidence of his experience with the previous leader, Thumor-Anhu La-Fin, who was famed for his difficult character and quickness to violence. Furthermore, the copilot was very embarrassed not to know the Geckho tongue, the primary mode of communication among my crew. Now for example, all the instruments and panels at his workstation were labeled in Geckho, merely doubled in the language of the magocratic world on little plastic stickers for San-Doon to read.
I gave the copilot an encouraging shoulder pat, praised his capable operation of the frigate’s stabilizers in the dense atmosphere and asked to be put through to the Engineer on the ship’s internal communication system.
“Orun Va-Mart, I’m reminded that you said you saw the Kurimiru in the spaceport with your own eyes. Back then you said their old heap of scrap didn’t have a very nice hyperspace drive. In fact, you said theirs was utterly not up to the task, along the lines of a lawnmower engine. Could you give me an estimate for how long it will take their bucket of bolts to make it from Earth to the Kasti-Utsh system?”
In response, our fluffy-tailed Engineer gave a pained groan through the speakers, then requested that I wait until we leave orbit for an answer. The severe G-forces were making it hard for him to think. I gave a satisfied chuckle. What could I say? I guess I found a crew member who was worse at dealing with G-forces than me! Incidentally, a thought flickered by that I should check how the other first-timers were doing. And there were a whole four of them on the frigate: not only level-91 Pilot San-Doon, but also level-47 Bard Vasily Filippov, Anya the pseudo-human of unknown level and the level-105 Shocktroop T’yu-Pan. The last two didn’t worry me at all though – Constitution was a priority characteristic for the Morphian, while the muscular Shocktroop would be just fine even at the kind of forces that would turn my Gnat into a pancake.
Vasily Andreyevich Filippov also answered my internal comms request, saying that: “I feel like my arms are full of lead and there’s a sheet of cement pressing down on my chest. But still, it’s nothing worth bothering my captain about.” Fortunately, the G forces were already diminishing and it was all back to normal within three minutes. Then the artificial gravitation system turned on and made life on board the starship entirely comfortable. Almost at once, the Engineer gave me his answer:
“Captain, the drive I saw on the Kurimiru shuttle came from an old Cyanian frigate, which I estimate will take eleven ummi to jump from Earth to Kasti-Utsh.”
I mulled it over. Eleven ummi? That’s approximately sixty hours. My modern Tolili-Ukh X frigate could make the same run in just eighteen. And even if I considered that my seasoned Navigator was bringing down hyperspace jump time by a quarter, the difference still made an impression. Space technology had really come a long way in the three centuries that had passed since the Kurimiru was first constructed!
If we started now, we’d have to drift around in space doing nothing for forty hours and change, waiting for the slowpoke La-Shin faction shuttle to reach its destination. What to do with all that time? Visit the nearby trade hub Kasti-Utsh III? We really did need to make another visit to the space station. Last time, due to the abundance of Miyelonian military on the station, I was unable to meet the antiquities trader, even though I was very interested in the Relict artifacts he had purchased from the pirates.
However, the ancient artifacts of the long-vanished race cost a pretty penny, and I was already pretty hard up for cash. To be more accurate, I had basically no money at all. But then the La-Shin faction cargo shuttle came along back at the Geckho spaceport. The shuttle looked to have been assembled from parts somebody picked up at a few random scrapheaps, and had no value in and of itself. But still I was planning to capture it because, if a Dark Faction enemy had a starship, that threw a serious monkey wrench into my plans. In fact, it went so far as to threaten the established balance of power on the virtual Earth.
Now I wasn’t exactly foaming at the mouth to destroy or steal the starship (although I won’t argue, those kind of thoughts were coming to mind), but showing Coruler Anri-Huvi La-Shin, leader of the La-Shin faction, which terrestrial faction was the big dog in outer space would come in very handy. Especially in light of the quickly approaching nonconfidence vote at the Council of Rulers in the magocratic world. I left Princess Minn-O on Earth and she assured me there was no cause for alarm – she would give a worthy speech and the mage-rulers would vote the way we wanted. But still, I wanted as many levers of influence before the important vote as I could get. After all, my position as Coruler of Humanity was on the line!
The dispatchers at the Geckho spaceport were all too eager to inform my business partner Uline Tar that the Kurimiru was making a course for the Kasti-Utsh III station. At the same time, those very same space-port employees whispered to the Geckho Trader that a human shuttle captain by the name of Mart-Ton La-Shin was inquiring about the price of rare-earth metals and large faceted gemstones out in the galaxy. In fact, he wanted to know so badly that he even paid a tidy sum to a Geckho trading agent for a print-out of current prices on the Kasti-Utsh III station. And after that, some people from the La-Shin Faction started loading heavy metal containers onto the Kurimiru shuttle and preparing it for takeoff...
The space port employees who told my business partner all these things dropped strong hints that, now that Captain Leng Gnat had reached pirate status, he might be interested in this information. Also, as if in passing, they mentioned that, under pirate law, informants are entitled to one tenth of the take. The cautious Trader made no promises to the corrupt officials, just said she’d tell her captain about the high-value goods. And what could I say? It really was very useful information. I was interested in the Kurimiru shuttle just for its own sake. But packed full of gemstones and rare-earth metals, it might actually be worth something.
At any rate, I was reserving the option of flagrant piracy for the very worst case scenario, preferring first to negotiate with shuttle captain Mart-Ton La-Shin from a position of power. Based on his name, the captain was somehow related to Coruler of Humanity Anri-Huvi La-Shin, so he could probably be used to communicate my offers and demands to the Coruler, as well as for discussing political and economic issues both in the virtual game and real world. And again to offer help selling goods at reasonable prices before the naive earthlings got taken for a ride by some streetwise junk dealer just waiting to rob them blind. But as I said before, spending forty hours and change waiting for their shuttle was an unjustified waste of time.
So then, what to do? I asked Ayukh how he was doing with his special assignment – finding the coordinates of an object in space knowing only the flight time from it to four other points in the Galaxy. To my dilettante’s eye, it seemed like a very simple task. But the Navigator was highly doubtful that it could be done at all. In his words, in real space, a straight line is practically never the optimal route between two points, and often they are filled with horrendous curves and have plenty of loops for accelerating around massive bodies. Still, such circuitous routes were the fastest way to travel. Furthermore, we had to consider the variable nature of the fabric of space, gravity extremes and the impact of displacement from other heavenly bodies on the object, which had been underway for millennia with a constantly variable but still sublight speed.
And now the Navigator spent a few minutes loading me down with professional terms and descriptions of how challenging it all was before giving his final result. Old Ayukh was very proud that he had accomplished his assignment.
Astrolinguistics skill increased to level ninety-one!
“So that means the location is about six and a half days flight with our frigate?” I asked, picking out the most important part of the Navigator’s long-winded and highly technical speech.
Old Ayukh gave a satisfied groan, turned his monitor toward me and pointed a clawed finger at a bright marker.
“Captain, my calculations point to these coordinates.”
“What’s there?” I scooted my flying armchair a bit closer, getting right up to the screen.
The gray-haired furry Navigator zoomed in the star map and read the pop-up aloud:
“The H9045/WE system. A 3FF red-dwarf star. Long-distance scanning has never shown any planets there. There is a ring-shaped dust cloud, perhaps the remnants of a destroyed comet or planetoid, but there are no large objects in it. The Meleyephatian map also contains very little information about this star system: a dim red star, a ring cloud, an asteroid belt. No data about any of the spacefaring races sending ships or search probes and, with what we know, the prognosis of finding anything is hopeless. No one has ever attempted to claim the system either.”
I winced in dismay when the gray-haired Ayukh mentioned the Meleyephatian map out loud. Although the Tailaxian girl Valeri-Urla had not installed her espionage devices here on the bridge, I still thought it better not to mention the fact that we had anything to do with the crystal drive where the map originated. After all, it was the cause of this whole big space war.
Six and a half days... I considered it. Obviously the search for the mysterious Relict base could wait for now. We had more accessible targets to fly to. The space trading hub Kasti-Utsh III for example. Although there wasn’t much for us to do there without space currency. At the very least we could fly out there to release the Morphian. The wise Vaa, who was now in the form of Anya from First Medical, wanted to get off at the first inhabited station we came across. Before parting ways, the Morphian had asked to speak with me one-on-one, without anyone else there. Vaa wanted to know everything about my interactions with Fox, and promised to tell me something interesting in order to repay me “in kind.”
However, we had some trouble finding a secluded place for a chat. My whole ship, with the exception of the bridge, was stuck full of espionage devices like a pincushion. Beastmaster Valeri-Urla had obtained my permission to place them there after being ordered to do so by her Tailaxian prison guards. And she did so with aplomb. But it was hardly possible to talk privately on the bridge either. One of the two pilots or the Navigator was always on duty, and if I was seen fraternizing with the Medic the crew would ask questions I didn’t want to answer. Furthermore, a third of the crew looked on Anya with a healthy suspicion and even hostility – she was thought to be behind the bio-weapon attack under the Dome, so her every step was scrutinized. The Morphian herself, perfectly able to read the emotions of intelligent creatures she came into contact with, realized in her first minutes on the frigate that she had made a serious mistake in her choice of human form. However, it was too late to change the human female body now – on such a small starship, the switch would not go unnoticed and would only make things worse. I told Vaa about the espionage equipment of the Meleyephatian Horde and advised the Morphian to just spend most of her time in her bunk with Uline Tar. Yes, my business partner had relinquished the bed that once belonged to Princess Minn-O La-Fin, who was back on Earth, to the new Medic girl.
Tamara wanted to be at Minn-O La-Fin’s side along with her adoptive father Roman Pavlovich. To be honest, I was hoping until the very last moment that the whole trio would be reinforcing my crew, but I read the Princess’s mood and realized she wanted to stay home and handle faction affairs. Alright then, I wasn’t planning to go dragging anyone into space, so I didn’t wait for my wife to make an embarrassed request and offered to let Minn-O stay on my own. Furthermore, I declared the Princess my “senior wife.” It would be better that way – my wife was expecting a child and risky adventures in space as a “travelling wife” were medically unwise. Furthermore, if my chat with the Kurimiru shuttle captain didn’t go smoothly for some reason, Princess Minn-O could serve as an alternate channel for communication with Coruler Anri-Huvi La-Shin.
I shuddered and turned my head, coming back to reality. The crew was still awaiting their captain’s decision about where to take the newly remodeled frigate. Okay then...
“Dmitry, for starters let’s take a couple loops around the planet and test all the on-board systems before our long-distance flight. And most importantly, we can finally make a complete map of the virtual Earth with all its continents, seas and archipelagos. I’m sure it will be appreciated. The terrestrial factions are probably sick of ‘playing Civilization’ and blindly probing into the darkness to discover new territories. I’ll set the ship scanners to search for energy and heat sources so we can add all inhabited nodes to the map as well. Then...”
I turned the spinning chair toward the Navigator and asked whether he still had the coordinates of the platinum mine we discovered way back with Captain Uraz Tukhsh. I had it all saved on my old Prospector Scanner, but then I had to give it up to the Great Priestess of the Miyelonians along with the data it contained. In theory, I could have gone and found the same asteroid again by reusing the same settings on the ship’s scanning systems, but what if there was an easier way?
“Yes, Captain Gnat. I have everything saved.”
“Great! Then right after we compose a map of the planet, let’s fly there! If the rich platinum vein is not being worked, we can sell its coordinates to some asteroid miners from the Geckho rolls. I bet we’ll earn one hundred thousand crystals at the very least, easy money. Plus, if there is another Meleyephatian mining facility there,” I said with a predatory grin, “we’ll have to teach the smuggler another lesson. He can’t go around being so disrespectful. This is beyond the pale!”
