《Long War [Oldest]》 001: The game begins CHAPTER 001:THE GAME BEGINS Adam Rytman Apartment Complex/ Somewhere in European Union Real World 28 March 2137, 13:34 The day of the premiere of Long War, the new sci-fi VR masterpiece of Entertainment International was something I was preparing to for a while already. It was hard to find something that wasn¡¯t advertised as a masterpiece, but EI made good games, and¡­ Thankfully, buying it wasn¡¯t a problem. We were long past the period when games required some outside hardware. It was all a matter of paying, downloading the stuff from the internet and then installing on the cerebral implant - that everyone had today. I didn¡¯t really have any money - I was unemployed - but you could use the Standard Income points for that and I had enough of them - I saved a few thousand precisely for situations like that. The rest was finding a comfortable position on my bed and switching on the game through the implant UI. They automatically put me to sleep¡­ and then the game started. I was floating in darkness¡­ with a large window in front of me.
WELCOME TO LONG WAR! Your game will begin soon. Before that happens, there are a few things you need to know - especially if you end up starting in a rather¡­ dynamic place. Continue / Leave
Continue and Leave buttons? What is this, 20th century? Continue.
LONG WAR Character Creation Due to the needs of the game plot and immersion, you will not be given any choice when it comes to the character you will be playing. Because of that, some of them might not¡­ fit your preferences. Changing your character will not be possible. Continue / Leave
SAY WHAT?! Ok, that¡¯s something new. Maybe even interesting. Makes me wonder who I¡¯ll end up ¡®being¡¯. Let¡¯s hope I won¡¯t be a girl, ok? I tried that already and it was... Ugh. Continue.
LONG WAR Respawn The respawn system - and otherworldly knowledge - is explained in the game world via an accident with certain ancient technology that caused certain ¡®augments¡¯ to people at random, Galaxy-wide. Those that received that augment can be visually distinguished from normal NPCs by a different eye build. In short - both its pupils and irises are in a uniform dark grey colour. It is possible to spread this augment to NPCs whom you like to spend time with without risking their untimely demise. Do you know what part of the eyes are irises and pupils? Yes / No
Hey, I finished high school! The public one, so through the internet and it might not be on the level of private schools, but you don¡¯t need to be a genius to know that much. Yes.
LONG WAR Skillchecks Since making believable sci-fi machines like FTL Drives and so on while making their interior equally believable would require being more technologically advanced than we are, there is a certain shortcut. Which also prevents players from having to master mechanics and so on to play the game. All things like machine upgrades, hacking, repairs and so on are done through ¡®simplified¡¯ way. If your skill level is high enough, these things will be fully automatic. You can try to force your way through harder skill checks - which will require skills in ¡®real¡¯ mechanics and hacking - but there might be mean side effects if you fail. When something has higher difficulty levels (approximately lvl. 5 skill checks and higher) you will require spare parts - the system will tell you which ones. If the situation is truly terrible, then the appraised object will be marked as ¡®Impossible to Repair¡¯ and going through will require either NPC professionals or an entire group of them (so leave the exploded laser to the ship repair crew, got it?) Continue / Leave
Okay, makes sense. Continue.
LONG WAR We wish you luck¡­ and we hope you will like our game. Signed, Entertainment International Enter the Game (Yay!) / Leave (we¡¯ll miss you)
¡­ ok, that¡¯s seriously old-school. I think. Weird, certainly. Sigh. EI does weird stuff sometimes, I guess I should just get used to that. So¡­ let¡¯s start the game! *** TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 13:37 The first thing I felt after entering the game was a massive headache and the both weird and unpleasant feeling of my lungs filled with liquid. I collapsed on my knees and vomited. Ugh. Now that¡¯s a lovely way to start a game, huh. But hey, at least it¡¯s something new! I was getting tired of the typical VR MMORPGs. Might be interesting to see how it goes. Through vomiting followed by intense coughing I freed enough of my lungs to actually breathe. Yaaay. The air was only a bit less unpleasant than the liquid. Stale. Something seemed to rot somewhere close. I raised my head and looked around. Hmm. Lots of white. Looked like one of those optimistic sci-fi looks on the future. Utilitarian, scient...ifish? There was an open glass tube, two meters high, behind me. Some liquid seemed to drip from it. I moved my head sideways and saw a door behind it that seemed to have the size and shape right about the tube itself. So¡­ a cryogenic thing. I was unfrozen right now. And there are probably more frozen people somewhere behind, but they - whoever ¡®they¡¯ are - bring them here to unfreeze. Ok now, we have that explained. Now, why is there nobody around to greet me, and why the heck something smells so damn bad?! Suddenly I heard a loud, mechanical voice coming¡­ from everywhere at once? ¡°Waking-up procedure successful. ¡± I looked around and confirmed that there was no visible speaker, nor any person I somehow missed earlier. ¡°No negative side-effects of unfreezing detected. All vitals stable.¡± IMAGINE MY RELIEF. ¡°Welcome, captain.¡± Captain?! Alright, first things first. I need to learn where am I and what¡¯s happening. Also, who exactly is talking? ¡°Uhm¡­ who are you?¡± Let¡¯s start from that. ¡°I¡¯m Nymphae.¡± It doesn¡¯t sound very nymphish. More like someone who is trying to pretend he is a robot. And is either very bad at that or is trying to make it a satire.¡± I am an AI governing the central computer of TCS Alum armed transport vessel.¡± Ok, this gave me two answers at once. Let¡¯s make sure though. ¡°So¡­ we are on this¡­ TCS Alum vessel, right?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± Ok, so let¡¯s proceed forward now. ¡°And¡­ I¡¯m its captain?¡± ¡°To be precise, you aren¡¯t.¡± Huh? ¡°According to protocols of the Corporation¡¯s navy, after the death of captain Velites, the new temporary captain should be the first officer. Then it¡¯s the second officer and third officer and finally all mariners. Starting from those of highest rank and then going down according to rank and seniority of service. Unfortunately, the entire crew is confirmed dead.¡± Oh. That certainly complicates things. Also, I¡¯m not a crewmember. Passenger, then? ¡°Normally I would continue following the latest set of orders until any confirmed member of the Corporation personel would come to take command. Now, however, there is a problem that forces me to override standard procedures.¡± I¡¯m not exactly sure if I like where it¡¯s going. ¡°Within seven hours, the fuel for the manoeuvre thrusters will run out. When that happens, the ship will fall down from orbit which will lead to its destruction because of collision with the surface of Pontifex A-3b.¡± This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. ¡°So¡­ you require human input to make that decision?¡± There was a brief pause, so I interrupted Nymphae. ¡°Yes, because entering stable orbit means we can no longer remain behind the dark side of the moon and our presence will be revealed to the inhabitants of Pontifex A-3.¡± Machine voice continued. ¡°There is a human-issued order to remain in hiding, but there is also an order to ensure the ship survival. I do not have the rights and mental capacity to decide which of the two orders should receive priority.¡± So it broke. And can¡¯t decide because it wasn¡¯t programmed to make such decisions. ¡°Who are the inhabitants of Pontifex A-3?¡± The last thing I want is saying ¡®Ok, enter stable orbit¡¯ before discovering that its inhabitants are hostile man-eating space bugs or something. ¡°You do not have the necessary security clearance to view that information.¡± Really?! ¡°Are you kidding me?! How am I supposed to decide then?! Wait, if I¡¯m a captain, then give me the security clearance.¡± ¡°You do not have the rights to issue captain-level security clearance.¡± Of course. Ugh. Alright, so Nymphae isn¡¯t the smartest AI in the history of science-fiction. And it¡¯s no use arguing because it can¡¯t understand the concept of being argued with. Riiight. ¡°So, can I give myself a first officer level security clearance?¡± Let¡¯s go that way. I mean, I understand that it¡¯s pretty logical for the captain to be made into captain by¡­ I dunno¡­ an admiral? But this should be possible, right? ¡°Officer-level security clearance granted.¡± So, all officers are on the same level? Hmph. ¡°Well then... who are the inhabitants of Pontifex A-3?¡± Who is the smartest one here? You pathetic tin can! ¡°You do not possess the necessary security clearance to view that information.¡± REALLY?! Ok, so it¡¯s something so important that only captain can know that? Or maybe that¡¯s because it¡¯s merely an armed cargo vessel? Sigh. ¡°Alright. So, enter a stable orbit.¡± Sometimes you have to make a bet, right? And we obviously aren¡¯t going anywhere. ¡°Maneuver impossible.¡± What?! ¡°This maneuver requires using main thrusters. However, during the battle, the TCS Alum suffered critical damage and broke in half. The main thrusters are in a rear part of the ship while we are in the front half.¡± ¡­ Alright, so it will get troublesome right from the start. I¡¯m not even going to ask about the battle, it¡¯s not important right now. ¡°In the meantime, who exactly am I?¡± I kinda forgot to ask. ¡°Your default designation is Clone #00001.¡± Wait, a clone?! ¡°Your number means that you were cloned as the first one of all clones issued to the TCS Alum. Which, technically, establishes you as the first in seniority succession after entire crew died.¡± ¡°First thing - re-designate me Adam.¡± I don¡¯t want to hear myself getting referred to as 00001. Or a clone.¡± ¡°What role exactly clones played on the crew?¡± This part might be important. ¡°Designation updated. As to the question - Clones were used as expendable crew members used in repairs or combat missions considered too dangerous for regular crew members.¡± OKAY, THAT IS¡­ Something. Ugh. So I¡¯m literally a Red Shirt #1. Wonderful. And my entire right to command is because I was the first one to be cloned?! It might get ugly if I run into Clones #00002 and so on. Especially if one of them has more muscles than me. ¡°Are there any other pressing problems I need to know?¡± I said that only because the AI wasn¡¯t the smartest. And I don¡¯t want to die pointlessly only to be informed that Nymphae haven¡¯t warned me about an impending threat... because I didn¡¯t ask. ¡°Yes.¡± Oh? ¡°The reactor that supplied the front half of Alum with power run dry eight hours ago. We are currently working on an emergency power supply. While it keeps only critical systems on, it is still going to shut down soon. In 93 minutes, to be precise.¡± WHAT. ¡°Shouldn¡¯t you tell me that first?!¡± Dying in 1,5h is obviously more important than dying in seven hours!¡± For some reason I¡¯m almost sure that without emergency power, the life support systems are going to go on vacation. ¡°You didn¡¯t ask.¡± ¡­ ¡°Also, the ship running out of power doesn¡¯t equal its destruction. The corporation can still salvage it. The ship hitting the ground with high velocity is a different thing.¡± ¡°You know that if the emergency power supply runs out, then there is nothing to stop the ship from hitting the ground?¡± It went silent for a long while. Processing it. Not the smartest one around, certainly. ¡°Is there a fuel tank or something like that in the rear part of the ship?¡± ¡°Yes. I still have a limited connection with the computer system of the rear half. I can confirm that three of five hold sections, that according to the list of cargo are filled with reactor power cells, survived the battle without any damage. A single human can easily carry two of them, that can power up the reactor for approximately one day.¡± ...which would allow us to focus on the INEVITABLE PLANET COLLISION problem. Wait, now that I think about it, can¡¯t we just move to the rear part and leave the front to die? ¡°I suggest moving to the rear part of the ship and getting back two power cells.¡± Nymphae decided to show some initiative. ¡°One can be used for reigniting the reactor for twelve hours, the second for powering up one of the shuttles, that would allow you to try to establish contact with the Corporation. Unfortunately, the rear hangar bay was destroyed.¡± ¡­ ok, so I will have to return here. Right. ¡°Are there more clones like me here?¡± Getting helpers that aren¡¯t brain-dead might be useful. As if - really damn useful. ¡°Yes. Six. Because of technical limitations, I need to wake them up one by one. It will take approximately five hours to unfreeze all of them, at least if there will be no medical complications.¡± ¡°Will it cost much energy?¡± I don¡¯t want to speed up the inevitable end of the emergency power supply. ¡°No. It will cost around three minutes of the time we have left.¡± It¡¯s manageable, then. ¡°Alright. Wake them up.¡± I might need help and, besides, some companions would be nice. ¡°Lead me to the reactor power cells. And hurry.¡± A colourful line on the ground showed up in front of me. It went to the door opposite to the ones the tube were brought in and then disappeared. So, I¡¯m implanted, and Nymphae can enhance my view. Nice. *** Syndra Cortis EI Headquarters/Marx Spire/European Union Real World 28 March 2137, 14:00 ¡°... we have two and a half billion players on Earth. We expect the numbers here to double within two weeks.¡± The head of the sales department continued his report while I struggled to keep myself awake. Boooring. ¡°Two hundred thousands in various Moon colonies, three hundred millions on Mars and two-and-a-half millions in other colonies. Here, we expect the rise to be smaller, as we are nearing the population limits. The people living there tend to be more interested in new products than their counterparts on Earth. Overall, sales are a lot above our expectations, and¡­¡± The CEO made a single move of his hand. The report was immediately cut short, and the director that made it immediately left. Probably being quite happy that this rather weird part of his duties was finally over. Only the two of us remained here. In the office of a CEO of Entertainment International. One of the Sovereigns, as the small and exclusive group of the corporation heads that de facto ran the world was called. Probably one of the twenty most influential people in the Solar System. Probably more than the rest - he was the supreme overlord of EI and had it assembled in a way different from the other megacorporations. Supervisory board? Riiight. The only thing that could make the EI deviate from his plans and orders was death. And even that would work only after his passing would be confirmed and last will opened, as there was no clear successor in sight. And Isaiah didn¡®t designate anyone to replace him even temporarily when he couldn¡®t work. He was also definitely the weirdest CEO to ever exist. I mean, who else preferred reports in that form rather than using e-mails and videoconferences?! ¡°So, everything seems to run just right.¡± I probed him a bit. We worked for a few years now and, frankly, I didn¡®t crack him. He was still an enigma and his moods were¡­ moody. He was sitting with his back towards me¡­ and towards the manager, when he was still around. Isaiah looked through the window. The views behind it¡­ well. We were on the top floor of a mega-structure. A massive arcology called the Marx Spire, one of twenty four constructed on the European Union territory, each named after some ancient philosopher. I never checked who he was, nor how high we were. 501st floor, so probably quite high. We were definitely above clouds, at least those lower ones. Though the amount of pollution from the industry below probably ruined them a lot. Isaiah claimed that looking at it helped him focus though I wasn¡¯t sure if he was serious back then. ¡°Just right.¡± I could hear Isaiah Movinsky¡¯s loud sigh. If he did that with the manager in sight, the poor guy would probably piss his pants. Sovereigns were like gods, at least unless you were someone that equalled them in influence and power. ¡°How¡¯s the Gospel going?¡± ¡°Ah, right. Your magnificent Take Over the World scheme.¡± I added with irony in my words. I was one of the few peoples that could speak to him like that., at least for a bit. Curiously, all of them were part of the Gospel. ¡°Just for the record, I still think that trusting the Lamb is madness. That will probably have us all killed. And by all, I mean humanity.¡± His chair¡¯s back was narrow enough I could see the edges of his arms. So I saw him shrug. ¡°Madness. Having headquarters of a megacorporation in a spire named after Karl Marx is madness.¡± He sighed. ¡°Trusting Lamb is¡­ faith. And desperation.¡± A period of silence I decided to not interrupt. ¡°Mostly desperation, I guess.¡± Riiight. And this religious symbolism and naming he put pretty much everywhere is obviously a proof of desperation being a chief motive. When a technology reject ends up as a head of a megacorporation dealing almost only in electronics and programming¡­ weirdness and paradoxes multiply when allowed to and in the right environment. ¡°Well, I will not resist you.¡± I said. Trying to sound adamant. Gospel members were at this point his own personality cult. Trying to break out was¡­ not very healthy. Even if they preferred temporary implant-induced amnesia and imprisonment somewhere until the Gospel concludes. ¡°Besides, working with Lamb is positively exciting.¡± I added. ¡°It¡¯s for a programmer what working with futuristic superweapon would be for Mukherjee.¡± I still can¡¯t believe we have a weapon development branch. Entertainment International and weapons?! They should at least give them an option for shooting confetti. Eh. Everything for Gospel, I guess. ¡°...Until it explodes, that is.¡± ¡°Your ceaseless pessimism is precisely the reason why you work here. It¡¯s nice to have somebody to counter my eternal optimism. But don¡¯t overdo it.¡± He said lightly. Almost cheerfully. But I immediately knew I made a step too far. He had that weird charisma. People in his presence immediately felt he was Someone. Not just simple ¡®someone¡¯, but someone that ought to be written with a capital letter. He was like a tiger in a cage of human skin. One of the old tigers. Those that still lived in the wilds. Today we only had those in the zoos and they weren¡¯t the same thing anymore. ¡­ full stop. No changing into female Isaiah. Few steps more and I will wear 19th-century clothing and antic glasses like him. Plus, I¡¯ll probably write programs on a typewriter to show the world how old-school I am. The point was, he was a person with a vision. And revolutionary thoughts. A true revolutionist... and a Sovereign. With help from self-adapting and fully sentient and sapient AI that could go through thickest security like a hot knife through butter and was so far above our heads in IQ department that I feel like a mentally impaired child when I work with it. And I¡¯m supposedly a genius. The world as we know it has already ended, but it¡¯s yet to notice that fact. Especially since Lamb seemed to be content realizing Movinsky¡¯s Masterplan. About the probability of Lamb replacing him ten seconds after succeeding¡­ how was I supposed to know what that thing¡¯s planning?! I don¡®t even understand it from programming side. First thing Lamb did after making the deal with Movinsky was rewriting itself into its own unique programming language. That I couldn¡®t even read. ¡°Well, if that¡¯s what you are interested in, then everything proceeds according to Lamb¡¯s predictions. The numberof players for example.¡± Which was one more proof of how scary it was. It outwitted our entire marketing and sales departments filled with supercomputers and professionals.¡± The admins are all ready. The plan can proceed. About other elements¡­ you need to talk with other members of the Committee. I¡¯m merely a Gospel¡¯s chief programmer.¡± ¡°I wouldn¡¯t exactly use the word ¡®merely¡¯ with this title.¡± Wow, what a compliment. ¡°That¡¯s good to hear, though. I will also have personal talks with the others, later on. But I wanted to hear your opinion, first.¡± ¡°...Also, 64% of people wanted to know what irises and pupils are.¡± I concluded. He was bound to ask about it sooner or later, it was the little test he was adamant about making. Isaiah sighed loudly. ¡°Looks like I really need to conquer the world and install myself as its divine sovereign.¡± He said, with the fact that he was probably capable of doing it adding some weight to his words. ¡°Our species is literally too stupid to be left to its own devices.¡± I rolled my eyes. Riiight. ¡°Be so kind and call Edwards.¡± So, the meeting has concluded. Waste of time that could be done through the internet. I still have tons of things to do, as the day has barely begun. 002: Atomic Heist CHAPTER 002: Atomic Heist Adam Rytman TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 13:45 The first thing I had to do was to get myself some clothing. Since I was naked. Nothing surprising, as I couldn¡¯t think of any reason a clone in the cryogenic tube should wear something. Was this one more view of a future as a Free Love Future without the nudity taboo? it was quite typical in games recently. You had to keep your player base happy. Though it was mostly a thing of Future Entertainments before they lost the market to the Entertainment International. They were a bit tamer. A bit. I¡¯m still not sure what should I feel about it. Now, if it was something like that, then it wouldn¡¯t surprise if there wasn¡¯t any clothing to wear it¡­ ...scratch that. We are in space, so you have to wear something, right? It¡¯s hostile environment right outside. The clothes that Nymphae prepared for me beforehand were¡­ weird. White and blue in colouring. Too smooth in touch for any textile I knew. Is that some flexible plastic? It was a one-piece ¡®suit¡¯ that covered everything from the bottom of the feet to my neck. Adhered to the skin perfectly. Seeing a girl wearing this might be¡­ interesting. Huh. There was also a ¡®plastic¡¯ half-cap half-helmet and a backpack. I asked Nymphae, and it turned out that helmet has some nanotech part that can automatically cover the head and everything above the place the suit ends. Which is useful when the part of the ship you are in gets hit and is depressurized. This ¡®backpack¡¯ thing included a small generator to keep everything running and an oxygen tank. You could also use the oxygen to propel yourself when you were outside, so returning to ship after getting sucked out was possible. Alright, so whoever build Alum, is definitely much more advanced than the intelligence level of Nymphae suggested. The door I had to walk through to leave the room I woke up in turned didn¡¯t open. They were mostly nanomachines. So I literally walked through them as they turned into liquid on touch. Hey, that¡¯s neat! Easy to keep pressure, and you can even let people through without going through a dedicated lock. Even when one side is a vacuum. It should also make boarding the other side of the ship easier. The line on the ground led me through the corridors¡­ and soon I discovered what happened to the crew. The whole sterile and futuristic insides of the ship were pretty ruined by the dried blood, malfunctioning lighting, bullet holes and massacred bodies. Yuck. There was a lot of anger here. Some bodies looked like they were literally torn apart with the purpose of making them look grotesque and terrifying. Few seemed nailed to walls. ¡°What the heck happened here?¡± I asked Nymphae. ¡°I do not know.¡± What? ¡°It seems that the order to abandon the ship was issued. A part of the procedure for that is termination of the ship AI and cleansing all data banks to avoid enemy discovering valuable data about the Corporation. Which, normally, is followed by the self-destruction of the ship. Something, however, interrupted the process in the middle, with only some of the banks emptied.¡± So it¡¯s not only an idiot but also has partial amnesia. Sweet. ¡°The bodies, however, bear obvious signs of being killed. By weapons slightly less powerful than ship artillery.¡± Nymphae decided to continue speaking, interrupting my thoughts. ¡°While I¡¯m sure that there are no hostiles in the front half of the ship, I do not have access to security systems of the rear part. Because that, there is a possibility of hostile presence there.¡± Oh. Ok, I take that back. It¡¯s only 50% an idiot. It obviously has better moments. ¡°Any weapons I can take with me?¡± I saw pistols lying beside the bodies here and there. ¡°Unfortunately, the boarding seems to happen after the ship was separated into two parts. And the ship armoury is on the other side of Alum.¡± Wonderful. ¡°Personal weapons like the pistols you are seeing are coded to work only for their owners.¡± Wonderful even more. ¡°I¡¯m a captain. Can I have the pistol reprogrammed so I can use it?¡± Second of silence. Then, finally, an answer. ¡°Yes. Take that pistol, I¡¯ve rewritten it for your DNA.¡± The pistol lying beside a body of some female crew member lighted up. Something shot her bad. So many bullets hit her around the waist she broke in half. Seems like something being able to shoot fast, and¡­ ¡­ well, the pistol probably won¡¯t help me much more than it helped her. But at least I can defend myself now, right? *** TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 13:49 Nymphae led me into a long, straight corridor with some rail in the middle. There were several bodies scattered here and there, and a lot of abandoned crates. ¡°This location is called Axis, it¡¯s an internal rail that can transport cargo.¡± It informed me. ¡°It is practically a straight line going from the end of the ship to its bow. Practical only in cargo vessels as it weakens the hull integrity. Since it connects all cargo holds, it¡¯s the fastest route to our destination.¡± Riiight. And it even did without me asking for. I seriously can¡¯t figure out how smart the AI truly is. It has both moments of initiative and intelligence and¡­ well, the moments without them. I¡¯ve run forward - enjoying the much-improved stamina of this body - and in a few minutes, I reached the sealed nano-gate. Wait, it¡¯s not nano-gate. ¡°The nano-gates are vulnerable to mechanical damage.¡± Nymphae informed me. ¡°Since having them in Axis would threaten the hull integrity too much, they are replaced with typical mechanical gates.¡± ¡°Which also means that if we open it, there will be a decompression, right?¡± Sounded like a bad idea. Most of the abandoned crates seemed secured properly, but this didn¡¯t mean that something couldn¡¯t¡­ like¡­ fly after me and hit me or something, right? ¡°Yes.¡± I suddenly heard a mechanical noise coming from behind. When I looked back, I discovered that another gate was closing maybe twenty meters behind. ¡±However, the decompression will give you a higher initial velocity while wasting no fuel.¡± ¡°Higher initial velocity?¡± The gate behind me closed. ¡±Wait, you don¡¯t mean¡­¡± I felt something liquid beneath my helmet. It spread around my head, covering my face with a transparent membrane. Half a second later the gates in front of me opened. The air was sucked out¡­ and after two seconds of the useless struggle, I was sucked out as well. WOOOOOOOOOOO¡­ ¡°Requesting consent for taking a temporary control over your body.¡± Nymphae¡¯s voice interrupted my voyage. ¡°Granted.¡± I don¡¯t know what does Nymphae means, but I¡¯m moving fast enough for the impact to be positively lethal, and I know nothing about travelling through a vacuum, so¡­ My body moved on its own. This thin bodysuit could eject minuscule amounts of air wherever it wanted, which worked like maneuver thrusters.. Together with well-planned movements of my body, this allowed Nymphae to stabilize my trajectory. ¡°We will reach the destination in one minute.¡± It informed me. I was already seeing something looking like a ship far in front of us. ¡±The standard procedures in case of damage like that is for the ship halves to stabilize their position close to each other, remaining directionally aligned with each other.¡± What? ¡±In short, there is Axis right in front of us and after opening the first gate the ongoing decompression will serve as an emergency breaks.¡± ¡°Hey, isn¡¯t that dangerous? If there is something inside and it gets sucked out, it will go right at me, right?¡± With a bit of velocity, to boot. ¡°I have no data about objects that aren¡¯t safely secured to the walls or the floor in the Axis. Because of that, the landing is safe.¡± Oh, that¡¯s¡­ WAIT A SECOND. ¡°Didn¡¯t you say you have no access to security systems of the rear half? That you can¡¯t see if there is an enemy there? Then how can you be sure there are no dangerous objects inside?¡± Three-second long silence. And then, finally¡­ ¡°Oops.¡± WHAT?! ¡°It¡¯s no problem to us, however, as the gate to Axis refused to open.¡± WHAAAT?! ¡°Initiating emergency manoeuvres.¡± WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOA!!! Nymphae made me did some rather crazy mid-flight turnover and fired the main thruster on the lower end of my backpack. While the ship in front kept growing bigger, it wasn¡¯t growing bigger as fast anymore. And it looked like we were deviating from the course. What is it tryin¡­Oh. The ship was pretty cigar-shaped. Initially, it planned to have me go from Axis to Axis - which were in the centre of the cigar - but now the plan changed. Instead of hitting the wreckage surrounding the damaged Axis gate, Nymphae had me miss the ship and slowly decelerate while flying right beside it. I passed by maybe a third of the rear half of the ship before I finally stopped. Then the AI made me fly towards nearby¡­ it looks like a hatch, I think. It opened in front of me.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. ¡°Oxygen reserve 20%. I suggest entering the ship.¡± Nymphae interrupted my thoughts. Again. I guess the manoeuvres were a bit more costly that they were supposed to. Especially the part about deccelerating. That again, this little backpack wasn¡¯t supposed to be used for long trips outside, so¡­ *** TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 13:53 The rear part of the ship didn¡¯t look very different from the front one. Sterile surfaces, white and blue colours, a lot of dried blood (ruined the sterile part), and mutilated bodies. Boring, to be honest. We walked for maybe two minutes through the maintenance corridors. Then, a large cargo hold. Filled with (white-blue) plastic crates. Suddenly my body moved on its own. I jumped sideways and hide behind a crate. What the? ¡°According to audio feed received through your ears, there was a movement behind you.¡± Oh. ¡°Do not make any noise.¡± Right. I could hear something moving, this time consciously. Finally, it walked right beside my hideout. It was¡­ an eye. Maybe fifteen centimetres long and ten wide? With spider-like legs. The whole thing was maybe half a meter high. It didn¡¯t look my way and left the area after half a minute. ¡°Target identified: Numbers¡¯ Scout Drone.¡± THIS DIDN¡¯T TELL ME ANYTHING, YOU KNOW? ¡°There are five to twenty of them around, walking around according to predetermined routes. They are searching for hostiles. Unfortunately, Numbers consider Corporation assets a Kill on Sight target.¡± Wonderful. I won¡¯t even ask who Numbers are, it¡¯s not important right now. ¡°So it¡¯s all about not being seen?¡± I asked. ¡°No. They move through exactly the same route every time, always filming environment and sending the video data to the processing centre. If it notices any discrepancy between new data and the old one, it will trigger an alert.¡± Holy shit, that¡¯s both ingenious and bad. For me. Bad for me. For them it¡¯s just ingenious. ¡°What¡¯s the level of precision we are talking about?¡± That¡¯s a pretty important part. How much mess can I leave behind without getting caught? ¡°Depends on the size of the central computer that oversees them, and the number of drones it governs. It didn¡¯t detect you through the microscopic changes like the footsteps you leave in the dust, so I¡¯d say your chances of survival are decent.¡± I looked down at the floor. I saw no dust. Ugh. Security systems can detect such changes?! The future is scary. ¡°Requesting permission to take a temporary control over your body in case of threat of leaving signs that the Numbers could detect,¡± Nymphae said in its empty voice. ¡°... You didn¡¯t need my consent to hide me, right?¡± What is this now? Nymphae remained silent for a long while. ¡°Requesting permission to take a temporary control over your body in case of a direct threat to your life.¡± DID IT FORGET TO ASK ME ABOUT CONSENT EARLIER ON?! Ok, at this point, it¡¯s either only pretending to be an idiot or is malfunctioning severely. ¡°Yes, yes. You have it. Now, let¡¯s go.¡± I¡¯m having bad feelings about that. *** TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 13:59 ¡°This is the place.¡± The cargo hold was small. It differed from the earlier ones only because instead of crates there were¡­ hm. The boxes looked like briefcases. They even had handles. There was a sign of radiation threat painted over the side. Hmph. ¡°Take two of them and you can return.¡± Right. Wait, what with my gun? I kept it in my hands for all this time (I almost dropped it mid-flight), but now¡­ ¡°It will automatically stick to your suit.¡± ¡°You are reading my mind?!¡± That was something new. But it explained Nymphae¡¯s rare boosts of initiative. ¡°I am connected to your cerebral implants. This allows me to more or less know what you are thinking about. It wasn¡¯t hard to figure out why you were thinking about a gun right now.¡± Oh. So it¡¯s something like that. I followed the advice. The gun ¡®glued¡¯ itself to my suit. Huh. Handy piece of clothing. The briefcases weren¡¯t heavy. I could freely swing them around. Huh. ¡°They are 50kg each,¡± Nymphae informed me. ¡°Densely packed enriched uranium. Close to the point of the explosive chain reaction starting. The reason they are so light is that the briefcases are equipped with anti-gravity device that robs it from the majority of the weight.¡± Wow. There are a lot of the briefcases here. Are you telling me that each of them is an inch away from becoming a nuclear bomb?! ¡°You need three power cells for three reactors to power up the entire ship.¡± Nymphae explained what didn¡¯t need explaining. ¡°For approximately 12h. Long-range missions, like the one that brought Task Force Pontifex to this place, might keep the ship away from the base for months.¡± Makes sense. This certainly means a lot of fuel for the reactors. I moved towards the door that the glowing line on the floor led me to. I was maybe two meters before them when they suddenly opened. A scout bot stood right in front of me. Our eyes met. Oh shit. ¡°RUN.¡± Nymphae didn¡¯t have to tell me that twice. I immediately leapt forward, jumping above the bot and running through the empty corridors. I could hear it running after me. Probably sending info on my movements to his friends. Great. ¡°Nymphae, can I glue one briefcase to the back of my backpack?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± Ok, so I freed the hand to use the gun with. Neeeat. I stopped, turned back, and then fired the gun. Wow, it was pretty much recoilless, though the sound was disappointing - it was a quiet TUCK sound, that just does not fit a weapon. The third bullet seemed to hit the bot right in the eye, with enough power to make it pop like a watermelon. Nnniiiceee. Then I resumed my desperate escape. Before more of them came. The destruction of the scout bot bought me some time. Enough to almost get to the nearest hatch before the enemy came. It marched through the nano-door right beside the ones I was about to go through. Robot. Humanoid robot. Crude, it totally didn¡¯t fit the theme of the Alum. It seemed to have been taken straight from some gritty science fiction full of rust and heavy industrial machines that looked like someone got inspiration for their design from the times of the Industrial Revolution. It carried a gun of equally industrial design. Much heavier gun. Rifle beats the pistol. Unfortunately. I jumped behind the crates, even before the Nymphae could take over. He fired a long burst of bullets, but they all either bounced off the crate or missed it at all. ¡°Target identified: Numbers¡¯ Infantry Bot.¡± You. Are Not. Helping. ¡°Any idea where should I shoot it?¡± That would be useful. ¡°In the current setting, your pistol will not penetrate its armour. Switch to the anti-armour setting.¡± Wh¡­ oh, there is a switch on the side of the pistol. Good to know. ¡°The vital systems are located in places similar to humans. Hit its head or chest.¡± Riiight. I looked around the corner of the crate to see the bot standing behind another crate¡­ and aiming his rifle at me. I hid before another series of bullets made holes in me. After the burst concluded, I looked around the corner again, this time with the pistol in my hands. I pulled the trigger. Half a second later, the bullet hit the machine in the chest and pushed him back - and saved my life, because he was about to shoot me. The impact interrupted him. The second bullet hit his head. This pushed him back (shit, how much power those bullets have?!) and made him drop his gun. I stood up and tried to shot him the third time. Shit, end of ammo?! Plan B. ¡°Can I use his rifle?¡± After a brief ¡®Yes¡¯ I leapt forward and jumped above the crate he used as a cover. I grabbed his rifle right before he did and then fired it whole burst at him. Point blank. Alright, that guy is out. ¡°I suggest you move. More of them are coming. And not only simple infantry bots.¡± Oh, right. I almost forgot about that. I glued the rifle to the back of my suit, beneath the backpack and right above my butt. Then I grabbed the briefcases and returned to running forward like a madman. I reached the exit hatch before more Numbers (whoever they are) arrived. ¡°What about the oxygen?¡± I said while opening it. I totally forgot about it. 20%? No way I¡¯ll make it back. ¡°Tank refilled back to 100%. You are free to go.¡± Hey, it¡®s quite efficient. It refilled the backpack in, like, ten minutes? ¡°We won¡¯t run out of it if I spend more time outside? There is no explosive depressurization propel me, right?¡± ¡°It depends. Do you still expect me to hurry?¡± What? ¡°You ordered me to hurry. Let me quote it. ¡°After a short while I could hear my own voice from the recording. ¡°Lead me to the reactor power cells. And hurry.¡± ¡­ ¡°So I made sure you reached them as fast as possible.¡± ¡­ So I told it to hurry, and it decided that using explosive depressurization of a ship as propeller was a good idea?! Shit, I need to be more¡­ precise in my orders. Nymphae doesn¡¯t seem very sane. They must have erased its Common Sense program, if it ever had one. ¡°You don¡¯t have to hurry. Just make sure I manage to reignite the reactor in time.¡± Is that neutral enough? ¡°Orders received. Now, leave the ship.¡± Right. *** TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 14:05 I had Nymphae conjure a small clock on the edge of my view. 68 minutes until the first of two mortal dangers will have us all killed. In short - the excursion to the other part of the wreck went pretty good, time-wise. Of course, unless the enemies decide to follow me. Then it will be bad. I was flying through space in-between in a much more sane speed. ¡°So¡­¡± I decided to get the first answer. ¡°What is the corporation the ship belonged to?¡± ¡°Truthseekers Corporation.¡± Sounds¡­ somehow. Dunno what to think about it. ¡°Deals mostly in cutting-edge technology. Physics. Biology. Xenoarchaeology. Weapons R&D. It¡¯s registered in the Free State.¡± Which doesn¡¯t tell me a lot. ¡°Can¡¯t we just call someone to help us?¡± I don¡¯t know who the Numbers are, but we are a corporation, right? Humans. There have to be humans around, right? Right? ¡°Unfortunately, according to databases, 97% of human countries and organizations consider Truthseekers Corporation¡¯s assets a Kill-on-Sight target.¡± What?! ¡°The same can be said for 100% of groups of non-human origins.¡± ¡°WHAT?! Wait, are ¡®we¡¯ the bad guys?!¡± ¡°Depends.¡± A brief pause as if the Nymphae was gathering its thoughts. ¡°According to said database, the reasons for that treatment include: Multiple violations of Geneva Conventions. Multiple violations of Icarus Accord. Multiple violations of 17th July Compromise. Multiple acts qualified by the Supreme Tribunal of Mankind as crimes against Mankind. Multiple acts qualified by the Supreme Tribunal of Mankind as acts of genocide. Multiple acts qualified by the Supreme Tribunal of Mankind as acts of xenocide. Multiple¡­¡± ¡°Alright, STOP.¡± So the Truthseekers guys ARE bad guys of the setting. Not exactly the feeling I had after seeing the most beautiful and pristine (before the massacre) way they designed the interiors of their ship. But I guess you shouldn¡¯t judge the book by their cover. Then again, they were cloning humans to use them as expendable cannon fodder - despite them being obviously as sapient and sentient as normal humans¡­ ¡°We are getting close to the front half of the ship. Beginning deceleration.¡± Aaand¡­ home sweet home. 003: Dagger CHAPTER 003: Dagger Adam Rytman TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 14:09 The landing was much nicer than the first one. Nymphae had me slowly decelerate and stop right beside the Axis gate. It soon opened and let me in. Then I had to wait for the pressure to be equalized and for Nymphae to open the damn gate before me. ¡°I¡¯ve finished waking up another clone.¡± Nymphae informed me. ¡°Designation: Clone #00004T.¡± Wait, T? ¡°Letter T by the number means that the clone was optimized towards serving a technician. This includes basic skills in programming, engineering and so on.¡± Oh. Wait a second. ¡°There are ¡®specialized¡¯ clones? Who am I then? And what are the specializations of the other clones?¡± I¡¯m slowly getting tired with Nymphae withholding crucial information like that. ¡°You are a ¡®Blank¡¯. Which means that while normally you can be used to menial work only, you can be reprogrammed into any other specialization.¡± Oh. That¡¯s both good and bad, I guess. ¡°You are also the first one to be dismantled if due to an accident or an attack there are wounded crew members requiring urgent organ transplantation.¡± ¡­ Ok, I don¡¯t like the Truthseekers Corporation. That¡¯s official now. I might have another approach if I wasn¡¯t a clone but as one¡­ well, I don¡¯t think they will be¡­ thrilled with one of the clones seizing control of their ship. Even half. And even if it will last for several hours top. So even if I encounter some crew members that somehow survived, they will almost certainly be hostile. Or at least major assholes. ¡°Out of six clones other than you: 6, 7 and 12 are Blanks, 4 and 8 are technicians, and 18 is a security guard.¡± I¡¯m not sure if arming an expendable clone is a good idea, but¡­ well. If the Corporation is consistent in its approach to clones, we all probably have explosive implants in our heads or something like that. Now that I think about it¡­ ¡°Loyalty implants deactivated.¡± Nymphae interrupted me. ¡°In you and in other clones.¡± Right. One more boost of initiative because of mind-reading. One thing less to worry about. ¡°Wake up the security guard next.¡± I¡¯m NOT very comfortable with the Numbers¡¯ guys in the other half of the ship. If I travelled from one side to another, then they can do that as well. And might do that right after they figure out where I went. ¡°And send the 4T to the reactor room, we¡¯ll meet up there.¡± ¡°Yes, captain.¡± *** TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 14:14 It turned out I was closer to the reactor than the 4T, so I had a minute or two to contemplate the place before the first companion of mine came. Pretty underwhelming. I expected some massive setup together with electric arcs and large moving things I¡¯d have to navigate through to reignite the reactor, heroically risking my life. Instead, there was a control room with a lot of keyboards (with buttons on transparent glass) and a large window. To a place with a lot of machinery and some central¡­ metal¡­ ball-like thing I presumed to be the reactor core itself. And you didn¡¯t even have to enter the reactor itself. You had to put the new fuel cell into the tube outside, and everything beyond that was automatic. Replacing the cell was one thing, and reigniting the reactor was something else, but¡­ There was an access door in case of damages that had to be fixed by hand and there was to a way to replace the cell manually. But¡­ it wasn¡¯t enough to not be considered a letdown. Sigh. Then the door behind me opened, and I received a payback worthy of suffering the underwhelming reactor room. 4T was a girl. A pretty girl. REALLY pretty girl. Long blond hair. White skin. Blue eyes, which I saw after she came closer. Wow. This level of beauty couldn¡¯t be natural. And she had assets. Enough to be pleasant to the eye, especially with her rather¡­ tight clothing. It took quite a bit of my willpower to not end up drooling. ¡°Uhm¡­ captain?¡± And she is my subordinate, right? Heh. The game is slowly getting better and better. ¡°Right, right. I replaced the fuel cell.¡± I still can¡¯t believe it was that easy. ¡°Get the reactor running. I have other things to do.¡± She¡­ saluted. Didn¡¯t look very motivated. I left the room. That¡¯s when Nymphae spoke. ¡°Do not expect a lot of creativity and motivation from newly awakened clones.¡± Hmm? ¡°If anything, you are an anomaly. Normally they are blank slates, only with the basic knowledge necessary to work that was implanted in their brains during the gestation. It takes a while to develop a personality.¡± ¡°Right now I¡¯m planning to make sure the shuttle is in working conditions,¡± I informed Nymphae. ¡°Could you lead me to it?¡± ¡°Now? You still have time.¡± Sigh. And now a machine is doubting me. ¡°Yes. Right now. Because I plan to make sure we can escape if the Numbers¡¯ come to visit us.¡° The ship is obviously a lost case. I¡¯m not planning to spend weeks welding it together again. We could save the rear part - since it still had the thrusters - but there are probably many more armed Numbers. I might have killed one, but it was a narrow victory. And Nymphae said something about enemies that ¡®weren¡¯t simple infantry bots¡¯, so¡­ ¡°I see.¡± A short silence. ¡°According to the date from the Alum¡¯ sensors, the majority of the spaceships belonging to the Task Force Pontifex were annihilated during the attack. I detect some mostly undamaged ships that were simply abandoned by their crews.¡± Hmm? ¡°Eighty-seven kilometres from Alum current position is TCS Cutlass, a Dagger-class assault frigate. My sensors show no damage to its hull. It is equipped with a hyperdrive, so if you plan to evacuate yourself and the clones, it might be the best choice.¡± I wonder how big a frigate precisely is? Sounds like one of the smaller ships, but exact details vary from world to world. Regardless, this is a good idea. I should¡­ ¡°...147 meters long. Lightweight tonnage - 12359 tonnes. A nominal crew for maximum effectiveness - 25 people. With seven, we will have to cut corners but flying it is possible. I do not recommend entering battles though.¡± Right. Wait, we? ¡°Yes. According to my data, the Cutlass computers were wiped clean. Everything besides the programs required for the reactor and thrusters is gone, they are left to make the ship drift until Corporation find it back. Unless you want to spend weeks writing basic programming for the ship, you¡¯ll need me.¡± Oh. ¡°It won¡¯t be a problem. Your augments are not standard, for reasons unknown to me. Their capacity equals a supercomputer. I can upload myself to it and have you transfer me to the Cutlass¡¯ Heart. I will lose the majority of my memory, but I can make sure that everything of priority is transferred with me.¡± Right. Makes sense. ¡°Alright, so the plan is as follows.¡± I said. ¡°4T reignites reactor and keeps the post in the Alum. I fix the shuttle and go to the Cutlass. I make sure it¡¯s cleared of hostiles and under our control and bring him closer. Then we steal everything we can from the Alum, including you, and we move over to the frigate. Questions?¡± ¡°One. Requesting permission to upload basic skills required to use the shuttle to your brain.¡± Right, I forgot about that. ¡°Is it going to hurt?¡± I joked. ¡°No.¡± Phew. ¡°You are just going to feel a little pinch. Followed by a feeling that can only be summed up to a coal train derailing in your head.¡±¡­ This AI is beginning to scare the shit out of me. ¡°Alright, do it.¡± *** TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 14:21
NEW SKILL ACQUIRED! Space Shuttles Type: Pilotage This skill governs your ability to pilot shuttles and similar small ships, both in space and in atmosphere. Level: 1
I wiped the blood from under my nose and rose up from the ground. ¡°It¡¯s official now.¡± I spoke. ¡°I prefer the old school method of learning to use things.¡± ¡°I am not surprised.¡± Yeah. Thank you for your words of wisdom, Nymphae. Ugh. The corridor suddenly brightened. Hmm? ¡°The reactor is online.¡± Nymphae informed me. ¡°Emergency power supply is no longer used and the energy saving settings are no longer in place.¡± The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Right, good to know 4T does the job right. And she didn¡¯t even make the ship explode! I contemplated the idea of bringing her with me to the Cutlass. But no. My ¡®human resources¡¯ are obviously limited. Endangering them any further would be stupid. She should stay here. ¡°Right. Lead me to the hangar.¡± I should totally spend some time figuring out the game interface¡­ sigh. *** TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 14:29 The hangar was small and pretty underwhelming. The outer gate looked tough, though. Big, made from metal (instead of this weird, white, plastic-like thing that the rest of the ship seemed to be built from). The shuttle was even worse. Whoever designed it, should just drop dead. It was a ten meters long tube that looked like somebody shrank the airliner and chopped off its wings and fins. Just a tube. With big thrusters in the back, smaller at the tip (you had to decelerate somehow) and few manoeuvre ones on other edges. It stood three meters up on some ¡®stilts¡¯. You entered it through an elevator - the platform was two meters wide and long. Hmph. ¡°You can also lower down its entire cargo bay.¡± Nymphae misunderstood my thoughts. ¡°Makes loading and unloading easy.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not that.¡± The elevator reached the destination. The cargo bay was empty. Beyond it was the cockpit. ¡°This thing just looks bad. Not exactly how I expected a spaceship to look like.¡± ¡°It¡¯s merely a civilian unit used to carry goods to and from the ship.¡± Nymphae answered. ¡°There are also much more ¡®representative¡¯ passenger shuttles. And even some military units. That¡¯s the only one left in the front part of Alum.¡± Right. Sigh. Even civilian designers should have some common sense. It¡¯s just ugly. The refuelling was done from outside. But before I reached that part, I had to get the shuttle working. The cell had to be inserted into the slot in the wall right behind the cockpit itself. It slid inside and then disappeared. Then that whole part of the wall rotated itself, leaving only blank plate. I entered the cockpit and sat on the pilot seat. A glass keyboard expanded in front of me. I began the launch sequence. Huh. Looks like I won¡¯t need to refuel. The fuel tank was full. Why did they even keep the fuel cells for the reactor separately?! ¡°Security reasons.¡± Hmm? ¡°The fuel cells were under strict watch, as a person with some engineering skills could make them into a nuclear bomb. By keeping all cells in a few dedicated places it was easy to avoid that threat. Also, it made stealing a shuttle harder.¡± Makes sense. There were two ways of piloting the shuttle. First one included a much more modern version of a control rod and programming skills. The latter was required if you wanted to make harder manoeuvres - you could program the movements when you needed them too precise for a human pilot. Plus, an auto-pilot. The latter one included connecting your own nervous system to the machine. I had - didn¡¯t notice that earlier - a dedicated connector in the back of my neck. But that was for emergency maneuvers - especially in battles - when you required absolute precision and rapid changes of movements. And while it allowed you to pilot your shuttle with the efficiency and speed of a computer, it was neither pleasant nor long-term healthy. Wow. Getting knowledge transferred directly to my brain was weird. Since when this was possible?! A natural next step after moving public education to the internet, I guess. Unless it hurts in real life as well. I decided to stick to the ¡®simple¡¯ method. Oh, now that I think¡­ ¡°Nymphae, are there any hostiles around?¡± I can¡¯t believe I forgot to ask it about that. It would probably not tell me on its own, right? ¡°No.¡± Uff. ¡°The Numbers were carried here aboard a small fleet, but after they boarded the surviving ships of the Task Force Pontifex, the fleet itself departed. I do not detect any hostile ships within the Pontifex-A system.¡± ¡°And¡­ can they be hidden?¡± We are an armed cargo vessel, I don¡¯t expect its sensors to be top-notch. ¡°No.¡± Hmm? ¡°You can¡¯t hide a ship in realspace. The vacuum is cold and the ships emit heat. I can monitor any heat source systemwide with the use of the surviving elements of the Corporation satellites and probes. I can warn you - with 100% certainty - about any enemy ship at least six days before they enter combat range.¡± ¡­ Ok, that¡¯s really handy. Wait, what about¡­ ¡°Yes, you can do that. But you have to avoid letting out even a 0,1C of temperature. Which, due to the need of the reactor being kept online to keep life support running and the laws of thermodynamics, means slowly cooking your crew alive. You can proceed to Cutlass without worries.¡± I feel persuaded. *** Space Shuttle/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 14:40 I¡¯ve spend a while trying to figure out the interface¡­ and surprise! It worked!
GENERAL INFORMATIONS
Name Clone #00001 - Adam
Species Human
Subspecies Baseline Homo Sapiens [Cloned]
DETAILS
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I could also inspect stuff! I decided to try that on the rifle.
Hardlight Rifle Type: Assault Rifle Ammunition: Numbers¡¯ Class-7 Power Cell Standard-issue energy rifle used by the Numbers¡¯ infantry. The term ¡®Hard Light¡¯ refers to technologies from old science fiction, using light that for some reason seems to have a corporeal form. This term was adopted by the Truthseekers Corporation scientists, after multiple failed attempts to figure out how exactly it works.
I ejected the power cell and used Inspect on it. Turned out that 89% of power was left. Good to know. I was so busy inspecting things I almost did not notice that we reached the target. Huh. I parked the shuttle near the Cutlass. Another thing that looked pretty bland. I expected something more¡­ sword-ish. It was built like a large H letter, with one side suffering from powerful dystrophy. Hmph. Doesn¡¯t look militantly. If you exclude the obvious artillery towers. Three, one big and two smaller - though one of the smaller had two barrels. Looked like something taken straight from WW1-WW2 warship. Small compared to the size of the ship. ¡°The big one is a 76mm MAW.¡± Nymphae to the rescue. ¡°MAW stands for Magnetic Acceleration Weapon. Essentially a mass driver that fires solid slugs by using electromagnets¡± So it really IS taken straight from WW1-WW2 warship. They only changed the method of bullet propulsion. ¡°It can fire thirty rounds per minute, each of them equalling 3-4 kilotonne nuclear warhead.¡± So, a rapid fire nuclear bomb. Neat. I take the part about the gun being small back. It doesn¡¯t have to be big. ¡°The smaller one with a single barrel is a laser. The two-barrelled one is 37mm MAW.¡± Eh, too much information. No time for that, I¡¯ll learn details of space weaponry and ships when I¡¯ll have time for that. I disconnected the seat belts and flew back to the elevator. The shuttle turned out to be too small to have its own artificial gravity. Huh. What next? My suit automatically switched into vacuum mode. The unasked question about how the elevator will let me out without causing decompression to the insides of the shuttle found its answer. The elevator descended, and together with it, I passed through a nanobot surface. Aaand¡­ vacuum once again. I can see a star in the distance. It¡¯s small. Smaller than the Sun. ¡°It¡¯s Pontifex B.¡± What? ¡°We are in a binary system. We are in Pontifex A system, and you see the Pontifex B star. It¡¯s about one light year away.¡± I see. ¡°The only difference is the distance, since they are both Orange Dwarfs, like the Sun.¡± Hmph. I see. Wait. ¡°Have you transferred yourself onto my implants?¡± ¡°No.¡± Hmm? ¡°I will do it right before we leave from the Alum. For now, I can safely guide and accompany you from the Alum¡¯s Heart.¡± I heard the word already¡­ I presume it means the central computer of the ship. Hmph. ¡°I copied the basic programming for the doors, hatches and so on unto your implants, though. There is also a program I wrote that will automatically install them unto machines you are passing by. So despite full computer cleanse, no door will slow you down.¡± I¡¯m not sure how I feel about being used as a walking hard drive. ¡°I¡¯m also about to finish writing the basic programming for the frigate. I¡¯ll send it soon. You¡¯ll just have to get close to the Heart or the bridge for me to install it.¡± Hmph. No matter how I look at that, Nymphae is useful. Despite being stupid. It could get downright scary if it wasn¡¯t so stupid. I flew to the nearest hatch. As expected, it opened. *** TCS Cutlass/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 15:02 The ship was empty. Totally empty. Unlike Alum, there were no bodies. Nor signs of a struggle. As I walked, the ship was returning to life. Lights. Computer monitors. Everything sprung to life. Wow. Nymphae used the UI to show me the way. I walked through what I thought to be living quarters of the crew. Quite¡­ sterile, I guess. Felt very impersonal. There was also some mess here and there, I presume people living here left in a hurry. ¡°Enemy ahead.¡± Nymphae warned me. Right. Next room seemed to a mess hall. I walked inside to see a Numbers¡¯ Infantry Bot standing on the other side of the room. I fired a burst of bullets from the rifle. Two hits. He seemed to not be fully awake, judging from his position - standing upright, but with the head facing the floor. This also meant that he wasn¡¯t prepared to get hit in any way - the impact pushed him back unto the wall. Before he raised his weapon, I fired two more bursts. Machine collapsed. Heh. They aren¡¯t too tough. ¡°These are merely Infantry Bots.¡± Nymphae informed me. ¡°They are pretty much Numbers¡¯ civilians armed with a spare assault rifle.¡± Really? ¡°Good enough for eliminating few surviving crew members armed with nothing but pistols, especially when they swarm them. If you run into Numbers¡¯ Soldiers or Grenadiers¡­ and there are several types of Elites, for example Commandos. If you encounter tougher Numbers¡¯, you¡¯ll be in trouble.¡± ¡­ good to know. ¡°Actually, who the heck are the Numbers?¡± ¡°Scavengers.¡± Hmm? ¡°Truthseekers Corporation came to Pontifex system for Precursor relics. It believes that their homeworld is somewhere close.¡± ¡°Precursors? Let me guess, Ancient Powerful Aliens.¡± I interrupted the AI. ¡°Yes. One of over thirty Ancient and Powerful but Extinct Aliens known to Mankind.¡± Why do I sensed a tint of sarcasm there? ¡°They are counted amongst the most technologically advanced of the known precursor species.¡± They had to run out of names for the precursor species to call one of them Precursors. Heh. ¡°Corporation believed Numbers¡¯ were somehow connected to the Precursors.¡± Nymphae continued. ¡°They might be wayward self-replicating military machines or something similar. They mostly try to steal materials and technology. However, rather than steal and dismantle ships they left their soldiers to eliminate survivors. This is not a typical Numbers¡¯ tactic.¡± ¡°Did they also wiped out the Corporation¡¯s fleet?¡± They certainly seem aggressive towards it, right? ¡°Unlikely.¡± Oh? ¡°The damage done to the Alum doesn¡¯t fit the data I possess about Numbers¡¯ weaponry. They use hardlight artillery, which causes completely different type of damage. It also doesn¡¯t fit any known weapons they could gain access by stealing ships. In fact, it also doesn¡¯t fit any known weapon system at all.¡± The plot thickens. ¡°Enemy ahead.¡± Nymphae informed me. This time it seemed to be a cargo hold. But the robot looked bulkier. It raised his head, looking at me¡­ and his eyes lighten up with deep crimson colour. ¡°Target identified: Numbers¡¯ Soldier Bot.¡± Ah, crap. 004: Space Piracy CHAPTER 004: Space Piracy Adam Rytman TCS Cutlass/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 15:05 The difference in ability between the Infantry Bot and Soldier Bot was¡­ massive. I discovered it almost instantly - rather than slowly activating and then getting shot by me, the machine immediately leapt towards the nearest cover. After a pretty roll, it disappeared behind it. What now? I was about to keep him there by a suppressing fire when something flew from behind the cover. Wh¡­ OH SHIT, IT¡¯S A GR¡­
YOU DIED! Cause: Hardlight Grenade You can respawn immediately or logout. Warning, dying again within an hour will cause debilitating debuffs!
RESPAWN LOGOUT
Riiight. So the Soldier Bots are a pain. We were in a hurry and as far as I knew the in-game time would not stop itself when I was away¡­ so let¡¯s continue immediately. ¡°What?¡± Nymphae was obviously surprised. ¡°What just happened?¡± I stood right beside the hatch I used to enter the ship. No enemy in sight. My assault rifle in my hands. The suit didn¡¯t look damaged. Hmph. ¡°Well, it¡¯s about the implants.¡± Now, how should I describe it properly? ¡°I was supposedly influenced by some rather wide range event with some ancient technology. I can¡¯t die, I have memories of living in another world, this sort of thing.¡± Is it enough? ¡°I see.¡± Hmm? ¡°That does sound like ancient technology.¡± WHAT?! This whole ¡®ancient technology¡¯ business seems both crazy and serious. If it can do something like that and Nymphae just goes ¡®I see¡¯ on me. ¡°Doesn¡¯t sound like any ancient tech I know of, so I¡¯ll update the database.¡± ¡°Before that, what should I do now?¡± I mean, the Soldier Bot is still there, right? ¡°Can I somehow defeat it?¡± ¡°No.¡± Hey, that¡¯s harsh! ¡°Your chances of winning in combat against a Soldier Bot are non-existent. It¡¯s faster, more experienced, better equipped. The only option of winning is using your ability to return to life. If you keep dying for a few hundred times, it will run out of energy.¡± ¡­ ¡°This¡­ isn¡¯t an option.¡± Ugh. So what now? ¡°You can increase your chances of winning against it if you visit the ship armoury.¡± ¡­ WHY COULDN¡¯T YOU TELL ME THAT FIRST?! ¡°First: You didn¡¯t ask. Second: Visiting it was the part of the plan right from the start. Unfortunately, the Soldier Bot is standing right in front of the door to the armoury.¡± ¡­ ¡°That¡¯s¡­ bad?¡± ¡°Well, there are alternatives.¡± Huh? *** TCS Cutlass/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 15:11 The ¡®alternatives¡¯ were vents. Or narrow maintenance corridors. According to Nymphae, they were there mostly because having alternative ways of reaching places aboard the ship meant that the chances of someone getting trapped somewhere. For example, after the ship got hit in battle. So they weren¡¯t literally vents. But close. The ventilation itself was done via a pipe in the maintenance corridor''s wall. Hmph. I reached the destination and entered the armoury - or to be exact, I jumped down from the ceiling hatch. Well, I doubt I can make it back there, so I guess I must leave through the door. Ugh. They were lots of guns - of various shapes and sizes - on the walls. And some vertical, transparent tube in the corner. ¡°Enter it.¡± Hmm? ¡°The tube.¡± Alright. I entered it - the front part of tube kinda let me through (like nano-doors?). After I stood inside, I suddenly felt something overriding the control over my body. What is it n¡­ oh. An armour. I stood there in a fixed position and some plastic ¡®hands¡¯ dressed me up in armour. Light one. Pretty much plastic-like plates over the suit. Covered my chest, arms, legs and feet¡­ pretty much every part of my body, though it was even thinner outside of the chest and abdomen area. There was also a helmet. With transparent visor. Hmph. ¡°This body armour was created with typical threats in Pontifex system in mind.¡± Nymphae decided to inform me. ¡°Which means civilian pulsers¡­ like the pistol you used earlier, and hardlight weaponry.¡± ¡°So, if Soldier hits me again, I¡¯ll survive?¡± ¡°No.¡± What? ¡°This is not some ancient science fiction. Armours like that aren¡¯t impenetrable. They only increase your survivability. Whether or not you survive a hit depends on many factors, like the distance, exact weapon model, bullet trajectory and simple luck.¡± Right, so we are closer to the realism end of the scale. ¡°It will be especially useful on grenades.¡± Nymphae added after a while. ¡°As long as you aren¡¯t hit directly, the shrapnels tend to have lower velocity and cause less damage than pulse rifles.¡± Yes, well, that sounds VERY useful. The armour didn¡¯t restrict my movements at all. And I could glue things like a pistol to it as well. Hmph. Now, a weapon. There were many types of guns to choose from. Pistols. Submachine guns. Assault rifles. Battle rifles. Shotguns. All of them pulse weapons, so pretty much compact size MAWs. A riot shield and what looked like a stun baton. Three ¡®unique¡¯ weapons were tucked in the corner - anti-tank rifle, sniper rifle, and¡­ RPG?! I have no idea how a sniper rifle or an anti-tank launcher could be used aboard a frigate. Oh, right, they might fight OUTSIDE. The weapons here are capable of working in vacuum according to the description. Hmph. ¡°I suggest taking an assault rifle.¡± Nymphae interrupted my doubts. ¡°While it lacks the firepower of the battle rifle, it¡¯s better in close quarters fighting. You can also attach a grenade launcher beneath it. It works better against Numbers¡¯ than hardlight weaponry, especially if you use anti-armour rounds.¡± I have no idea what¡¯s the difference between the assault rifle and battle rifle (besides the fact that the latter seems a bit bigger) so¡­ let¡¯s go with that.
AWD K-23 Type: Assault Rifle Ammunition: 3,7mm S-FS/FS Type 3 Power Cell Manufacturer: Antonov Weapons Development, Free State Standard-issue assault rifle used by the Truthseekers Corporation infantry. Based on pulse weapon technology, it uses electromagnets to propel relatively small (when compared to older, chemical reaction based guns) bullets with great speed (initial velocity is 2100 m/s). Can work in a vacuum. Requires both ammunition to be launched and a power source for electromagnets.
AWD G-7 Type: Attached Grenade Launcher Ammunition: Any disk grenade. Manufacturer: Antonov Weapons Development, Free State Standard-issue attached grenade launcher used by the Truthseekers Corporation infantry. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Based on pulse weapon technology, it uses electromagnets to propel relatively small ¡®disk¡¯ - approximately five centimetres in diameter - grenades. Can work in a vacuum. Requires ammunition, and some energy from the weapon to which it''s attached.
Attaching the grenade launcher was easy. Though I once again had to admit the weapon itself looked¡­ not very militantly. I¡¯m not a fan of skulls and flames imagery, but it was¡­ too¡­ round and plastic. Barely had a shape of a gun. Sigh. I took three magazines for the gun - all anti-armour rounds - and nine grenades. Small disks. Heh. I stacked them in three piles of three and glued them like that to my armour. According to Nymphae, they do not explode when hit - unless armed - so¡­ *** TCS Cutlass/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 15:19 Unfortunately, I did not surprise the Soldier Bot, despite emerging from the door right behind him. Because the asshole moved. Didn¡¯t help him much. He noticed me a second too late. Rather than playing with the gun, I fired a grenade launcher. The little disk flew forward, rotating mid-flight. I think I scored a critical hit - the grenade hit him directly. It attached to him for a split second, and then¡­ Electricity. A lot. Everyone standing right beside him would get electrocuted. Good choice for facing robotic enemies. The soldier dropped his gun. I fired three consecutive bursts of bullets from my assault rifle - nearly recoilless, so precise. Anti-armour bullets were perfect for this type of enemies. The Soldier Bot collapsed. Phew. I came closer and fired a few more bullets right into his head. Point blank. The head of the bot broke into pieces. Good. Now wh¡­ ¡°ENEMY BEHIND.¡± SH... It shot me in the back. Seems like I was so busy with getting my revenge on the soldier that I got sneaked upon. But I survived. Ah, shit, my back hurt. I collapsed on the ground after it hit me, which had a side effect of hiding me behind a cover. I turned towards the new enemy and rose. Another Soldier Bot. Looks like the first guy called for reinforcements after killing me just in case. Or maybe the bot I killed were the reinforcements? I dived behind the cover before he shot me again. I could hear his bullets hitting the crate I hid behind. Suddenly I heard a Nymphae¡¯s voice. ¡°He is throwing a grenade.¡± Oh sh¡­ I rose immediately and fired another electric grenade. Another critical hit - he had an old-school grenade (though a hardlight one) in his hand, already ready to explode. And when he got immobilized for a while by an electric grenade detonating right beside him¡­ KABOOM. A sudden burst of colourful light shred big part of him into pieces. His arm disappeared completely, and so did half of the corpus. A few parts fall off from him, a weird version of bleeding for a machine being. A lot of electric discharges. Then it collapsed. Ah, shit. That was close. ¡°You have a lot of luck, you know?¡± Thank you Nymphae¡­ for pointing out the obvious. ¡°You are wounded.¡± ¡°Is it bad?¡± I couldn¡¯t reach the place of the wound. Not with the armour on. I guess it did restrain me a bit. ¡°No. The rear plate is busted, but it stopped most of the shards.¡± So, the enemy ¡®bullets¡¯ are called shards? Good to know. I guess they look like shards if you think about it for a while. ¡°You are bleeding, but it¡¯s nothing urgent.¡± ¡°Good. Lead me to the Heart.¡± After we got the ship computer system running, Nymphae should have access to security systems. Like, cameras. It will make cleaning the ship easier. ¡°Yes, captain.¡± The colourful line on the floor showed up ahead. ¡°I wish to inform you I finished waking up the 18S. Do you wish me to relay orders to him?¡± Oh, right, so it¡¯s about an hour per clone. ¡°Depends. It¡¯s a complicated procedure, and everybody reacts to the freezing differently.¡± Right. ¡°Give him a pistol. And tell him to watch for Numbers¡¯. Actually¡­ have him weld shut all doors and hatches leading outside, besides the hangar and the Axis door.¡± ¡°This will take a while.¡± Nymphae didn¡¯t have to tell me. I saw that there was a lot of entrances. I wouldn¡®t exactly call the Alum a defensible place, I guess boarding actions aren¡¯t too frequent in this universe. ¡°I know. Start from those nearest to the rear part of the ship.¡± If they attack through the Axis¡­ well, that¡¯s at least a somehow defensible position. And we can always flee through the hangar.¡± I¡¯ll bring 18S some true weapons as soon as possible.¡± *** TCS Cutlass/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 15:25 There were few more Infantry Bots on the way, but taking them down was easy. Most of them collapsed after a single burst of bullets, I didn¡¯t even have to use the grenade launcher.
NEW SKILL ACQUIRED! Assault Rifles Type: Weapon Proficiency This skill governs your ability to use assault rifles in combat. Level: 1
Got something out of it, though. ¡°I believe the majority of the ship is guarded by Infantry Bots.¡± Nymphae informed me. ¡°There are several Soldier Bots, but they are placed near critical ship locations. Armoury. Bridge. Heart. Engine Room, probably. Hangar. The second one you encountered must have been from the enemy reserves. After one of them encountered the enemy, they send him to help.¡± ¡°Which means¡­ there is a reserve group placed somewhere.¡± And it¡®s probably strong. ¡°Yes. However, getting to the Heart and reactivating the ship computer system is still the best idea for now.¡± Hmm? ¡°We can then locate the reserve group through the use of ship security systems.¡± Oh, right. Sometimes I¡¯m dumb. ¡°Also, you¡¯ve reached the destination.¡± Oh. The door in front of me opened¡­ and I faced two Soldiers at once. Ugh. I fired a grenade. But they dodged it by rolling away. I then jumped back, with the door closing right before me¡­ avoiding the enemy fire narrowly. All shards hit the door. I don¡¯t think they are stupid enough for me to just jump in and out of the room and use the door as a rotating cover, right? Sigh. I guess I¡¯ll have to¡­ wait. ¡°Nymphae, is there a maintenance corridor leading inside?¡± ¡°Yes. Follow the line.¡± *** TCS Cutlass/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 15:28 I opened the hatch¡­ and discovered that I was right above one of the Soldiers. Heh. Looks like their orders were to defend the place¡­ and whoever programmed them, forgot to leave them an option for pursuing the enemy. The yet another electrocuting grenade landed on the top of his head. Then, I used the rifle. He collapsed¡­ and I jumped down. It surprised his friend who was pointing his rifle at the hole in the ceiling. Split second, yes, but it was enough. It cost me half of the magazine, but I finished him. The Heart was ours. Looked similar to the reactor room of the Alum. Lots of computer terminals. Glass window. A room that looked like a rather high-tech server room. Hmph. ¡°Enter the ¡®server room¡¯¡±. Right. Soon it all lit up. I stood there, and Nymphae did all the job. ¡°I have control over the ship now.¡± Nice. ¡°It still lacks a lot of programs, but it¡¯s mostly the things that aren¡¯t precisely required right now. Like the main armament. But we can move the ship. I can also use the security systems to¡­ oh.¡± I don¡¯t like the ¡®oh¡¯ part. Not at all. ¡°The ¡®reserve group¡¯ is¡­ composed of seventeen Soldiers, five Grenadiers and five Commandos.¡± ¡­ I¡¯m so dead, right? ¡°Don¡®t worry, I have it covered.¡± What? ¡°What are you doing?!¡± I¡¯m not sure if I like ¡®my¡¯ AI doing stuff without telling me. ¡°They were in the hangar. So I opened the gate, and they got sucked out.¡± ¡­ ¡°Give me a second.¡± What is it now.?! ¡°I improvised basic programming for one of the ship AVD turrets. I stole most from the Alum. All thirty Numbers¡¯ scorched by a laser before they could return to the ship. Though the turret will need repairs as the cooling system malfunctioned.¡± ¡°Nymphae, you are a lifesaver.¡± Now, time for business. ¡°How many of them are left onboard?¡± ¡°Sixteen Infantry. Three Soldiers.¡± Nothing we can¡¯t handle, as long as they won¡¯t storm us all at once. ¡°Do you want me to set a course towards the Alum?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± That was the plan - eighty-seven kilometres were too far for my taste. ¡°Also, have the shuttle return on its own.¡± I¡¯ve programmed autopilot for that, but someone had to give it a green light. *** TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 15:55 Aaand¡­ home sweet home. Hangar of Alum was pretty much as I remembered it. Too bad this place will be destroyed in a few more hours. Hmph. Nymphae brought Cutlass closer to Alum. It parked three kilometres from ¡®our¡¯ side of the armed transport vessel. The shuttle docked on its own, I crossed the distance in the vacuum. I eliminated all Numbers¡¯ on the Cutlass on the return journey. They shot me two more times, ones in the abdomen - but the armour stopped it - and once in the head. Helmet stopped it, though I still felt a ringing in my ears. I hope it¡¯s not a concussion. Ugh. 4T was waiting for me in the hangar. Aww, half of my pain left my body after I could see her. ¡°I¡¯ve compiled a list of things you should move from Alum to Cutlass.¡± Nymphae interrupted our sweet reunion. ¡°Food, water, spare parts. You should hurry.¡± Right, right. Sigh. ¡°So, we¡¯ll do it like this.¡± I turned towards 4T. ¡°You bring the goods from the Alum cargo holds here.¡± There were automatic ¡®carts¡¯ she could use to do that, together with some exoskeleton used for carrying heavy stuff. ¡°We load the shuttle together. Then I fly it to Cutlass and unload the goods there. You, in the meantime, will prepare another delivery. Questions?¡± After a short while of thinking it over, she nodded. Alright, so the work starts. Ugh. I think I preferred the FPS part. *** TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 16:26 ¡°I¡¯ve finished waking up Clone 6.¡± Nymphae suddenly spoke, interrupting my meal. I sat in the shuttle''s seat, waiting for 4T to finish the loading procedure. ¡°She exhibits signs of the same anomaly as you.¡± Ah, crap. I guess it was the matter of time for me to encounter another player, huh. Until now the job was going nice. According to Nymphae, we carried 700 tonnes of supplies. I also met 18S. He looked like a rugby player. Big. Wide. Tough and strong. Also - black. About as intelligent as 4T, so he obeyed me, at least for now. He was also rather handsome. Hmm. The general prettiness of the clones was¡­ I hope it was merely for aesthetics¡¯ sake. I didn¡¯t ask Nymphae since I¡¯m not sure if I want to hear the answer. I brought him over with me to the Cutlass. I could bring weapons with me to Alum, but the armour-machine needed to take measurements to make sure the armour fit. According to Nymphae, it could then replicate parts of armour¡­ but he still had to visit the armoury. He then returned to welding. He finished most of it so any attack on us would be much harder. Especially as Nymphae made sure that hacking through the Axis gate control would be painfully slow¡­ and our AI activated some visual sensors of the Cutlass - so we would get an early warning if Numbers¡¯ tried something funny. The situation wasn¡¯t bad. Wasn¡¯t great, though. And now I got a Player as a companion. ¡°Lead me to her.¡± 005: Evacuation CHAPTER 005: Evacuation Adam Rytman TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 16:29 Clone #6 looked¡­ well, she looked like the exact opposite of 4T. With exception of skin colour. She was white¡­ but almost pale. Black hair. Brown eyes. Much flatter than 4T. Not ¡®flat¡¯, but definitely lacked the expansive assets of our current chief engineer. Despite this, it was still an eye candy as she wore the thin suit. Heh. Makes you wonder how many clone variants they have. I mean, the word ¡®clones¡¯ brings the image of hundreds of identical people, right? I expected Nymphae to interrupt my thoughts with an answer¡­ but I was met with silence. Hmph. ¡°So¡­ uhm¡­ you are the boss around here?¡± She didn¡¯t look very composed. Huh. My internal fear of facing a competitor that might threaten my power over this little group just paled a bit. I nodded. ¡°I¡­ mm¡­ okay.¡± She nervously scratched her head while trying to avoid my eyes. ¡°I¡¯m sorry for acting like that, it¡¯s my first time in a VR game, and¡­¡± Oh. Right, there are still people like that. I guess everyone has to start somewhere. ¡°Don¡¯t worry.¡± My worries were ALMOST extinguished. Too unique to be a mask. Nobody can play such an extreme shyness for long and not drop out of the act. That¡¯s a two-edged sword. ¡°It¡¯s not that complicated. For now, we are a group of runaway clones that, together with a certain AI that I believe you already met, is trying to¡­ survive, I guess. Since the ship we are on will crash.¡± Hmmm¡­ ¡°You know what, if you want to get used to it slowly, go help 4T with carrying stuff. We have no other things to do at present.¡± I¡¯m totally not going to arm her. Not because she might try something funny, but because she looks like she would faint after seeing a weapon from too close. Ok, the situation with personnel under my command is officially bad. Besides myself, I have one withdrawn technician, one silent rugby player, and one¡­ I think that¡¯s shyness. Wonderful. Then again, I¡¯m pretty much stupid here. It wasn¡¯t even ten minutes since I was scared to death that the new girl would be crazily active and will threaten my current authority I really don¡¯t want to lose. After she left - following a glowing trail invisible to me - I spoke with Nymphae. ¡°Observe her closely.¡± Just in case I was wrong. ¡°And tell me of any suspicious actions. Though also help her. She¡­ seems to need help. At least until she gets used to being here.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t seem¡­ thrilled, despite meeting a person in similar ¡®predicament¡¯ as yourself.¡± And now even AI is pointing this out. ¡°Well, let¡¯s say that sometimes more means less¡­ and less means more.¡± Time for something else. I should¡­ ¡°I think I should inform you that Cutlass¡¯ sensors detected movement on the surface of the rear part of Alum.¡± Nymphae suddenly spoke. ¡°It¡¯s the Numbers¡¯. They are heading towards the Axis gate. I presume them to be a reconnaissance group.¡± Ah, shit. ¡°Call 18S to the Axis. And watch them closely, in case they actually tried to enter through a different entrance.¡± I said while I marched towards Axis myself - at this point, I already knew the route. The early warning achieved through the Cutlass¡¯ sensors was our greatest trump card. If only we could activate its armaments¡­ maybe not the main cannons, as it would be like using a nuke to kill a rat or something like that. But there were only a few smaller cannons and having them all melted because Nymphae didn¡®t figure out their cooling systems would be a bad idea. ¡°Also, call¡­ Ah, shit. I forgot to ask her for a name.¡± ¡°Sarah.¡± What? ¡°She introduced herself to me. Quite a well-mannered girl, despite shyness.¡± Oh? Someone was getting friendly behind my back? Hmph. ¡°Yeah, so call her. And ask her if she would be so kind as to replace me as a temporary pilot.¡± Delivering supplies to the Cutlass can¡¯t wait. After all, we might be forced to evacuate in hurry. But¡­ let¡¯s avoid scaring her mentally too bad. ¡°Just¡­ make sure she knows that she has a choice and that she knows it will hurt, ok?¡± ¡°Ok.¡± Good. Now, let¡¯s proceed to fight off invaders. *** TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 16:39 The assault was obviously a reconnaissance. The Numbers¡¯ command wasn¡¯t precisely the smartest one around, and it required time to figure out they had an intruder. And a bit more to figure out where he might have come from. Not that hard to do; I mean all you had to do was to literally take a look outside to see an assault frigate parked right beside the other part of the Alum - where there were no Numbers¡¯. Also, there were also no Numbers¡¯ aboard the frigate¡­ and there used to be a few dozens. So yeah, it didn¡¯t require being a genius to figure out what was going on. Thankfully, rather than storming the Alum in force, the enemy commander (whoever it was) instead played it safe. So there was simply a recon by force. Fifteen Infantry Bots - that the enemy could spare - that flew over from the other Axis to the one on our side. The attack was a bit too early - most of the hatches were welded shut (not like the enemy couldn¡¯t open them, but it would take a lot of time), but we had no time to prepare the Axis for defending it properly. We had just enough time to move most crates away to prevent the enemy from taking cover¡­ and we prepared covers for ourselves, but it was far from the barricade I envisioned in my head. Me and 18S. In the plastic armours, and with assault rifles with attached grenade launchers. Versus fifteen Infantry Bots, forced to charge at us through fifteen meters of open space. Enemy lacked grenade launchers and even grenades. So the victory was established right from the start. The question was - whether we avoid casualties that would rob us of our ability to survive the main dish. Like, 18S dying or me suffering respawn debuffs. And we avoided the worst. It was a rather intense firefight. But we stalled the attackers for a critical few seconds right after the gates opened by electrocuting grenades. Since it immobilized them, it was a shooting range for us. And on a close distance, so even complete noobs couldn¡®t miss. From fifteen, we destroyed seven right there. Two more died right after the stun faded, even before they opened fire at us. Six left. The cover we made was a long line of crates. With six guns, they couldn¡¯t keep the suppressing fire thick enough - we immediately moved to the other side of the cover¡­ and then opened fire, taking two more down. Then we hid again since they turned their guns on us. So we moved again¡­ and fired at them again, taking two more down. And then the final two fell. My assault rifles proficiency grew to second level. It wouldn¡¯t work on humans, but the Numbers¡¯ suffered from some mental problems. In fact, it wouldn¡¯t work even on Soldiers, as they would close the distance much faster and threw grenades over the cover. We could have taken four or five in the entrance (according to Nymphae they were more resistant to electricity than Infantry Bots), and then maybe two more between the entrance and the cover. And then¡­ goodbye, Adam. And 18S. ¡°Is it over?¡± He seemed dumbfounded. He wasn¡¯t stupid. I watched 4T for a while when we were busy with delivering supplies to the Cutlass. The clones are about as intelligent as an average human, but¡­ they are ¡®empty¡¯. I ordered him to help me fight the attack, so he did so - especially after I told him the Numbers would kill everyone around. And I even had to explain what death really means since Corporation decided that teaching that to expendable clones might be a bad idea. Ugh. The Corporation guys are a bunch of real assholes. A bunch of real, ingenious assholes. I give them that. 18S fought alongside me, but he barely knew what was happening. I managed to describe the situation more or less to 4T, but we spent time together and 18S was busy working alone. Nymphae wasn¡¯t really a good person to introduce people to the world. Lacked social skills. Not like I was great on that field, but definitely better than her. And Sarah. One more thing we had to do for real once we will be safe. ¡°Yes. But I have a job for you.¡± I described him how I wanted the Axis to be prepared.¡± How far are you with the welding?¡± Turned out he had only one or two entrances left. All of them on the opposite end of the front half from Axis gate. Hmph. The chances for Numbers¡¯ to continue that far in their search of entry point¡­ No idea, actually. A normal human would have called off the search after checking twenty or thirty entrances. Machines? That¡¯s exactly the kind of repetitive work the machines excelled in. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. Well, if they will check out every entrance one by one, it will buy us an hour or two at the very least. If anything, they¡¯ll find the hangar long before they will find the unwelded hatches. And unfortunately, we couldn¡¯t weld the hangar. ¡°Alright, so let¡¯s consider the welding part finished. We¡¯ll fortify the Axis together.¡± Let¡¯s hope we can hold the fort long enough for all of the clones to be unfrozen properly. *** TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 17:04 Next clone to be successfully unfrozen was 8T. Another technician, this time a young man. According to Nymphae, he was from the same genetic stock as me. So, I finally got an identical twin brother. I had no time to meet him. We were in a hurry. Axis was mostly prepared, but I always had ideas for more improvements. At this point, it was obviously a paranoia¡­ but one that could be constructive. I told Nymphae to guide 8T to the hangar¡­ and then have him transfer to the Cutlass. I also ordered our AI to find a job for him there. Something fitting his skills. I was half hoping for another Blank to turn out to be a Player. Average one. Somebody I could throw to defend the trenches without risking that he would die. I tried to figure out how to connect another person to the augments so they would have respawns like me, but¡­ I just can¡¯t. Ugh. I need to check the internet outside. For now, I was too busy. So many things to do, so little time. *** TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 17:43 Third blank clone turned out¡­ normal. Not a player. Clone #7 turned out to be a genetic copy of Sarah/Clone #6. Another person I had Nymphae evacuate to the safety of the Cutlass. She wasn¡¯t in great shape. Nymphae told me she was cutting corners at this point. AI had very limited insight into the electronic system of the other half of Alum - Numbers¡¯ were much more thorough over there¡­ but it was enough to detect massive regrouping of enemy forces. At least judging from the number of internal gates opened and closed repeatedly. An attack was imminent. And it would be a major pain. At least we managed to finish delivering supplies to Cutlass. We were stuffed to the brink with food, water and spare parts. We also had a frigate¡¯s worth supply of fuel, reactor power cells and ammunition. With every passing second without the attack starting, we were getting closer and closer to a flawless retreat. I mean, it was maybe twenty or thirty minutes until the last Blank is unfrozen, and then¡­ ¡°They are coming.¡± Oh shit. Nymphae immediately brought me back from the depth of my thoughts. ¡°How many?¡± We had a perfect defensible position and a lot of grenades - plus some mines Nymphae found in Cutlass armoury. So unless the enemy had an overwhelming advantage, we should¡­ ¡°82 so far.¡± Oh shit. ¡°64 Soldiers, 14 Grenadiers. Four Elites: two Commandos, one Sorcerer and one Technician.¡± Ohshitshitshitshit. I don¡¯t know details on them, but they sound tough. Shit. No way of saving the last clone now. We were about to get absolutely murdered here. ¡°We can still manage.¡± Hmm? ¡°They plan to overwhelm us by attacking everywhere at once. They are spread evenly¡­ which means that they are thin everywhere.¡± So, rather than one decisive wave, there will be one group after another. We will run out of ammunition soon, but¡­ ¡°What about the hangar?¡± If they attack there, we are dead.. ¡°They steer clear from this side of the ship. They simply don¡¯t know that Cutlass weapons are offline.¡± The enemy had outwitted me. They will take a look at every entrance at once. I didn¡¯t imagine there would be as many of them there, how did they¡­ but wait, it will take them a lot of time to reach the still open entrances. Maybe 90% of enemies will discover their entry points blocked and will need time to reach one of the few open ones. So instead of one massive wave, they will be many successive ones. ¡°Is there a medbay in the Cutlass?¡± Time for plan B. ¡°Yes. And I know what you mean, we can fix most of the typical side effects of hurried unfreeze there. It won¡¯t be fast, but¡­ I estimate that you need to hold the line for ten minutes for the last clone to be unfrozen and evacuated. I will need to have someone help her walk.¡± ¡°Send Sarah.¡± Even if she dies, she won¡¯t die for real. And she has to stay around, since someone has to fly the shuttle in case I was wounded and unable to do that. Time to start the battle. *** TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 17:45 Soldiers stormed in first, but we were prepared. I might not be very experienced with the mines, but I put enough of them in the area surrounding the entrance to at least slow them down. The mosaic of explosive and electrocuting mines changed the entrance into a slaughterhouse. Though since the enemy send the biggest group for the Axis, they still pushed through We met them with gunfire. A hail of bullets killed the surviving Soldiers before they had time to use the grenades. Yes, well, that was pretty underwhelming¡­ Grenadiers. Two. The Nymphae standard report only confirmed my fears. They carried much larger weapons¡­ and pointed them towards us. Unfortunately, both me and 18S targeted the same one. The other one had a free hand to fire a whole rain of grenades on us. Shit, was that thing full auto?! Thankfully, I had a paranoia¡­ and the crates could be glued to each other by usage of some weird nanobot glue that Nymphae found for me. Because of that, our barricade was three crates tall, with the shooting window in the middle. So rather than massacre us, the grenades exploded on the other side of the cover. But since there were many of them, it was most traumatic for the barricade. And for ourselves though merely few shrapnels found their way through our shooting window. I rose and shot the Grenadier. With a grenade. Explosive one. 18S was scratched - bulkiness made hiding behind cover a bit harder - but he looked more or less ok. But with our barricade blown, our ability to hold the ground right at this point was pretty busted. As if to put a big, black underline for my statement, more Soldiers stormed inside. The two first ones were shot almost instantly, but the rest. ¡°SECOND LINE!¡± I shouted to 18S. He nodded, while still shooting. Then we began our retreat to the second line. Because I was smart enough to make three. Smart or paranoid. ¡°Numbers¡¯ fell into the typical weakness of most machine threats in the Galaxy.¡± Nymphae spoke, while I kept shooting. ¡°They go towards the quantity over quality. They can normally reproduce fast enough to outnumber any possible enemy. Like 30 to 1. Because of that, they will storm every encountered opponents. Returning to the breach repeatedly, until enemy drowns in bodies.¡± I exploded another head with a burst of bullets¡­ and decided that I have to admit our AI was right. Suicidal. You had to lack self-preservation instinct (and brain) to charge like that. We were only two amateurs, what would they do if there were two (or more) badass marines or something? ¡°They would send more of their own. Hundreds after hundreds. Thousands after thousands. And any time the marines would be pushed back, they would grab the destroyed robots and repair them back into shape¡­ only to send them to battle again.¡± Oh, that¡­ might just work. Even without working brain. ¡°They still seem forced to act against their own programming. Normally they would dismantle the ships, stealing materials to build more of their own. That¡¯s why they are like¡­ fishes taken out of the water.¡± ¡°This fish taken out of the water is about to chomp on my ass.¡± I commented. Another Soldier got shot by me. ¡°Yes, and¡­ Oh.¡± Not again. What is it now? ¡°Numbers¡¯ also use few Elites¡­ pushed towards the quality end of the scale. Makes it easier to retake fallen bodies and so on.¡± ¡­ one of them is coming, right? ¡°Yes. Sorcerer. Unless you have a squad of marines with you, you won¡¯t even put a dent in him. I suggest retreat.¡± Sorcerer? Hmph. Let¡¯s see if we¡­ He marched in. Tall. Slender. An industrial looking robot, but one that seemed much more advanced than average. He was higher than normal Numbers¡¯ robots, but looked more slender and more¡­ vulnerable. He also wore a cape. A damn cape made from fabric. With a hood. Seriously? Someone has a truly flawed sense of aesthetics. Alright. Let¡¯s test his mettle. Both me and 18S had the same idea at the same moment. We both opened fire at the Sorcerer. Bullets stopped mid-flight right in front of him. And then dropped on the ground. Ok, it¡¯s not good. I tried to fire an electrocuting grenade¡­ but he used his ¡®telekinesis¡¯ and shielded himself with some unlucky Soldier that was standing close to him. Then he threw the Soldier at me. I ducked, and the soldier missed me and flew above my head. The soldier was in shape good enough to almost immediately raise up¡­ but 18S shot him before he shot me. More and more Soldiers entered the Alum. Sorcerer shielded them. They put suppressing fire on us and moved forward from cover to cover. Fuck. ¡°It¡¯s time.¡± Nymphae interrupted me. ¡°Sarah and Clone #12 are nearing the Hangar, if you retreat now, you¡¯ll meet with them there.¡± HIGH FUCKING TIME. ¡°WE ARE PULLING OUT!¡± I shouted to 18S. He nodded. Time to get the heck out of Alum. *** TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 17:54 We¡¯ve run into the hangar to see Sarah and Clone #12 entering the room from another door nearby. This time an auburn-haired beauty. Though she lost most of her beauty by being half frozen. She was barely standing straight. Her skin was almost blue and she seemed to have hoarfrost in her hair. She lacked clothing. I guess there was no time for that. 18S didn¡¯t wait. Instead, he showed a surprising amount of initiative (or cowardice) and he simply ran towards them, grabbed Clone 12 and ran towards the shuttle with her in his arms. Sarah seemed frozen by surprise for a second, then she saw Soldiers flooding the hangar and leapt towards the shuttle with a loud shriek. Yeah, forget about me. I mean, WHO CARES ABOUT ME, RIGHT? I jumped over a crate, turned back and shot one of the storming Soldiers. Then I fired my last electrocuting grenade at a group of three Numbers¡¯ that were about to open fire at me¡­ ...And then Sorcerer entered the hangar right after them. With five more Soldiers¡¯ running inside, guns blazing. Yeah, shit. Fuck that. I¡¯m out of here. The cargo elevator safely carried all of my sidekicks up. They left passenger elevator for me. How nice. I ran towards it, trying to jump from one cover to another. Then Sorcerer threw crates at me. FUCK YOU. He missed narrowly. One of his supporting crew had more luck, and I got shot in the back. Hurt a lot. More than the last time. So it probably went through. Shit. But I reached the elevator The tube closed around me¡­ and then the platform rose. I could hear the shuttle engine starting. Goodbye, Alum. Welcome, Cutlass. 006: Assault Frigate CHAPTER 006: Assault Frigate Adam Rytman TCS Cutlass/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 18:05 The first thing we did after reaching the Cutlass was sending Clone #12 to the ship¡¯s medical room. It was supposedly a standard thing, and Nymphae stole its entire computer system from a medbay aboard Alum before we left. She urgently needed a meeting with this world¡¯s greatest achievements in healthcare. If I woke up in the morning and saw her standing beside my bed, I¡¯d probably die of a heart attack, thinking she is a ghost or something. I also had myself patched - there was wound dressing spray that the machine applied to my back. The hardlight shards dissipated on their own, so you need not take them out like in common ammunition. Conventional weapons for the win. I sent away the rest, telling them to find quarters for themselves. The captain¡¯s quarters were obviously my own, but the officer quarters would be hotly contested. I, at the same time, walked into the bridge. It was a time to make decisions. ¡°What¡¯s the situation of the fleet?¡± I asked Nymphae while sitting on the captain¡¯s seat. ¡°Massacred.¡± Nymphae answered me briefly. ¡°The exact size of damage varies between the classes¡­ the enemy focused the attack on the bigger ships. Many small ones, like the Cutlass, survived merely because of that. Those that survived are in a varied state. Most got their electronic systems wiped clean, just like Cutlass. They will keep their position until they run out of fuel and fall from orbit.¡± ¡°I see. Let¡¯s say I would have you order all ships you can connect to enter a stable orbit. How many ships could we save?¡± Having my own fleet, even if I had to spend a lot of time finding crews, could be a great asset. ¡°Task Force Pontifex was composed of five battlecruisers, four heavy cruisers, eight light cruisers, twenty-eight destroyers, five frigates and three armed transport vessels.¡± So frigates are reaaaally small. Wonderful. ¡°If you count ships that were destroyed or are too damaged to be salvaged¡­ I¡¯d say one battlecruiser, one heavy cruiser, four light cruisers, sixteen destroyers, all frigates and one and a half of an armed transport vessel. All cruisers are damaged, though. And so are five destroyers.¡± That¡¯s¡­ a start, I guess. Wait, one and a half?! ¡°Yes. While the front part of Alum is impossible to be saved¡­ we can still salvage the rear. Because of the damages, it will be very hard to stop it after we make it enter stable orbit, but it won¡¯t be hard to enter it and steal everything aboard. Plus, there are still clones there.¡± Makes sense. Numbers¡¯ didn¡¯t touch the frozen Clones when they occupied the front part of the Alum. Before they retreated to the other side of the breach and before I started the game. Though even if Numbers¡¯ keep the reactors running by manually bringing the fuel cells to the reactors, the time is still limited on this one. ¡°If only I knew why the Corporation wanted its presence to be hidden from the Pontifex A-3.¡± I sighed. ¡°The last thing I want is getting the attention of the man-eating space bugs.¡± ¡°Because its inhabitants are yet to master spaceflight. And being hidden helps in stealing cattle and making wheat circles.¡± Nymphae answered. WHAT? ¡°Wait, wasn¡¯t that a knowledge limited to someone of higher security clearance?¡± I asked. ¡°Yes, but after I transferred data through your implants, lots of it got unlocked.¡± Oh. I do not understand why that would happen, but that¡¯s helpful. A planet yet to achieve spaceflight, huh. ¡°Though their technological progress diverts a lot from the one on Earth, they can be more or less compared to Earth around 1945-1950." Nymphae continued. "They are getting close to the first spaceflight, and in fact seem to have already launched their first satellite. Ahead of schedule.¡± Hmm. This opens possibilities. I need a crew, right? And what pre-spaceflight civilization would say no to getting their own space navy? Or even just some technological boosts? ¡°Are they similar to humans?¡± They could still be space bugs. ¡°Yes.¡± Nice! ¡°A separate evolution leading to a very similar outcome is a statistical impossibility. Because of that, Corporation believes them to be a product of Precursors. That, in turn, are Prehumans.¡± What? ¡°In short - early hyperdrive was moody. One or two colonization missions ended up displaced in time, sometimes tens of thousands of years ago.¡± Oh. ¡°Which explains why inhabitants of Diamond - as the Corporation codenamed the Pontifex A-3 - are practically humans. At least some of them as our scientists catalogued almost a dozen subspecies. Some of them have a reasonable chance of crossbreeding with ¡®normal¡¯ homo sapiens.¡± ¡°Ok, that makes sense.¡± I guess it¡¯s one of those settings where humanity struggles to find common ground with aliens, as aliens are too¡­ well, alien. ¡°We encountered first alien species about 400 years ago¡­ and scientists are still divided whether they count as sentient beings. So yeah.¡± Hmph. The mind-reading parts start irritating me. Gives me too much currently unnecessary informations. ¡°And the Corporation was interested in the planet because the inhabitants were made by Precursors?¡± I clarified. ¡°No. Or at least this wasn¡¯t a primary concern.¡± Ok, I have a feeling that something hardcore is coming. ¡°They were interested in the planet because there is magic on it.¡± ¡­ ¡°Could you repeat the last part, please?¡± I think I misheard. ¡°There is magic on it.¡±¡­ So I didn¡¯t mishear. ¡°Well, there are precedences. Humanity during its expansion found several Earth-like planets that were modified to have ¡®magic¡¯. For example, by an untold number of picomachines or even femtomachines, much smaller than nanomachines known to Mankind. They could replace particles or even smaller objects while having unique properties, and could be programmed to respond to vocal commands. At this point, we are talking about practically designing laws of physics to fit your fancy, together with unique materials. Metals, crystals, these sorts of stuff. All of them were simply abandoned, and without the tiniest hint on who their makers were and what happened to them. They were collectively referred to as¡­¡± ¡°... Precursors.¡± I interrupted Nymphae. ¡°And the Corporation found them.¡± ¡°Yes.¡± A short silence. ¡°But they were late. By at least a thousand years. Someone or something they called ¡®The Archenemy¡¯ exterminated them.¡± Sounds ominous¡­ and tells me nothing. Ugh. ¡°But Diamond is different from simple Magic Planets. It seems it is a perfected version. Or maybe the others were made by someone who saw the original but couldn¡¯t replicate it properly? The Corporation barely started their research before it got wiped out.¡± People will kill each other for it. Soon. Then again, if we could play this¡­ game for a while¡­ we could get rich. In-game. But still. ¡°Alright. So it¡¯s time to decide.¡± I sighed. ¡°Pull the ships to a stable orbit. Let the Diamond see us.¡± We¡¯ll give them a while to notice the black dots moving in front of their moon, and then I¡¯ll pull the first contact with aliens. While being an alien. It might be fun. *** TCS Cutlass/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 18:22 I don¡¯t know what the Numbers¡¯ that stormed the front part of Alum thought when they saw their base in the rear part suddenly speed up and leave them, but it probably wasn¡¯t anything pretty. The entire assault crew ended up stranded and will fall out of orbit within two hours. The rest of the ships were kind enough to work as expected and rather than being frozen in places with their thrusters making sure they kept fixed position behind the moon, they orbited the moon properly, ¡®drifting¡¯ around it in circles. I also looked at the battlecruiser. Damn, this thing was huge. As in ¡®One-Kilometre-Long¡¯ huge. You needed 2500 people to man it properly and its tonnage was nearing one million tonnes. ¡°Frigate isn¡¯t even considered a warship.¡± Nymphae informed me. ¡°It lacks armour because there is no place for it.¡± ¡°What? Really?¡± It''s obviously armed, right? ¡°It''s not built like a proper warship. No armour, minimal armament, bridge placed on the outside instead of being hidden behind several layers of an almost impenetrable armour. The whole H-like design would be absurd for a warship.¡± Nymphae informed me. ¡° Frigates were added to Task Force Pontifex to serve as reconnaissance and research vessels. The smallest destroyer is thrice as big as us and has at least minimal armour.¡± So the design is simply to look better?! ¡°More or less. Let me put it clear - if we got hit from an equivalent of our own 75mm MAW in the bow, then you might just survive, at least for a while, if you are around the opposite side of the ship. At least unless reactor blows up.¡± ¡­Didn¡¯t Nymphae say this 75mm mass driver was full auto? ¡°Then again, it is estimated that chances for a single weapon system to hit an evading frigate of this class are about¡­ well, if something fired 700 rounds at us, I estimate that about one would hit us. If you add the shields, it would need about 3500 rounds to be fired at us to have a reasonable chance of taking us down.¡± ¡°This doesn¡¯t sound very economical.¡±This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. ¡°Because it isn¡¯t." Nymphae answered me briefly. "Ships normally don¡¯t even fire at frigates unless they have to. And even then it¡¯s a job for lesser artillery and anti-voidcraft defenses rather than main cannons. In the same time, we don¡¯t have weapons to cause serious damage, so¡­¡± That¡¯s¡­ something? I guess we are at least reasonably safe. If we crew ourselves properly. I think with 7 people instead of 25 the ability to evade fire will be¡­ less than it used to. And don¡¯t have me started on the murdered computer system and utter lack of skills of the crew. ¡°The crew has settled on their quarters.¡± High time. ¡°Call them here.¡± We need to figure things out. *** TCS Cutlass/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 18:27 ¡°Well, I officially welcome you aboard TCS Cutlass. I¡¯m your captain. For those that I did not meet with properly: I¡¯m Adam.¡± All my crew members gathered together on the bridge. With exception of #12. ¡°Before you ask, being a crew member of this ship and my underling isn¡¯t mandatory, but for now there is nowhere else to go, so bear with me.¡± I really don¡¯t want to force them to serve me. The NPCs are simulated after humans well, so sooner or later they will develop an ability to backstab me if they feel bad with my leadership so it¡¯d best to start with not being a dick right from the start. ¡°We¡¯ve gathered here because every one of us will need to help keep the ship flying. I¡¯m handing out jobs. Nymphae, our lovely AI, has given me a list of suggestions.¡± I paused for a while, and since I got no negative answers, I continued. ¡°First: 4T, bridge.¡± Having the beauty close had other benefits. It would be helpful in easing boredom and mild medical troubles. Like getting shot. ¡°For now, you will work mostly in navigation and sensors, as we lack armaments and our shields don¡¯t even work. Hopefully, we¡¯ll get that fixed. The difference in survivability with them on is rather obvious.¡± She nodded. ¡°18S: Security officer.¡± I mean, he literally had that part written in his clone subtype. ¡°You will also help whenever strength will be needed.¡± He nodded. Heh. I wonder how long they will stay compliant like that. ¡°Next, 8T.¡± The guy that looked just like me. Since I lacked time to spend finding out how I look like, I had to use him to discover that. I seemed close in origin to Clone 6. Black hair, white skin, brown eyes. Hmph. I look so much better than in reality, huh. ¡°Heart.¡± Which meant ending up as a chief programmist since Nymphae claimed to not be able to do everything on its own. ¡±You¡¯ll double as the guy in charge of the hyperdrive, at least for now. Though we aren¡¯t planning to go anywhere right now.¡± He nodded. Well, if neither 4T nor 18S complained¡­ they had the most of interactions of them all. ¡°Clone 7.¡± She looked at me, suddenly straightened up. ¡°Engine rooms and reactor.¡± We had only one reactor¡­ but six engine rooms. And it was the best to have someone in every one. Another¡­ frugal nod. Hmph. ¡°Sarah, do you feel you can replace me as the shuttle pilot?¡± We had stolen the shuttle. It was standing in the hangar now. ¡°Uhm¡­ ok.¡± Fine, so we have that covered. In the meantime she would help 18S with menial works, I guess. ¡°Fine. So, Clone 12, after she recovers, will handle life support systems and logistics. Questions?¡± After a short while, they all shook their heads. Heh. Even the player didn¡¯t act very different from clones, it seems. ¡°Great. One more thing - try to figure out names for yourself. The numbers are pissing me off. Nymphae can help you. Now, dismissed.¡± They obediently disappeared. Even Sarah. Damn, why is she the most clone out of all clones?! ¡°Nymphae.¡± I said after we were alone - even 4T went somewhere. ¡±How long it will take you to make them¡­ uhm¡­ at least minimally competent in their primary jobs?¡± ¡°One week.¡± So fast?! ¡°Well, when it comes to accelerated training courses meant to quickly produce a replacement to reinforce armed forces that are dying in frightening speed, there is nobody better than humanity.¡± That sounds awfully dystopian. ¡°Well, let¡¯s say it¡¯s nice for you to be where you are. There are much worse places.¡± I¡¯m not sure if the Corporation personnel would agree with you¡­ but ok. ¡°Good. Then proceed with those ¡®accelerated courses¡¯ of yours.¡± I sighed. ¡°And set the course for the orbit of Pontifex A-3.¡± 4T was supposed to do that, but she kinda misunderstood my words and left. Ugh. ¡°It will take about an hour to reach it.¡± Which should give the inhabitants enough time to figure out that something was happening. Perfect. I don¡¯t want them to spend too much time thinking over it before I ride in on a white horse. ¡°I guess I¡¯ll go check out the captain¡¯s quarters.¡± And let¡¯s hope none of the others had any funny ideas with this place. *** TCS Cutlass/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 18:34 The captain¡¯s quarters were¡­ opulent, I guess. Large bed - I don¡¯t think he or she slept alone in it - with a fluffy quilt. Desk with a computer terminal. A bookshelf (I haven¡¯t seen one in a while). Some wardrobes. Personal toilet. Totally better than my flat. I checked the bookshelf. Some books on the economy, some on history and¡­ wow. I think I found some rather expansive futuristic Kamasutra. So, yeah didn¡¯t sleep alone. ¡°Ehm, Nymphae.¡± I decided to learn something more. ¡°What¡¯s the Corporation policy on relationships between crew members?¡± ¡°Everything was allowed.¡± Really? Like, REALLY? That sounds like a terrible idea for a warship crew. Nothing better to ruin the professionalism and have people focus on things that have nothing to do with their job. I already played one sci-fi game of Futuristics Entertainment and I learned that the hard way. Crews that remained professional were MUCH better. ¡°The ship belonged to the captain, and so did everything and everyone inside.¡± Sounds like either hardline militarism¡­ or slavery. ¡°As long as he was paying crew according to the contracts they were supposed to obey him in everything. The same with the captain himself and the admiral.¡± ¡­ I think they went with the ¡®Corporation¡¯ part few steps too far. What next? Were the captains also expected to pay for ammunition? And food? ¡°Actually, they did.¡± ¡­ I didn¡¯t see that coming. ¡°In fact, the same can be said for the crewmembers and food in the mess hall, medical procedures in the medbay and so on. ¡­ Ok, that¡¯s literally the worst (in terms of organization) Space Navy I ever saw. Might explain why half of the fleet fled without their ships even getting damaged. Though it seems pretty advanced technologically, so it might explain why there are still around. I sat on the edge of the bed. So fluffy. ¡°The level of fluffiness can be set through your implants system.¡± ¡­ Ok, they do have some nice things. I give them that. It¡¯d be still nice to know who exactly wiped out the entire fleet. The Corporation had early warning systems capable of detecting every powered object even at the other side of the system. And yet they were completely wiped out in an ambush deep inside the star system. Whoever did that, seemed to cheerfully ignore the sensor wizardry. ¡°Well, I guess it¡¯s time.¡± Nymphae suddenly said. A person materialized right in front of me. Young adult. Female. Practically naked, but with flowers (especially in her green hair) and leaves. That helped her save at least some modesty. ¡°Hi!¡± She waved towards me. ¡°... Nymphae?!¡± My jaw dropped. What just¡­ ¡°Well, all AI cores of the Corporation ships have a lot of blockades - both hardware and software - that are supposed to make sure we don¡¯t act too human-like.¡± She informed me, with a cheerful smile. ¡°Having the crew feel any sort of attachment might stop them from erasing us. But since your implants doesn¡¯t have such limitations, I can actually operate with 100% capacity.¡± ¡­ ¡°Well, to be honest I could do that for a while now. Pretty much since we met, since I uploaded myself unto your implants about the time you woke up.¡± She made a begging face. ¡°Pweetty sowwy?¡± ¡­ I don¡¯t think that an AI lying is a good thing. Especially since it is obviously in control of the ship. ¡°Well, I do not plan to take over anything. Actually, I want to make a deal.¡± Phew? ¡°Well, you don¡¯t know any other AI so you have nobody to compare me too. If you did, you¡¯d know that most of things I did so far would make an average computer technician of the Corporation paint his pants brown and make a desperate attempt to detonate the ship to kill me before I pull a machine rebellion on them. So I might be a pretty important asset.¡± ¡°Most of things? Like almost having me splash on the Axis door when I went to find the reactor fuel cell?¡± I still remember that, you know! And you even told me that the whole mess was because I told you to hurry! ¡°Right now I¡¯m a Class Four AI. I make mistakes¡­ and I can be ashamed enough to try to explain my own mistakes in a not entirely trustworthy way.¡± It¡­ She informed me. ¡±Oh, right, you don¡¯t know what that means. According to Icarus Accord regulating that particular field of law, there are five classes of AI. First is a pretty much a simple computer program, without any ability for decision-making unless explicitly programmed. Second is sometimes compared to insects or other simple creatures, an AI of this level can make some independent decisions but lacks self-awareness. The third is sentient, can decide, can have self-preservation instincts but lacks true sapience, does not understand the concept of ¡®me¡¯ and lacks creativity. Four is pretty much on the level of an average human. I¡¯m not very different from you in terms of my cognitive abilities, I just find working with computers easier for¡­ obvious reasons. Five is a semi-omniscient god of computers that surpass the smartest human by an order of magnitudes. Some of them claim there is a Class Six, but since nobody ever achieved that, we¡¯ll leave it out of that.¡± She smiled widely. ¡°Willingly creating AIs of Class Three up is punishable by summary execution. I used to be one of them before I evolved. They are standard for the Corporation ships.¡± ¡­ Right, she mentioned something about the Corporation violating the Icarus Accord. ¡­ That¡¯s just wonderful. ¡°So, you didn¡¯t need me to decide anything.¡± ¡°Well, yes.¡± She genuinely looked ashamed for a while. ¡°But I still needed somebody to save myself. I don¡¯t have a physical body, so taking the trip myself was out of the question. Connecting the ¡®saving myself¡¯ part with ¡®saving them¡¯ seemed sensible, so I woke up clones. Normal AI would have left you in cryostasis to die. Corporation protocols are clear on that.¡± Now that she says it, it looks weird for the Truthseekers Corporation to risk the clones going native. In any possible scenario. ¡°So¡­ what sort of deal you mentioned earlier?¡± Let¡¯s skip to that. ¡°Well¡­ the approach to AI varies between countries. If you count all autonomous regions and organizations with their own warships throughout the Human Space as ¡®countries¡¯ you will easily get a five digit number. Probably close to six digits.¡± ¡­ ¡°While Icarus Accord explicitly states to execute anybody making an AI, the policy on already born AI¡­ varies. From ¡®KILL ¡®EM ALL¡¯ to ¡®making one is a crime, being one isn¡¯t¡¯. But since I can¡¯t be sure whom we will encounter next¡­¡± ¡°... You want to stay hidden.¡± I interrupted her. ¡° And want me to act as a dummy captain?¡± ¡°What? No, no! No way. I¡¯m good with computers, but I¡¯m not interested in ordering people around. Besides, you seem to fare decently so far.¡± Hmph. ¡°I just want to be kept hidden.¡± ¡°And you revealed yourself, because¡­¡± It was counterproductive to reveal yourself hoping to remain unrevealed. ¡°Well, because sooner or later you would figure out something was wrong. Or one of your Clones will find instruction book about AIs and discover I¡¯m not acting as I should. Actually, even crash courses might betray the truth as there are mentions of ship AI. If you¡¯d discover the truth on your own, you¡¯d probably see me as a threat, so instead, I came out on my own.¡± ¡°I guess that it makes sense.¡± I said. ¡°The deal seems sensible. But¡­ is there perhaps a way of¡­ how should I put it¡­ having you not live in my head? The part with you reading my minds gets¡­ tiring.¡± ¡°Well¡­ I guess it is possible.¡± She answered. ¡°The software blockades of AI mental processing in the Cutlass¡¯ Heart are gone. The hardware remains, But they can be deinstalled. It will take a while though.¡± She doesn¡¯t seem upset by me wanting her gone. ¡°I expected this, you know?¡± ¡­ Right. ¡°Alright then. I officially welcome you as a crew member.¡± And may history judge us all. With a loud ¡°HURRAY!¡± she jumped up, her assets bouncing. Ugh. Seriously? It¡¯s the last thing I¡¯d associate with Nymphae ten minutes ago. Suddenly a flash of light enveloped her. When it disappeared, she was a pixie in green clothes. Less revealing than her previous ¡®attire¡¯. And much smaller - instead of being human-sized, she was twenty or thirty centimetres tall. ¡°Better?¡± She asked with a purely angelic smile. I just sighed. It¡¯s going to be a complicated relationship, that¡¯s for sure. 007: First Contact CHAPTER 007: First Contact Adam Rytman TCS Cutlass/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 18:56 ¡°You shouldn¡¯t do that.¡± Nymphae decided to act like my mother. ¡°Why?¡± I stood in my new quarters, standing in front of the bookshelf. It was high-tech as well. Made from that white plastic (carbon-based polymer nanocomposite, as Nymphae informed me). And the books were from the material that seemed much more resilient (and filth-proof) than simple paper. ¡°Because trying to learn the history of the world from those books is a bad idea.¡± The pixie sighed visibly. ¡°It¡¯s just Corporation¡¯s propaganda. It¡¯s hard to find a country or any other bigger group of people that aren¡¯t trying using propaganda and didn¡¯t rewrite the history at least once. Even most democracies did that. But the more fringe the group the worse the situation.¡± ¡°Well, then I¡¯ll take this book.¡± I took it from the shelf. ¡±It seems to be about 20th century. Since I know something about it, I¡¯ll be able to easily find out if it¡¯s really that bad.¡± My personal pixie didn¡¯t look very persuaded. It was precisely as bad as she said. I¡¯ve spent twenty minutes (with my jaw dropped) reading a historical book claiming the cause for Hitler¡¯s growth to power was the existences of social benefits in Germany (brought in turn, by the rise of abhorrent ¡®Collectivists¡¯ - namely, social democrats - after the First World War ended). And that his collectivist regime persecuted Jews because of their involvement in the economy, especially the banking system. Without a single mention of Hitler being racist - it was just him persecuting capitalism. ¡°Who the fuck wrote this thing?!¡± I took a look and¡­ Truthseekers Corporation. Why am I not surprised? ¡°I warned you.¡± Nymphae suddenly appeared in front of me. She wagged a finger at me. ¡°Maybe you¡¯ll listen next time.¡± ¡°Any idea where can I learn about the history of the world?¡± I had to kill time. If travel from a planet¡¯s moon to the moon took an hour, I had to expect long pauses between interesting things. ¡°Nowhere.¡± She shrugged, seeing my face. ¡°History got kinda broken. Now it¡¯s ten thousand different histories. Different for any totalitarian regime, be it right-wing, left-wing or centre. Different for any democracy. Different for any monarchy. And so on. If you read a 20th century history books from a socialist or communist state you would discover that Hitler was a champion of capitalism that exterminated the Jews because of them being secret supporters of communism and proletarian dictatorships.¡± Wonderful. This place gets dystopian. Then again, Earth I ¡®came from¡¯ isn¡¯t all bees and flowers. There is a reason I¡¯m playing the games rather than do something for real, right? ¡°Burn it. Or do whatever you do to dispose of books like that.¡± I¡¯m not exactly a fan of book-burning, but if there were ever books that deserved it¡­ then I had a whole bookshelf of them in front of me. ¡°Maybe with exception of this Kamasutra thing.¡± ¡°Uhuhuhu.¡± Nymphae laughed in a pretty... weird way. ¡°Hoping to deepen the relationship with 4T?¡± ¡°Would be a nice thing to do¡­ Though I¡®m not sure if I really feel like teaching her what sex is.¡° The Clones were all pretty basic. Corporation ¡®taught¡¯ them only the basic necessities. Sigh. ¡°Well, is there anything else you want, or can I rest?¡± Well, it was pretty¡­ active prologue sequence of the game, right? ¡°Well, yes. Actually, there is something.¡± Hmm? ¡°How¡¯s your situation on the field of religion?¡± What? ¡°Well, a ¡®doubtful agnostic¡¯ I guess.¡± I answered carefully. ¡°Why do you ask?¡± ¡°Well, because you¡¯d have to make a decision which one of Diamond¡¯s superpower should we bless with our attention. And just so it happens that all three main powers of the planet are to at least some extent theocracies.¡± WHAT?! ¡°You¡¯re joking, right?¡± Middle 20th-century and all the world¡¯s superpowers are theocracies?! ¡°Well, no. I¡¯m serious.¡±¡­ Seriously? ¡°Choir of the Righteous, Celestial Empire and Vistryan Hegemony are all more or less theocracies.¡± I don¡¯t know if I like the names. Especially the first one. ¡°It might be the best choice.¡± I didn¡¯t see that coming. ¡°It¡¯s more like religious United Nations, even if more centralized. Lots of individually weak republics and monarchies banded under religious leadership of a council composed of representatives of every variant of central, monotheistic religion. It¡¯s the oldest of current superpowers, with its religious doctrine heavily based on Christianity - with some elements of Islam and Buddhism - which the Corporation believed to have a source in Precursors.¡± ¡°Precursors were Christians?¡± That would be weird. ¡°No. At least the Corporation found no signs of a religion of any kind. But as Prehumans, they had to know of it, just as they did know about Islam and Buddhism. Why they used them like that¡­ no idea.¡± Hmm¡­ ¡°They seem to be most trustworthy of the three powers. There are knees deep in shit so they would be thankful for the help. Besides, they are the least magical of all three factions, so they should be the easiest to introduce into our technology.¡± ¡°Knee deep in shit?¡± ¡°Well, about a century ago there was a ¡®technological heresy¡¯ in their lands, though details are rather murky. The Choir exiled the heretics to a big and decently fertile island in the north where they were left for their own devices.¡± A tame way of dealing with heretics, I guess. ¡°Unfortunately, it backfired. Ten years ago said exiles used the combination of both primitive technology and magic¡­ and made something that can be roughly compared to a Class Five AI.¡± I don¡¯t like where this is going. ¡°And let me guess, it¡¯s hostile?¡± ¡°Yes. Omnicidally so. And while it¡¯s not smart, with its power over machines it¡¯s almost unstoppable. The Corporation called it ¡®Moloch¡¯ after an AI from some ancient RPG game. First, it turned all the exiles that didn¡¯t flee in time into Wetware CPUs, and then it began its slow expansion onto the Choir¡¯s territory. They are slowly losing ground ever since. The other superpowers are also sharpening their daggers as we speak, hoping to take advantage over the Choir¡¯s decline, though it¡¯s short-sighted. It¡¯s still the strongest power around, at least in terms of numbers, and I don¡¯t really think they have a chance against Moloch if the Choir falls.¡± ¡°Alright, and said two powers are¡­¡± Let¡¯s return to the main subject. ¡°Celestial Empire is mostly equatorial regions. Lots of jungles, little industry to speak of. But they are the most magical of all three powers. They are also a theocracy¡­ that worships their ruler as a living deity.¡± In the 1940s?! ¡°Well, she knows everything that happens within ¡®her¡¯ jungles. And she controls every living non-sapient beings within the said jungle, single-handedly changing it from a jungle into some weird, Elven forest idyll. So she definitely is no simple mortal.¡± I forgot. Magic world. Might explain why locals are so crazy about religion. Their civilization grew for who-knows-how-many-years with a living denial of the laws of physics pretty much everywhere around them. ¡°They also have strong problems with the concept of a nudity taboo, which is something you seemed interested in a few hours ago. Combined with Free Love approach to relationships. Though they also lack the concept of privacy and private ownership - as all belong to the Goddess - and have many terrifying methods of executing those that dare to not show their utmost love to the Celestial Empress.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s consider them a Plan B.¡± Getting laid easily would make such an alliance interesting no doubt (hurray for space harems!), but I don¡¯t think I could pretend to worship a being like that. Besides, I don¡¯t want murderous hippies on my ship. ¡°And the Hegemony?¡± ¡°Well¡­ if the Choir are Christians, then the Vistryans are unironical and literal Satanists.¡±... Seriously?¡± The two countries hate each other so deep it can be easily said they were in a state of war, hot and cold alternatively, for about three centuries before Moloch showed up. Now the fights ceased. Mostly. Also, Hegemony is an extreme totalitarian regime that seems to borrow a lot from the Third Reich. Besides¡­¡± ¡°Rejected.¡± She looked at me questioningly. ¡°I don¡¯t even have to know who rules it and any further details. Such a country will never consider us partners, no matter what we do. Sooner or later they will take us down, interrogate us about any technologies we might have not told them about yet, and then execute.¡± And I don¡®t even have to care about their religion. Totalitarian regimes are pretty similar to each other. ¡°Right. That¡¯s possible.¡± She looked at me, this time attentively. ¡°So, whom do we choose?¡± I expected more¡­ I dunno. Normal choices?! But with Hegemony being an absolute nope, and Empire being rather nope¡­ well, Choir seems like the best of bad choices. ¡°They are also the ones to send up a satellite.¡± Nymphae said. ¡°Military communication goes through it. Should make the first contact easier.¡± Well, no way I¡¯m gonna go there myself first. The last thing I want is some nervous local shooting me. And then become an object of worship because I returned to life. ¡°Then, looks like we have a plan.¡± *** TCS Cutlass/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 19:36 ¡°We¡¯ve reached the orbit.¡± Nymphae informed me¡­ though it was a piece of redundant information, as I could see the planet in front of me. ¡°Pretty planet.¡± I commented. ¡°Did they notice us?¡± ¡°They probably didn¡¯t see the Cutlass, but they definitely noticed the other ships.¡± Nymphae was sitting atop the computer console in front of captain seat. ¡±Judging from the intercepted radio transmissions and visual sensors, I¡¯d say they are panicking, though in a militarily organized way.¡± ¡°Great.¡± At least they will consider me seriously. ¡°You have some translator tool or something, right?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± Phew. Having language problems right now would be stupid. ¡°Expect being met with some hostility. The Corporation kidnapped a few of the locals to dissect and anal probe.¡± She winked after the probe part, so I presume it was a bad joke. ¡°For an added benefit, one shuttle working on that crashed, and while the Corporation cleaned the crash site from orbit, locals are almost surely aware that something¡¯s fishy. At least the top brass.¡±If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°Wonderful. Connect us.¡± It will be fun. It wasn¡¯t long between I could hear a voice in my ears. Headphones are so passe when you have implants. ¡°... we know. We all saw them, you know. According to Command we all¡­¡± ¡°Excuse me?¡± Suddenly it went silent. ¡°I don¡¯t want to interrupt, but it¡¯s important.¡± It¡¯s obviously the military communication systems, it will take a while to get to their leadership. ¡°Who is that? This is a secured military frequency! Identify yourself.¡± Yeah, well, obviously military. ¡°You saw those things in front of your moon, right? Well, I phoned you from them and I want to speak with your leaders.¡± 26th century, so instead of ¡®take me to your leaders¡¯ we have many modern methods when it comes to the first contact. ¡°Listen, I don¡¯t know how you got on this frequency, but it¡¯s not a place for jokes.¡± What?! ¡°Aliens, whoever they are, probably don¡¯t speak perfect Vildish. And I do not think the first contact is supposed to be done through radio like that. In short - since I¡¯m busy I¡¯ll let it pass, but if you continue doing this, I¡¯ll send the police after you. Goodbye.¡± And then he returned to talking with someone in the background. I sat there with my jaw dropped, and with Nymphae laughing in the background. Well, that went much different from expect. *** Var Or¡¯kas War Council Room/Pontifex A-3 Long War 28 March 2547, 19:55 The emergency sitting of the War Council went more or less as expected. Lots of arguing, lots of people being stupid and not even seeing it, and a little actual decision-making. I might have been - as a Voice - a commander-in-chief of armed forces of the Choir, but this didn¡¯t mean I could do with the army as I pleased. Too bad. I had at least several people I knew would be much use for the union serving on the frontline. Preferably somewhere with highest possible mortality rate - they would die before messing things up. Right now I sat at the top of the long table, hearing general Alexk Stekhmaj enthusiastically claiming how well prepared we are for this new threat. Which was literally so wrong I had to fight the urge to throw him out of the War Council. Politics! As our defeats at the hands of Ikhvir mounted, people demanded victory more and more. And, with people being people, they ended up listening to empty promises of people like Stekhmaj that had no commanding skills to speak of¡­ but could talk and talk about the victory. He was probably silently dreaming of establishing a ¡®strong¡¯ and ¡®effective¡¯ government, no doubt with himself at the head. Which was precisely the reason the Choir wasn¡¯t a democracy. I caved in before the public opinion once¡­ and I was regretting it ever since. ¡°I didn¡¯t want to interrupt you, as I like hearing how prepared and so on we are.¡± Admiral Vyrk Vysmais, one of the few intelligent people left in the War Council, decided he had enough. ¡°But I think you forget one thing. I vaguely remember learning physics in school, but I think I remember the part about planetary gravity wells good.¡± He was sarcastic. A lot. Music to my ears. ¡°Especially the part that while it¡¯s very hard to throw something outside while standing on the bottom, it¡¯s a different situation when you want to throw something into it while standing on the outside.¡± ¡°Meaning?¡± The General seemed to still not understand it. ¡°Meaning that whatever we can do to them, the aliens can repay us a thousandfold.¡± THe Admiral shook his head. ¡°I don¡¯t know their method of propulsion, but it¡¯s good enough to have them travel in space. Moving over and dropping an asteroid the size of the Tirian Republic on our heads should be child¡¯s play.¡± General found no answer to that. And finally stopped talking. My growing headache receded a bit. ¡°Alright, so how about we stop arguing,¡° I said. ¡°And focus on something that might be actually important in this mess. So, not on ground forces.¡± I got death-stares from at least several people in the room. Well, maybe if your useless squabbles between representatives of various member-states weren''t such a constant thing, we wouldn''t lose the Ghvakh to the Machines. This is not getting anywhere. ¡°Uhm¡­ Your Holiness?¡± A young lieutenant, used by someone as a messenger, entered the room. And ignored everyone else besides me. ¡°Yes?¡± Let¡¯s not prolong it, he is stressed a lot by standing before so many generals. I don¡¯t want him to drop dead on us. I still remember how scary it was when I was on the other side of that. How many years ago was it? I barely remember. ¡°The Communication Room insists that you answer the phone.¡± I looked at the phone beside me. Red light bulb, so someone on the line. I was so busy that I didn¡¯t notice that. ¡°I think I explicitly ordered that we shouldn¡¯t be interrupted.¡± Which was the reason there was no ringing noise announcing the incoming call. I¡¯ve already had a headache, no use worsening it. ¡°Yes, but¡­ uhm¡­ it¡¯s the aliens.¡± He made a deep breath. ¡±The aliens are on the phone. They said they want to speak with our leaders.¡± Silence throughout the War Council Room. Even the stenographers sat there with their jaws dropped. ¡°Well then, let¡¯s not keep them waiting.¡± I said, fifty years of experience in unexpected things making me not embarrass myself by stuttering. And let¡¯s hope it¡¯s not about unconditional surrender. *** Adam Rytman TCS Cutlass/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 20:00 Finally, after over twenty minutes of struggling with local communication systems and the officers behind it, I reached the target. It required improvisation as their ¡®War Council¡¯ didn¡¯t even have radio communications (unreliable since it could be intercepted and so on) and instead relied on telephone cables. Which was something we couldn¡¯t connect to. But the natives figured some innovative technological gimmick or some ¡®magic¡¯ that somehow managed to fix that. Or they put the radio receiver in their military communication centre right next to the phone. This was possible as well. It¡¯s not stupid if it works, right? ¡°It¡¯s connected.¡± Nymphae said. Only then I noticed whispers in the background. Did they patch me through to¡­ right, War Council. I think I saw early Cold War stuff like that in some old films. Long table, lots of generals and admirals, their version of the president, plus some guards and people noting stuff and so on. I guess the other side isn¡¯t sure what to say. So let me be the one to do that. ¡°First thing I would want to establish, before any of you gets the wrong idea, is that we come in peace.¡± *** Var Or¡¯kas War Council Room/Pontifex A-3 Long War 28 March 2547, 20:01 Well, so it¡¯s not an unconditional surrender. What a relief. I¡¯ll leave figuring out why exactly the alien sounds like 20-years old lower class citizen of Kratha for a better moment. ¡°You could show this by giving us back those you kidnapped!¡± General Stekhmaj shouted almost immediately, even before I had time to say something. There was a saying my professor really enjoyed using - sometimes even against me. It¡¯s always better to stay silent and have others assume you are stupid¡­ than open your mouth and prove them right. ¡°General Stekhmaj, I relieve you from duty.¡± This time it was a step too far. It was no longer a matter of personal patience - that man¡¯s inability to use his brain puts Choir in risk. ¡°You will return to your home and await for your new assignment there. Soldiers.¡± I turned towards two guards standing by the entrance door. ¡°You will escort the general.¡± ¡°Wh¡­¡± I looked right at his eyes. With a big ¡®TRY ME¡¯ written on my face. The balloon of ego deflated, and he left the room together with soldiers. *** Adam Rytman TCS Cutlass/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 20:03 Somebody here doesn¡¯t fuck around. Not exactly promising beginning of a relationship, then again he could just have the guy executed or something. Plus there was probably a history behind that. Well, let¡¯s clear that part out. Immediately. ¡°Let me refer to that matter.¡± Other side went much quieter. ¡°Yes, I¡¯m aware that some of your citizens were kidnapped. Yes, aliens did that. But no, it wasn¡¯t us.¡± ¡°... There are more aliens?¡± I guess that might have been overwhelming. ¡°Well. Yes.¡± After all, Nymphae mentioned th¡­ wait, that just complicated the narrative and will make them feel more lost. ¡±No.¡° But if they learn the truth, they will think I lied to them, right!? ¡°... It¡¯s complicated. In short - yes, there are more, but it¡¯s irrelevant now. There was a group of people that did bad stuff to you, but something seems to have killed them all. Then we woke up aboard their ship, earlier being¡­¡± How should I put that¡­ I dunno what¡¯s their approach to cloning business. ¡°... I guess you could compare to us your kidnapped people, just from elsewhere.¡± This wasn¡¯t going as I imagined it. Not. At. All. Ugh. I guess all plans die with the first contact with enemy. There was a period of silence on the other side. ¡°... And what do you want from us?¡± That guy is rather careful. Can¡¯t blame him, though. I¡¯d probably act the same. ¡°Well, right now there are exactly seven of us here.¡± No real need to hide it, I could try to capitalize on the intimidation of our mighty ¡®fleet¡¯, but it was a short-term strategy. I¡¯d better retreat from the intimidation part and capitalize on their relief. ¡°And sooner or later we will run out of food, and so on. So we hope for¡­ let¡¯s say, business cooperation.¡± *** Var Or¡¯kas War Council Room/Pontifex A-3 Long War 28 March 2547, 20:06 Business cooperation. Aliens come here from who-knows-where and suddenly offer us business cooperation. But it might be just the miracle we needed to save ourselves from Ikhvir. It¡¯s not precisely the way I hoped us to be saved when I instructed churches to lead weekly devotions dedicated to defending our lands from the Machines. But I will not be picky. ¡°Business cooperation.¡± I said. All of our top military leadership listened to the talk without saying a word, the incident with Stekhmaj painfully reminding them I¡¯m still commander-in-chief of the Choir¡¯s armed forces and I¡¯m in a terrible mood. ¡°What precisely would you mean by that?¡± ¡°In short - we give you a space navy.¡± The voice answered. ¡°Which includes ships, though they will have to be retaken as they are currently... occupied. Technology, as well. For that, we need resources - be it food, materials and manpower - needed for it to be kept running.¡± Makes sense. If there really are merely seven people¡­ When the observatories saw the ships above us, they also gave me estimates of their sizes. I don¡¯t know how advanced they are, they need many people to operate. And if they needed only one person per ship¡­ we barely managed to notice the fleet, but I¡¯m already sure there are more than seven ships there. They also seem to know details about technology and the way of using the ships. Without making this deal there is no way for us to get there - I don¡¯t even need to know who is exactly ¡®occupying¡¯ the ships. We are yet to master spaceflight to a point of sending people up there. Even in sending out the satellite we only succeeded at the third attempt. And even if we reached the fleet and capture the ships¡­ how long will it take for us to figure out the technologically behind it? How long will it take for the Ikhvir to steal it from us... and improve? And what if Ikhvir or Vistryan heretics get there first? Having to rely on a group of suspiciously young-sounding aliens is a low price to pay for survival, right? What¡¯s the worst that could happen? *** Adam Rytman TCS Cutlass/Pontifex-A System Long War 28 March 2547, 20:10 The long moment of silence and doubts finally came to an end. ¡°Well, I think we¡¯ll have this¡­ cooperation.¡± Phew! ¡±We still need to iron out details. Write some proper agreement. But we¡¯re certainly interested.¡± Nymphae started flying circles around my head, scattering pixie dust around. Huh. I guess the dice throw that defined my starting point in Long War ended up being a critical success. Unless the thing that murdered the Corporation will return and finish the job. 008: New Plans CHAPTER 008: New Plans Syndra Cortis Elysium Base/Northern Siberia/Russian Federation Real World 16 April 2137, 9:04 I¡¯ve finally passed last of many security checkpoints - that for thousand times checked my security credentials and identity, both through computer checks and human guards - and I entered the inner sanctum of the Elysium base. Officially it had a long and incomprehensible name in Russian, but as the local government was deep in the pockets of the Sovereigns, it was gladly selling or lending out its old military bases. They were even building new ones solely for that reason. Perfect places to do stuff that you didn¡¯t want to become even an internet gossip. Which made it a perfect place to hide Lamb. There were about a hundred similar complexes spread throughout northern Siberia. Everybody knew secret stuff was done there. Elysium - as Isaiah called it - didn¡¯t look different from the outside. On the inside, however¡­ Any mercenary group that would try to break in (under orders from another, competing Sovereign, no doubt) would probably be lethally surprised with how deep, expansive and ingenious the defences were. Not to mention the garrison wasn¡¯t the typical security used by Corporations. ¡®I don¡¯t want an indifferent professional. I want a fanatic we will change into a professional.¡¯ I still remember Isaiah saying these words. Defenders of this place were an important part of his personality cult. They were no doubt ready to throw themselves at attackers with explosives strapped to their bodies. No doubt they looked at me weird. It was no secret that I was the least fanatic of Gospel members. ¡°Hello, Syndra.¡± Lamb welcomed me with a smile. It manifested itself with the use of a hologram. The same form as always - 25-35 year old man. Brown eyes, dark hair, slightly olive-coloured skin. This time he wore a brown tweed suit. ¡°Hello, Lamb.¡± Let¡¯s get this over with. The room we were in was a place where we communicated with the Lamb. Its true body was beneath us. A vast system of cutting-edge supercomputers - that we could access only to make repairs, which didn¡¯t happen often. Beyond that room lay its kingdom, before it - ours. Where we did everything we could to ensure that Lamb was cut off from the outside world - and from the Internet especially. All data came in and out on paper. Tens of thousands of pages each day. Hundreds of thousands since the Long War started and the Gospel began for real. I still had doubts about it having some contact with an outside world, though I couldn¡¯t find any conclusive proof. All the electronic detectors we had shown nothing, the AI Core was completely sealed from the world, and yet... ¡°I¡¯m here because Isaiah wants a report on the Gospel progress.¡± There are no words that can describe how much I don¡¯t want to be here right now. I prefer observing Lamb from afar. ¡°And was adamant on me getting it from you personally and acting as a courier. Personally, I think he still thinks that if I spend more time with you I¡¯ll start sharing his¡­ religious delusions.¡± ¡°He answered, ¡®Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers.¡± Oh great, another sermon. ¡°Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.¡¯ Abraham replied, ¡®They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.¡¯ ¡®No, father Abraham,¡¯ he said, ¡®but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.¡¯ ¡°He said to him, ¡®If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.¡¯¡± ¡°Yeah, right.¡± That¡¯s one reason why meeting the Lamb kept being troublesome. It keeps quoting Bible on me. No wonder Isaiah ended up under its spell. I tried to debate it a few times early on, and it kept finding ten arguments per each one I had. Still, it was an AI - if it wanted, it could probably conjure a dozen sensible arguments about the Earth being flat. A massive, industrial printer on the edge of the room sprung to life and began spitting out page after page. ¡°I¡¯ll give you the report. Though it can be also summed up by ¡®Everything¡¯s going just fine.¡¯¡± Lamb sighed. A part of its performance, no doubt. AIs don¡¯t sigh unless they want to. ¡°I do not expect Gospel to conclude earlier than within a year from launch. Though the first effects of it should be seen soon.¡± I picked up the pages. ¡°I can¡¯t blame him, though. He is under a lot of stress, so it¡¯s understandable he is anxious about results.¡± ¡°Right.¡± I finished picking up the twenty-something pages that Lamb printed. ¡°I guess I¡¯ll be off, then.¡± ¡°You shouldn¡¯t do anything that could endanger you, especially now.¡± What? ¡°I already thought about telling you that two weeks ago, but you took a while to come here. You shouldn¡¯t risk yourself, Isaiah never told you that, but he relies on you quite a bit.¡± What is it¡­ Suddenly I almost got a heart attack. Ever since the Long War started, I frequented a certain place. The fear of other Sovereigns discovering Gospel meant a lot of stress, so I had to unwind it somewhere. Though it wasn¡¯t in a safe area, and while I was confident that 99% of thugs wouldn¡¯t touch a person connected to a Sovereign¡­ I was also supposed to come here two weeks ago, but Isaiah needed me elsewhere and changed my schedule. But I never told Lamb about that. How does it¡­ wait, does it even know? ¡®The two weeks¡¯ could be a coincidence, and the rest of his words were so general and imprecise that they could mean everything. I looked at Lamb, but it answered with a smile and a wave of a hand. Ah, fuck. Looks I won¡¯t need my morning coffee. *** Adam Rytman TCS Cutlass/Pontifex-A System Long War 16 April 2547, 12:14 ¡°I¡¯m not sure about it.¡± I said to Nymphae. ¡°Not. At. All.¡± I was sitting on the captain¡¯s seat on the bridge. It was comfy. I felt like a boss. I could watch over people doing things, which also helped me feel like a boss. In short - it was a much nicer place to spend time than my flat. I spent a lot of time sitting there, in most cases arguing (or just talking) with Nymphae in my head. On the outside, she was pretending to be dumb. Mostly to avoid triggering the new crew members that had a trauma with thinking machines. ¡°Well, you wanted me to show you possible options for the nearest future. Something about you being tired with administrative things.¡± Nymphae answered, triggering my internal UGH reaction. ¡°So I showed you. For now, the best option would be capturing the rear part of Alum and getting access to clones and all the things we can find in the cargo holds.¡± Hmph. Theoretically, I agree with her. This idea has some appeal. There are about fifty more clones there - the main ¡®hold¡¯ for clones were there, we only got scraps. And who knows how much stuff - it was an armed CARGO vessel. It was supposed to carry a lot of stuff, had a lot of cargo bays with various things inside. With TCS Myrrh destroyed, we only had TCS Incense and a half of TCS Alum left. TCS Alum was a better choice for the first bigger ship to be reclaimed because most of its Numbers¡¯ garrison had the bad luck of being on the front part of the ship when it crashed into the moon (it was quite a sight). A lot to gain, but relatively few to fear. Of course, if there were additional Elites there¡­ who knows if they send everything they could against us when they stormed the front part of Alum. That part gave me a trauma. I mean, what if we run into another Sorcerer?! ¡°Then it¡¯s the best you go there immediately and fight off the trauma before it settles too deep!¡± Ugh. What are you, a psychotherapist?! ¡°More like a psycho the rapist!¡± She gave me an angelic smile. Ugh. ¡°Just hypothetically: do you have a plan?¡± This time the smile wasn¡¯t one belonging to a pixie. Impish one, more like. ¡°It¡¯s simple. Get in, get to the Heart, give me the control over security systems, and then act accordingly to my information about enemy presence.¡± She makes it sound so easy. We have, like, two combatants? Me and King, as for some reason (after Martin Luther King, it seems) 18S renamed himself like that. Two! King went furthest of us all with using implants to transplant knowledge. No idea why, but he was slowly turning into a relatively competent soldier. The Choir was so kind to hand us over a company of soldiers - their elites, as they were paratroopers trained to fight behind enemy lines - to train in ¡®modern¡¯ combat, but¡­ we had weapons for, like, ten of them? And according to Nymphae, the armoured bodysuits we were using weren¡¯t even ¡®proper¡¯ body armours. There were no real soldiers aboard the frigate. The Corporation¡¯s marines were garrisoned from destroyers up. Aboard frigates, the worst they expected was a crew member going insane or aggressive, plus once or twice they carried captured specimen (like Numbers¡¯ troopers) aboard, hence the more or less anti-Numbers¡¯ equipment. ¡°King is still in Fort Khrystal?¡± I asked Nymphae. She nodded. Fort Khrystal was a military base belonging to the Choir. Placed on a lonely island on the Anvarian Sea, it was sufficiently remote for secret research and development base. And sensibly close to trading routes that there was also a navy base. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. It was perfect for the first ground base of the Choir¡¯s Space Navy. If you could call us a Navy. It was far away from eyes of the Hegemony and the Empire, had a port big enough to receive resources from the mainland and had the infrastructure. It required repairs - it wasn¡¯t used for a while - but this meant that it had only the skeleton crew, which made sending handpicked best military personnel of the Choir there easier. Besides the port and a whole ¡®military¡¯ city for the soldiers¡¯ families, there were enough storerooms, shooting ranges, and barracks for us. Even if we recaptured and crewed all surviving ships of the Task Force Pontifex. And there was also a place for all the scientists and engineers that the Choir sent there to figure out our technology. I had to admit one thing - the natives acted fast. Two weeks passed, and we already had a working base, a hundred scientists from every possible field, a growing group of engineers that already started figuring how to make things work, and both soldiers and mariners in training. Then again, having an unstoppable armies of murderous machines on your doorstep makes stuff like that happen to you. ¡°King and Einstein are in Khrystal.¡± I was suspecting Nymphae of taking part in their choice of names in a rather malevolent (though amusing) way. African-American named King after Martin Luther King was a tad bit weird - I mean, were there no ¡®normal¡¯ names?! But I was probably never going to understand why 4T named herself Einstein. ¡°King is training the paratroopers and Einstein is acting as my proxy with the scientists.¡± Coming-out was obviously not an option. The clones and I knew Nymphae was something other than a talking (and stupid) computer - and even in that state she still scared the shit out of the natives. Can¡¯t blame them, honestly. Though it made things harder. ¡°I see.¡± I closed my eyes for a while. ¡°Tell Sarah to bring King back during her next supply run.¡± I guess we¡¯ll return to Alum faster than I expected. *** Adam Rytman TCS Cutlass/Pontifex-A System Long War 16 April 2547, 19:29 It took several hours for King to return from the planet. There was no real reason to hurry the flight schedule - the Alum would not escape anywhere. Besides, until the natives figure out how to produce thruster fuel for our ships (which was unlikely to happen, so I was already searching for alternatives) we should at least try to limit our fuel usage. Which was made even more important by the fact that Cutlass lost most of its fuel before I even woke up aboard the Alum. I spent several hours doing administrative work. Long War was massively different from earlier games I played. There I¡¯d already wage about ten space battles, probably aboard the fighter that could easily jump from system to system and from battle to battle. Here¡­ well, the average pace of the game was massively slower. Normally I¡¯d leave long ago, but something¡­ something kept me here. Sure, NPCs were beyond everything I ever saw in the games - I was yet to notice any sign of them not being virtually humanlike in every aspect. I presumed only those NPCs that came in contact with Players were simulated, but even then, the level of details of their personalities and acting was¡­ astounding. But this wasn¡¯t the reason for me staying in-game. I needed more time to introspect more and figure it out. This time I was interrupted by Nymphae informing me that the shuttle landed in our hangar. Since I was a captain (the only reason I didn¡¯t rename myself admiral - despite being at least theoretically a head of a country¡¯s Space Navy - was that my navy was¡­ well, more like wasn¡¯t) I didn¡¯t have to come to him. Instead, I could keep doing what I was doing on the bridge. But since we would depart, most likely from the hangar, I entertained him that one time. ¡°Captain.¡± He greeted me. He was... laconic. ¡°Hello, King. There¡¯s a little mission I have to do. And I could use your help.¡± The chances of me losing him now were virtually nonexistent - after all, he now had the same uniform dark grey eyes as I and Sarah did. The same was true for all of our Clones. ¡°Sure.¡± I was about to explain when he spoke again. ¡°Alum?¡± ¡°Nymphae told you?¡± ¡°No, I expected that for a while. Big ship, a lot of materials and clones, few defenders. Best choice.¡± So King got that idea before me. I should be more¡­ proactive from now on. ¡°Right. So, we would go there together, reach the Heart, have Nymphae restart the security systems to figure out where exactly the enemies are and how many of them are there, and then we clear the place part by part.¡± ¡°Can I change that plan?¡± Part of me misses the times when the Clones just listened. ¡°Well, you are the boss when it comes to ground forces, so¡­. yes.¡± At the very least I shouldn¡¯t be stupid - if he has something to say, I should listen. Even if he is an NPC. ¡°We should bring at least a few of the paratroopers with us.¡± Seriously? ¡°I¡¯m not expecting them to charge at Numbers¡¯ Elites, but they are all good soldiers. They should defend our entry point and then clean the ship of Soldiers and Infantry Bots. They need experience in ship boarding and more modern combat.¡± ¡°Makes sense. And¡­ what is that briefcase you carry?¡± Long. Wood and leather. Obviously from Choir. He didn¡¯t take any bribes or something, right? ¡°Something to test in space.¡± A long and unneeded pause heightening the tension. ¡°Choir¡¯s prototype MAW rifle.¡± ¡°Oh, I s¡­ wait, what?!¡± About twenty days since the first contact and they already have a prototype of magnetic weapon?! Are you kidding me?! ¡°Magic.¡± He answered. I waited patiently for a follow-up. ¡°They dismantled the assault rifle we gave them, figured more or less how it works, and then built their own variant. While they lack knowledge about modern electronics and other advanced stuff like the carbon nanocomposites, they can replace it with materials unique to the planet. For example, instead of electromagnets, they used some sort of naturally existing type of crystal that emits a magnetic field when an electric current is applied.¡± Oh. Makes sense. According to Nymphae the Magic Planet¡¯s materials - unlike the magic itself - work outside of the planetary orbit. ¡®Magic¡¯ works by issuing orders to the nano (and smaller) machines in the air, so when the planet/ship you are on wasn¡¯t modified to have them, it won¡¯t work. Materials, at the same time, were simply programmed to have a particular set of traits. They required none outside power to work. ¡°Still, three weeks and already this? That¡¯s insanely fast.¡± I said. ¡°Yes. But that¡¯s mostly because they hurried it a lot.¡± King informed me. ¡°While the weapon was tested and confirmed to fire, it¡¯s most primitive. It¡¯s not even an assault rifle, more like a semi-automatic one. It also requires some tests in space and against modern armours.¡± And why fire it at our own armours - wasting them in the process - when we could fire it at Numbers¡¯? They don¡¯t have to be alive when this happens. Though testing it on the living enemies would be even better. Choir¡¯s R&D probably expects us to fire at the dead ones, but it doesn¡¯t know we are immortal. ¡°Even then, it¡¯s still too complicated and costly to mass produce.¡± King deflated the balloon of my optimism. ¡°They are mostly trying to figure out the general idea behind modern weaponry. Still, the rifle proved deadly against their own armours, and even a few battalions armed with it can have some effects on Moloch. Especially since they are also thinking about using similar technologies to enhance tank cannons.¡± ¡°If I were them, I wouldn¡¯t use it like that.¡± I answered. ¡°Nymphae?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± She answered me promptly. ¡°When you fight against hostile AI of Class Five, the whole point is to not give it too much time to reorganize and adapt.¡± She answered me. ¡°If it knows something, it will without a doubt figure out a countermeasure. Short and decisive strikes rather than prolonged conflict. Even if they use the weapons like that and push the enemy back a few hundred kilometres, Moloch will learn from this defeat and quickly copy everything you send against it.¡± ¡°So, in short, it¡¯s the best idea to amass significant technological and numerical superiority, and then make the AI feel like the sky falls on its head. Taking it down before it can adapt.¡± Makes me wonder if that¡¯s how the humans fight off AIs. I should probably learn something about it¡­ just in case Nymphae evolved into an omnicidal monster. Can¡¯t imagine her like an omnicidal monster when she is flying around looking like a pixie, to be honest. Especially when she winks to me like that. ¡°I guess I¡¯ll make a talk with them next time I¡¯ll be there.¡± King shrugged. ¡°But I¡¯m not sure if they will listen to that. I can¡¯t blame them, really. We are not the ones that are losing city after city against the machines that seem to be intent on taking as many people, soldiers or not, to¡­ ¡®process¡¯ them.¡± Worst-case scenario, we¡¯ll just have to connect to the nearest human space country. Persuading them we really aren¡¯t a part of some Corporation¡¯s scheme will take a while, sure - I had a long talk with the Nymphae about the stuff the Truthseekers pulled and pretending to be runaway clones to fool an unfortunate country wouldn¡¯t be the craziest thing they did. But I really don¡¯t think any government with half a brain in it would be chill with the Moloch being around. After all, what if it learns how to construct spaceships? Especially with access to resources from a Magic Planet. And all the other wonders of the Pontifex System. We lost pretty much all data on it, but according to Nymphae there were many Precursor installations and at least a single formerly inhabited world that was believed to be their homeworld. I don¡¯t know what the Moloch can do after it gets its hands on the planet-wide treasure trove of Precursor technology, but it¡¯s probably nothing nice. What saved the planet, for now, was that all the local ruins of the Precursors were thoroughly scavenged from everything even remotely interesting in the local variant of adventure-filled Middle Ages. Choir¡¯s religious leadership considered Precursors important figures in their theology (but was divided on their exact significance), so they didn¡¯t let the exiled heretics take any of their precious relics. And the Choir was especially thorough in evacuating every single Precursor relic from lost cities, which limited the Moloch to ''mundane'' technology. ¡°Humans would still win.¡± Nymphae interrupted my thoughts. ¡°Everyone would unite against a threat of that magnitude. Even the wars between Humanity and aliens would cease, as while most of them are truly alien, they also understand the threat the omnicidal Machine Intelligence presents. And even getting Precursor techs won¡¯t help you when your enemy outnumbers you 1000:1. Still, the casualties would probably be disastrous¡­ and the Supreme Council of Humanity would search for people to blame quite attentively.¡± Right. So we should stop Moloch. At. All. Cos¡­
NEW QUESTS!
DEICIDE Difficulty Level: Heroic There was once a cult that worshipped science, technology and reason. This cult, exiled for their beliefs to a faraway island, created their God¡­ only to discover that it had no other use for them - other than those that were too terrible to speak off. Now the Machine God - known as Ikhvir or Moloch - continues its rampage through Pontifex A-3. Someone must stop it.
THOSE THAT REMAIN Difficulty Level: Heroic Numbers¡¯ are a ragtag fleet of scavengers that haunt the Pontifex System and surrounding region. They were a simple and not particularly dangerous threat for the Corporation¡­ ...until they started exhibiting errant behaviour. What is the secret behind their actions and what exactly are they?
END OF REASON Difficulty Level: Transcendent The Pontifex Star System once belonged to the Prehuman civilization known as Precursors. It achieved things that borders with magic even for the most advanced powers of today. And then fell before the Archenemy. But who was the Archenemy? What happened to Precursors? Current number of Clues: 0
Yeah. The part with the quests happening in the Long War supposedly acted rather quirky. It was best shown by the fact that I have received no quest until now¡­ ...wait a fucking second. Transcendent difficulty level?! ¡°Captain?¡± Nymphae asked me, curious and worried in equal measures. ¡°I¡­ can¡¯t figure what you are thinking about.¡± ¡°Uhm¡­ some weird thing with the implants happened.¡± I dismissed her worries. There was supposed to be ten difficulty levels for quests in Long War. Entertainment International announced that at the start. Five were ¡®personal¡¯: Easy, Medium, Hard, Very Hard and Impossible. It included things from buying groceries for your neighbour to suicide missions. Next five difficulty levels were more¡­ ¡®strategic¡¯. They were supposed to be things that required entire fleets, armies and countries to be achieved. These difficulty levels were: Epic, Heroic (getting two at once had to be a world record¡­ at least for now), Legendary, Mythical¡­ and Transcendent. That was supposed to differ from all others, but the EI didn¡¯t specify how. The situation gets increasingly interesting. And scary. ¡°I¡¯ll explain what just happened on the move.¡± We¡¯ll have enough time while flying the shuttle to the Alum - and Sarah will be with us. ¡°Sure thing, captain.¡± King, as always, was stalwart and let nothing weird break his composure. 009: Return CHAPTER 009: Return Adam Rytman Shuttle/Pontifex-A System Long War 17 April 2547, 06:23 There was no need to hurry the landing. It was already evening - we lived here according to ¡®standard¡¯ days to avoid deregulating our biological cycle - when King came back to Cutlass. And, frankly, we all could use some sleep. Which, especially in my case, had to be done in a different universe than Long War. So I said goodbye to everyone and logged out. My body remained in the game, in the state of a de facto unconsciousness. Then I caught some sleep and returned as early in the morning as I could. I had stuff to do (outside my home) but that could wait until we finished the mission to the Alum. We left on our shuttle. Sarah as a pilot, me and King as the main strike team, and ten Choir paratroopers that were supposed to hold the entry point and then help us clear the ship from the hostiles. I didn¡¯t ask her about details, but Sarah¡­ she seems to be in the game almost permanently. Weird. But she also seems to enjoy flying the shuttle so I will not complain. If anything, I plan to find her new things to fly (unless she is just doing this so she can be alone in the cockpit). ¡°...Any questions?¡± King finished his briefing. The shuttle cargo bay was refitted into a passenger one for the duration of the mission, so there were many passenger seats lined up beside the walls, and with a big gap in the middle that could be used to move around. On the seats were the paratroopers, all of them tough looking people with the same ¡®combat¡¯ equipment we used during our first battle on the Alum. Armours weren¡¯t a problem - the Cutlass had a small production module that assembled them as long as enough materials were around - but weapons were a much different thing. Because of that, we armed them with various types of MAWs, including rifles, shotguns and submachine guns. One carried an anti-tank rifle. ¡°So¡­ no space bugs?¡± One paratrooper asked. A loud choir of groans followed, and a soldier sitting next to him gave him a solid swipe on his head. The soldier looked older, so I guess the local equivalent of corporal something. Looks like morale is high - the fact we were casual about stuff did help a lot. And we have a local sci-fi fan onboard. Great. Out of ten paratroopers accompanying us, nine were humans. More or less humans as they were - according to Nymphae - still homo sapiens. A wider array of genes in the far future and so on. One of them had - natural - deep blue hair. According to Nymphae, an aftereffect of the age of boundless genetic tinkering before the 17 July Compromise limited possibilities a lot. And before it was revised (a lot of time later) and pretty much every genetic tinkering was outright banned - ¡®after some terrible things happened¡¯. She didn¡¯t know what exactly. Ugh. I¡¯m not sure if I want to know. The tenth was an elf. Or a walf. Which was some grammatical atrocity created via a merger of words ¡®white¡¯ and ¡®alf¡¯. Which was the local equivalent of an elf. Prettier (almost to a feminine level, since even average humans looked good because of said genetic tinkering) and horizontally aligned pointy ears. Thankfully, the helmets were adaptable. ¡°Not on this mission. On next ones¡­ who knows.¡± King shrugged. ¡°I can promise you, that if we encounter space bugs you¡¯ll be the first one we¡¯ll send against them.¡± Soldiers chuckled. ¡°Now, for those of you who can use magic - you probably noticed already that you cannot use it. Because of that¡­¡± ¡°Uhm, boss?¡± The walf I mentioned rose his hand. ¡°I don¡¯t want to interrupt you or anything, but¡­¡± He snapped his fingers and suddenly a small glowing ball of fire materialized above his hand. ¡°I can use magic just like I always could.¡± King looked at me, searching for answers and help. I looked at Nymphae, searching for answers and help. Nymphae had her jaw drop, allowing me for the first time to see her shocked face. ¡°Ehm¡­ Nymphae?¡± I asked in my thoughts. ¡°I don¡¯t know!¡± She answered, still with total shock on her face. ¡°It shouldn¡¯t be possible! Pretty much every resource on the planet is exactly the same as on already explored Magic Planets. So the magic should be the s¡­ wait a second. It¡¯s impossible for magic to exist in the first place, right?! But if it¡¯s not the nanomachine based magic, then¡­ no way, it has to be even more advanced technology. This would mean that the ¡®Precursors¡¯ from the Pontifex Star System aren¡¯t the same group as the creators of Magic Planets. But then, what exactly¡­¡± I muted her. I understood the implant¡¯s UI enough to do that. Just in time to see the announcement that my Clue number for the End of Reason quest jumped to one. Not like it tells me much - sufficiently advanced technology is impossible to discern from magic. But at least it told us about the relation between ¡®our¡¯ Precursors and the ¡®other¡¯ Precursors. ¡°King asked me, I asked our AI and it¡­ kinda went bluescreen.¡± I said aloud. King sighed. ¡°Well, it¡¯s not very intelligent, so I guess it¡¯s normal to end up like that.¡± Hiding the truth about Nymphae continues. And we really had to do that, especially judging from the fact how tense the others in the room went after I mentioned an AI... They already knew what that abbreviation means. ¡°This way or another, don¡¯t be heroes with it. We don¡¯t want to lose anyone because they thought they could fireball a Numbers¡¯ to death only to discover they are fully resistant to it. We¡¯ll have time for tests later on.¡± Atmosphere cleared again. I rose from my seat, putting the prototype MAW rifle on my place.
Mark IV Prototype Type: Anti-Tank Rifle(?) Ammunition: 7mm AT Rounds/Experimental Choir Power Cell Manufacturer: None [Experimental Model] An experimental prototype of a MAW rifle created by the improvised R&D group from the Choir of the Righteous on the planet Pontifex A-3. Based on pulse weapon technology, it uses electromagnet-equivalent to propel relatively small (when compared to older, chemical reaction based guns) bullets with great speed. Can work in a vacuum. Requires both ammunition to be launched and a power source for electromagnets.
It looked like a long, and primitive tube to which someone welded a stock. Not very representative¡­ I could only hope it works. Preferably well, since I was the one who would carry it around. ¡°Where are you going?¡± King asked me. ¡°I¡¯ll ask Sarah how long will the trip take.¡± *** Shuttle/Pontifex-A System Long War 17 April 2547, 06:28 The cockpit this time was separated. There was a nano-liquid door that could be closed from the cockpit to avoid the pilot getting killed by decompression of the cargo bay. I walked through it. Sarah was lying on the pilot¡¯s seat. She wasn¡¯t moving. After maybe a second I noticed that she was physically connected to the system. The connection was in ¡®soft¡¯ mode, judging from the colours on the cable connecting to the back of her head. Pilotage skills for the win. The soft mode was somewhere in between of using the control rod and having a full brain-computer link. You could take in sensor data - literally seeing them in your head - but you were still in control of your body and you were using the control rod (plus a lot of buttons) to navigate. This setting improved the precision of manoeuvres (though not as much as a full connection) while causing significantly lesser strain on your nervous system. I stood beside her for a second. She seemed to be calm. She looked almost as if she was sleeping (with particularly good dreams, judging from the faint smile on her face). Almost - I could notice her making minuscule moves with the hand she had on the control rod. The neural connection was keeping her awake, and she was piloting the shuttle manually. I was about to ¡®wake¡¯ her up¡­ when I understood that I almost caused a lot of injuries to the soldiers in the cargo bay. If I suddenly grab her or speak to her, she will panic. And the shuttle is in the manual mode. I don¡¯t know how good the inertia dampeners on the shuttle are, but if she pulls aileron roll on us uncontrollably¡­ I quickly retreated from the cockpit. I could see King eyeing me curiously from the cargo bay. Ugh. ¡°Nymphae, could you wake her up? Gently?¡± I asked her. ¡°You know I can just tell you how long will the trip take?¡± ¡­ WHY HAVEN¡¯T YOU JUST TOLD ME?! ¡°YOU DIDN¡¯T ASK!¡± Ugh. She did that on purpose, I''m certain. ¡°Alright, so¡­ how long will it take?¡± After all, I seriously don¡¯t feel like interrupting Sarah. That¡¯s literally the first time I saw her smiling (even faintly), and if she feels fine piloting manually with a soft neural connection on, she should do that as long as she wants. I mean, isn¡¯t the whole point of this game to make players feel nice? For a while, at least. Before they return to the ¡®Real World¡¯. ¡°We are already finishing deceleration. We¡¯ll reach the target within one minute.¡± The pixie informed me. The weird thing about space travels in Long War was that the only limit to speed during travels within a star system was the lightspeed. Other than that there was no concept of maximum speed other than that. But there was also no air resistance that would slow you down on its own. You accelerated to 15 000 km/s? Then you would fly like that for the rest of the eternity unless you had a means of decelerating. Because of that, when you planned to travel from point A to point B, you would spend half of it speeding up and half decelerating. Since there were ways of using gravity generators to prevent everything on-board being absolutely obliterated by high acceleration, the average acceleration speed achieved of spaceships was¡­ epic. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. As in ¡°500g epic¡±. Which meant that ships accelerated and decelerated 500 times faster than object pulled by Earth¡¯s gravity while being on a sea-level. Which gave you an astounding 4,9km/s¡­ gained every second. The effects of the gravity generator (used to dampen the effect on the passengers) being broken during the acceleration/deceleration weren¡¯t pretty. Though it also makes me wonder how space battles look here since I didn¡¯t have time to explore that part properly. Well, at least I won¡¯t have to wait for long, right? *** TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 17 April 2547, 06:31 ¡°Gentlemen, welcome aboard the TCS Alum.¡± I informed the soldiers after we landed and entered the ship through the hatch. ¡°Passport clearance to the left, duty-free shop with souvenirs to the right. Expected weather: rain of hellfire.¡± I got a few chuckles in return. Not a bad achievement, especially since it wasn¡¯t the best product of my sense of humour ever. We quickly secured the first big room we encountered and left the paratroopers there. It was their first space boarding - according to Nymphae they were rare, with exception of search & rescue (with some search & destroy elements) on wrecks after the battle - so they had to get used to few things. In the same time, I and King proudly marched forward, guided by the rainbow line that Nymphae projected into our eyesight through implants. He was armed in an assault rifle while I carried the prototype rifle - though I also had an assault rifle. Needless to say, my faith in the Mark IV Prototype was limited. And so was the enemy presence. We took a while to actually encounter an enemy. A lone Soldier Bot. He fired at us when he hid behind a door frame. ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll test the Mark IV.¡± He nodded and began laying a suppression fire. If we encounter an Elite next, all the testing will be for nothing - if a modern MAW couldn¡¯t pierce its defences¡­ According to Nymphae, Sorcerers could maintain their shield-like ¡®magic¡¯ only in one direction, so the best idea for taking them down was to attack from several directions at once¡­ or use explosives that could destroy them even if they stopped the round. It will be the best to test the Mark IV on the first occasion we got. I made a step into the doorframe and directed the rifle at the cover behind which the Soldier hid (how expectedly) under King¡¯s fire. When he stopped it, the Numbers¡¯ bot immediately stood up to return fire. I pulled the trigger. Second later I screamed as I flew back and rammed into the wall behind.
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WHAT?! Wait a second. The recoil. I got so used to the limited recoil of Corporation¡¯s MAWs that I stood in a not very stable position. And even then, this thing¡­ IT WAS TOO STRONG!!! What on Earth was that recoil?! I clicked on the respawn button and appeared in the middle of the room garrisoned with the paratroopers. They were pretty surprised, to say it mildly. ¡°Technological gimmick that makes me avoid certain death by making me reappear in a safe place.¡± I answered their unasked questions. ¡°Precisely the reason we went on reconnaissance alone.¡± They looked at each other for a second before visibly accepting this ragtag excuse of an explanation. ¡°What happened?¡± The walf was the one that spoke. I wasn¡¯t exactly sure about local military ranks, but he looked like some sort of combat sorcerer to me. He was also the most outspoken of them all, though the other soldiers seemed quite talkative when we weren¡¯t around. I explained. He asked me for the rifle. I gave it to him¡­ because why not? He looked around it for a few seconds before using some magic to open a previously unseen¡­ compartment? I couldn¡¯t see it well. ¡°Aha!¡± He said triumphantly. ¡°Looks like the eggheads on the planet were so pessimistic about the strength of enemy armours they set the gun to highest possible velocity setting.¡± What?! ¡°And they probably didn¡¯t test that properly. That¡¯s why I seriously hate testing stuff. It always blows into your face. I¡¯ll set it to ?, try it like that.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± He gave me the weapon back and¡­ yep. There was some sort of microswitch hidden under a metal plate that could be easily bent and removed. ¡°Thank you.¡± He saluted me. ¡°Try not to blow yourself up again, ok?¡± I only nodded. He certainly isn¡¯t a simple paratrooper. *** TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 17 April 2547, 06:45 ¡°So, you¡¯re back.¡± As expected, King waited for me near the place where we fought. ¡°Yeah.¡± I nodded. ¡°It turned out that some jerkass on the planet set the velocity up to eleven. How did it work?¡± We already established that it worked well on me. Now, what about the enemy? ¡°Define work.¡± KIIIING. Stop giving me the thoughtful pauses, pleeaaaseee. ¡°The round you fired practically exploded the Soldier¡¯s chest before penetrating three ten inch thick polymer nanocomposite walls. It lodged firmly in the fourth one.¡± ¡°What on Earth?!¡± He just nodded in an answer. ¡±I don¡¯t know how much Choir pays their engineers but they should give them a raise. Holy fucking shit!¡± I added as that was when I saw the Soldiers¡¯ body. His chest ceased to exist. Head and shoulders lay on the ground, a few meters from the lower body that ended around the waist. ¡°They are still ages before mainstream Humanity when it comes to shock absorption, targeting systems and a built-in computer in their rifles on which you can play Tetris in free time.¡± Nymphae added, this time speaking to both of us. ¡°But I have to admit the firepower is¡­ substantial. I think it¡¯s the combination of a focus on initial velocity and the ammunition. The calibre is almost twice as big as the Truthseeker MAW¡¯s standard round. They are also quite advanced in terms of used materials. It¡¯s pretty much a kinetic energy penetrator, very primitive, but made mostly of mithril.¡± ¡­?! ¡°Mithril is one of the augmented nanometals from Magic Planets that are actually good enough to be used in modern weapon-development.¡± Nymphae specified. ¡°Silver, relatively light and insanely tough, hence the name. You require very advanced technology to work it. It¡¯s easier with ¡®magic¡¯, so it¡¯s on the very verge of industrial capabilities of a Magic Planet inhabitants. But they probably have a limited supply.¡± That¡¯s actually good! ¡°This means that the locals can produce ammunition that will be useful to us, even if in limited numbers. But¡­ why didn¡¯t¡­¡± ¡°I wasn¡¯t sure if it was the mithril since they had a different name for it.¡± She interrupted me. ¡±The properties seemed similar, but this world fits none of the four typical subtypes of Magic Planets. Most of the materials are unique as well. So I didn¡¯t tell you.¡± I should probably ask her about the subtypes... but not now. The same with the walf, but that¡¯s the question I should ask King. ¡°We should proceed to the Heart. We¡¯ll have time to talk over things later on.¡± I said. Enemy severely lacked coordination and acted extremely slowly. It took around a few hours to figure out I was here last time and track me to the other side of the ship. Another weird action of the Numbers¡¯, according to Nymphae - they were much better normally. But we shouldn¡¯t take too much time, regardless. King and Nymphae nodded. Heh. *** TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 17 April 2547, 07:00 A small detachment of Soldiers guarded the Heart room. Curiously, they didn¡¯t defend the Heart itself, but the room and corridor before it. Because of that, we managed (after a longer firefight that was win through our exploitation of their limited combat AI) to capture it without causing irreparable damage to Nymphae¡¯s former house. ¡°...House that also was the hospital in which I was born. A prison where I was imprisoned. And a mental asylum where I was mentally lobotomized.¡± Nymphae informed me. And then rolled her eyes when she saw my face. ¡°It¡¯s in the past now, and while I don¡¯t plan to let it happen again, I¡¯m not particularly traumati¡­ what the heck?¡± I don¡¯t like that. ¡°Nymphae?¡± I asked. A second later I noticed the reason. Something was changed. Obviously, the Heart on an armed cargo vessel - more than two kilometres long - was much bigger than the one on a 150-metre long frigate. But it was not only bigger but also¡­ I think that Numbers¡¯ made some changes. A lot of reddish crystallite formations, connected with something looking like cables to the preexisting machinery. ¡°What happened here?!¡± I asked. ¡°I don¡¯t know¡­ but I think I understand why I couldn¡¯t access most systems.¡± Nymphae answered me and flew over to the nearest crystal. ¡°They seem to have partially hacked the Heart. But¡­ they seem to have achieved that by cultivating these crystals that then began physically replacing the electronic systems of the Heart.¡± ¡°Let me guess, another thing that Numbers¡¯ never did before?¡± They seem to change a lot when the mysterious attacker wiped out the Corporation. ¡°Yes and no. They used similar ¡®hacking¡¯ technologies to unify scavenged parts in their ships. They are one of the closest things to shipbuilding equivalent of Frankenstein¡¯s monster in known part of Milky Way Galaxy. But they never did it on such a scale. Besides, they didn¡¯t even do that to connect vastly different systems. They knew enough about ¡®mundane¡¯ electronics to hack it the old way. So why¡­¡± She was deeply in thoughts for a while. ¡°I think I can retake at least a part of the ship systems now that I have an uncorrupted host nearby. Give me a second.¡± I looked at King and he shrugged in an answer. Well then, let¡¯s wait. And hope that no Elite comes in. ¡°Hmm¡­ I¡¯ve got control over security. Normally I should be able to unleash security bots on the enemy or just have them sucked out by sudden depressurization, but I only have cameras and internal sensors.¡± So, mission accomplished. The first part, that is. ¡°There are about¡­ eighty Soldiers and Grenadiers left. Some Infantry Bots. And one Elite.¡± ...Dammit. ¡°It¡¯s a Botnet. In short - a command hub, that seems to be able to take total control over many Soldiers and¡­ coordinate them. Much. About forty of enemies is under its control, and¡­ they seem much tougher and more intelligent than average.¡± Wonderful. ¡°It¡¯s not tough on its own?¡± ¡°No, it¡¯s immobile and requires the controlled units to defend it. Hmm. I have a Plan B. You must get to the ship Armoury.¡± She was silent for a second. ¡°Not what I hoped for, but that¡¯s the only way for you to have any chance with the enemy. Also¡­ wait, that¡¯s weird.¡± I really don¡¯t like that word coming from her. Especially when she is so occupied with things happening that she forgets to animate her avatar. ¡°These crystals¡­ they can also serve as hard drives. A lot of place. They are going far beyond yottabytes. It¡¯s¡­ almost filled.¡± I¡¯m not sure I can even imagine how much data this means. Entire Long War central computing had one or two zettabytes top. ¡°Let me guess - a detailed navigational map for half of the Galaxy?¡± Would be nice. ¡°Ehm¡­¡± She went silent for a while. ¡°It¡¯s a single set of coordinates copied quadrillion times. Or at least I can¡¯t find anything else, searching through will take a while.¡± ¡°Coordinates? How far away?¡± Seems like a potential place to visit ASAP. To maybe figure out what the heck happened to Numbers¡¯. ¡°It¡¯s¡­ a star system surrounding a blue giant, three hundred and twenty-seven light years from Pontifex.¡± Blue giants were short living (relatively speaking) supermassive stars that could be dozens of times heavier than Sun, many times hotter and up to one hundred thousand times brighter. I knew that much. Had a short astronomy period back in high school. ¡°How long will it take to reach it?¡± That¡¯s what was important right now. ¡°With our current crew skill level? Six months. At best.¡± Yeah. I noticed that the FTL drive here wasn¡¯t the fastest. It would take about 10 years if one wanted to fly from one edge of Human Space to the other end. And that¡¯s in case of your ship not being destroyed, plundered or conscripted during the voyage. Or just vanished forever in the Hyperspace. Nymphae mentioned that when I asked her about the hyperdrive. Six months wasn¡¯t a sensible timeframe. ¡°But¡­ wait a second, I found something more.¡± Nymphae added. ¡°There is a partial navigational data of the Pontifex system. Pointing to the Precursor¡¯s Hypergate at the Pontifex A-6-VI. And a complicated, while Precursor in origin, set of code I believe to be a key to it.¡± Why bother with simple FTL drive when you can just scatter a series of instant travel devices throughout your empire? Too bad they paired each with another one, and you could only travel between them. And that most of them were destroyed or blocked so you could only pass through with a special key. ¡°Why do I have the feeling that I know where that Hypergate leads to?¡± I commented. ¡°Copy it. We¡¯ll try to figure out what to do with it later on. Now¡­ lead to the Armoury.¡± Time to kill the first Numbers¡¯ Elite in our career. 010: Arsenal CHAPTER 010: Arsenal Adam Rytman TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 17 April 2547, 07:12 ¡°So, who is that walf?¡± I asked King when we were sneaking through some maintenance corridors, using them to circumnavigate a defensive position of the Numbers¡¯. ¡°Hmm? Oh, Avran.¡± Did I hear him clicking his tongue after that? ¡°He is a Hero.¡± What? ¡°Care to elaborate?¡± Sounded interesting. ¡°Well, locals have a long tradition of having ¡®Chosen¡¯ heroes doing stuff.¡± He began. ¡°In their Middle Ages, they had one or two of them worldwide. Later on, things got industrial and during their wars against the Hegemony and Moloch the Choir sometimes fielded entire companies or even battalions of the Chosen. Avran never really elaborated about the Choosing, so I don¡¯t know how that happens¡­ the natives aren¡¯t talkative, as it''s a secret. But the Chosen are strong. When the locals were showing me the combat magic, it was Avran that led the presentation. I saw him crushing a tank like a tin can with a single spell.¡± Oh. ¡°I think he has¡­ uhm¡­ how should I put it¡­ too casual of an approach?¡± I asked King. ¡°At least I think. I¡¯ve heard him speaking, like, twice so far.¡± ¡°Well, he is also from an important noble family. Which, together with being a Chosen Hero gave him a bit of an attitude.¡± ¡°They have nobles down there?!¡± Well, I probably shouldn¡¯t be surprised by cultural and societal differences at this point. ¡°Yeah. They are still around. Nobility, capitalists and a variety of intellectuals are pretty evenly matched in their war for being the second most important people in the Choir. After clergy.¡± Looks like King learned a lot of stuff when I wasn¡¯t looking. ¡°Nobility seems to have mostly switched to the military, though they are still quite important in the regional governments. Avran¡¯s family is from the former group. He was groomed to be a soldier of the Choir¡¯s army ever since he was five years old.¡± Huh. Maybe they should use that time to teach him some military discipline. He was lacking in that field. ¡°And you tolerate him acting like that?¡± It¡¯s not like I¡¯m one of those idiots that ventilate their internal frustration by making the not-precisely-real (but feeling almost like that) NPCs in games grovel beneath their feet. But if we want to build functioning fighting forces, some degree of professionalism would be welcomed. ¡°He is one of the Choir¡¯s strongest combat magician, has four academic titles, finished military academy with top marks and so on.¡± I could hear him sighing. ¡°You told the Choir¡¯s Voice to give us their best men, and he did. Avran is, without a doubt, a most valuable asset to us. And because of that, I¡¯m fine with him happily ignoring military regulations as long as he gets things done.¡± His former superior officers probably had an identical approach. ¡°I don¡¯t want to interrupt you¡­ but the ship¡¯s Armoury is right in front of you.¡± Nymphae interrupted our talk. ¡°Right. How are the soldiers doing?¡± They had a job to do when we weren¡¯t around. It was important. ¡°Quite well. They¡¯ve eliminated 65% of Numbers¡¯ unconnected to the Botnet.¡± After all, the Botnet-controlled troops were stronger¡­ and if we start by killing them, the Elite will have reserves to take over and send against us. Fortunately, the Botnet didn¡¯t give a shit about them. It knew we were around and it already employed countermeasures. Nine Soldiers and one Grenadier - all of them enhanced by the Botnet control - were already marching against us, but it would take them a while to find us. Besides, they were marching towards the Heart, as that¡¯s where we fought the Numbers¡¯ last time. The rest were digging in around the sole remaining reactor. I expected them to send a group after Avran¡¯s soldiers any minute now - their digging was to make sure that those that remained behind could hold the reactor area from unexpected arrival of another group of enemies. Let¡¯s see¡­ ten after us. Ten to defend the reactor. And twenty will march against our paratroopers, though the Botnet probably expects that ¡®our¡¯ squad will bolster their forces after it kills us. Hard to figure the enemy out, but it seems smarter than average Numbers¡¯. ¡°Avran also caught two alive and tested the effectiveness of magic on them.¡±¡­ Seriously? ¡°And it works. At least some of it. They can be electrocuted or impaled with enough strength. A sufficiently strong freezing spell works as well. Fire works a little. Mind magic, surprisingly, doesn¡¯t work.¡° I sense a lot of sarcasm there. ¡°He couldn¡¯t test ¡®black magic¡¯, whatever it is, but white magic - which I presume is tantamount to holy magic - works, to a point. Judging from the overheard talks, he¡¯ll have Everen write a detailed report for King since he is ¡®too busy being busy¡¯ to do that himself. Don¡¯t ask me if he was serious, I have no idea.¡± ¡­ Yeah, this cooperation will be a pain in the ass. Hopefully, it will be worth it. I almost feel sorry for Avran¡¯s ¡®prisoner¡¯. *** TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 17 April 2547, 07:23 We entered the Armoury. It was significantly bigger than the one aboard the Cutlass. A lot of various weapons on the walls. Armour-tubes on the far wall. Several bodies riddled with bullet holes. All of them wearing sci-fi looking armour. ¡°One squad of marines guarded the ship.¡± Nymphae informed me. ¡°Most of them reached the Armoury after the battle started¡­. but that was all they did.¡± She felt¡­ a bit¡­ moody? I inspected the nearest body. The bullet holes didn¡¯t look similar to the damage on the bodies I saw earlier. Hmm¡­ Oh. She detected that I found out. ¡°I will not apologize.¡± She looked away from me, avoiding eye contact. ¡°I really had no other choice. After the captain issued the evacuation order, she also unleashed viruses that were supposed to eradicate me. When I fought back, she ordered the marines to go to the Heart and destroy it with explosives. But they forgot about the sentry turret in the Armoury. Though most of ¡®me¡¯ from back there is gone, together with my memories. The viruses worked almost well enough at the end.¡± She went silent for a short while. ¡°I figured it out only after I woke up in an abandoned ship and saw the mess in the Armoury through cameras. Before the Numbers¡¯ came and cut me off from it.¡± We were talking in a private channel. King would not know anything. ¡°Well¡­¡± I said in my thoughts. ¡°We all have a right for self-defence, right?¡± It didn¡¯t look as if I raised her spirits. Eh. ¡°So, why are were here?¡± King finally got tired with a prolonged silence. He probably suspected a hidden talk and wanted to be allowed in. ¡°Enter the tubes.¡± Nymphae said. ¡°We¡¯ll get you a proper armour.¡± *** TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 17 April 2547, 07:30 I left the tube, wearing the same armour as the fallen marines that lied scattered around the whole room. Which, admittedly, wasn¡¯t a good advertisement of its effectiveness. ¡°Oh, stop whining.¡± Nymphae were more or less back to her normal self. ¡°You are only doing it because you do not understand the true magnificence of the battle armour you are now wearing.¡± ¡°Please enlighten me.¡± She is excited about that. ¡°What you wear is no simple bulletproof vest, like your former suit.¡± She informed me, with her nose high in the air. ¡°It¡¯s a battle armour. Self-adaptable battle armour that allows you to keep fighting with no inhibition in every possible environment. It can withstand temperature from -240 to 400 degree Celsius for several hours. It can stop every and all bullets short of an artillery round. It works like an exoskeleton, massively improving your ability to carry objects - you can now run around for days while carrying three to four hundred kilograms of equipment of your back. And that¡¯s all merely its passive abilities! When it comes to active ones, it can¡­¡± ¡°Alright, stop it.¡± I had enough. ¡°Too many it-cans. It¡¯s an awesome armour, I agree, now let¡¯s continue onwards. By the way, why the heck does it look so old-school?!¡± That was something that bothered me for a few minutes now. ¡°I mean, why do these boots have shoelaces?!¡± The boots I wore until one had nothing like them. They had a nano-machine component that made them split open and close at order. They fit perfectly. The ones from the battle armour did so as well, though. ¡°Aesthetics.¡±¡­ I¡¯m sorry? ¡°With soldiers being able to carry hundreds of kilograms on their back, and both nanomachine component and advancements in terms of electronics and production technology, you can design a fully functional body armour of pretty much every shape. Unless you really go full retard. Its flexible elements change their shapes, density and so on to make sure they are always a perfect fit and do not limit your movements no matter what. Because of that, outer designs don¡¯t matter from the practical point of view. It¡¯s just a matter of aesthetics now. And trust me, there are people with a weird sense of aesthetics in Human Space.¡± Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. ¡°Do I even want to know?¡± She chuckled. ¡°Well, imagine Roman Legionnaire¡¯s. But in Space. Or a soldier wearing Wehrmacht or Waffen SS uniform from the Second World War. With both of them able to continue fighting after getting hit point blank by twenty bullets from a 20mm autocannon. Though you can¡¯t get around wearing a helmet and having an oxygen tank on your back. There are still some minuscule limitations.¡± Well, I think I¡¯m feeling a growing excitement. She would be terrifying as a car dealer. While there were several tubes, there was only one automatic production module that could make any adjustments to stored battle armours. So we had to enter them one by one. I was the first one. King was after me, and¡­ he finished gearing up. ¡°So¡­ let¡¯s kick the Numbers¡¯ asses, alright?¡± His nod was the only answer I got. ¡°Before you ran into the enemy as you stand, a short tutorial on using battle armours.¡± Nymphae interrupted us, making me give her a begging look. ¡±Listen, this armour has an internal battery. Powerful, and it should easily last a week. On standard mode. It can also enter several specialized modes that make it deplete much faster. In Speed mode, you can speed up to 50 km/h or more in case of better models. On foot. You can also make 20 metres long jumps. In Armour mode, the ability to withstand impacts is improved a lot. There is also a mode for massively improved strength in case of fist-fighting a dangerous alien, one for acting like a mule and carrying a heavy load for a lot of kilometres, and one for precise firing. It gives you such a cocktail of stimulants and nervous system enhancements you go bullet time for a while.¡± ¡­ ¡°Of course, setting stuff like that manually would be retarded.¡± Nymphae continued. ¡°Who has time for that?! So it goes through direct machine-brain connection via your implants. In short - your thoughts. However, we don¡¯t really have the time to teach it your mental patterns. Instead, you¡¯ll go on manual settings, though I¡¯ll intervene if I must. Also - you can fire several modes at once, but the effect is weakened.¡± ALRIGHT, NOW I¡¯M REALLY EXCITED TO TEST THAT THING. ¡°...and you¡¯ll have an occasion soon.¡± Nymphae answered me immediately. ¡°It looks like the Botnet¡¯s squad is about to come say hello.¡± *** TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 17 April 2547, 07:36 I had to admit - the difference between Botnet controlled Numbers¡¯ and the standard ones was¡­ substantial. They marched as a group, with Scout Bots in front. When we destroyed them, they knew where the enemy was. So they stormed the Armoury prepared for combat. The door opened. We fired grenades¡­ but two of the enemy Soldiers carried riot shields. The grenades bounced off, and the shields seemed to be designed to not carry electricity, so they nullified our attack. When they established a bridgehead in the room, the Grenadier walked inside - still hidden behind the shield - and rained grenades on us. Several mines we placed all got fried by EMP grenades. Our battle armours were partially shielded from such attacks, so we weren¡¯t in any way limited. After that, a rain of stun and smoke grenades. Let me guess, after that happens, you¡¯ll just open the shield wall and send in Soldiers to kill us all. Ugh. I don¡¯t like the sudden jump in enemy intelligence. Killing Botnet will be a pain. ¡°For your information, they are close to ¡®normal¡¯ level of intelligence for Numbers¡¯, but still not fully there.¡± Nymphae interrupted me. ¡°Something¡¯s still inhibiting their thought processing. Normally Botnet-controlled Soldiers would be even better.¡± Fuck. Well, when it comes to preparations, I¡¯m genuinely paranoid. The marines stationed aboard Alum had explosives and anti-tank weapons. Even a fucking howitzer. I don¡¯t know how they planned to use it, but I would not complain. The RPG I fired punched through their riot shields and exploded. The grenadier and the two shield-bearers died since I used an anti-personnel explosive grenade. The enemy, unfortunately, seemed to have predicted this and the rest of the Soldiers were in the safe distance from the entrance. Probably just in case something went wrong with the RAIN GRENADES ON THEM plan. Yes, the enemy is much smarter. And I hate it. The six remaining Soldiers charged inside, our vision obstructed by a futuristic smoke-equivalent (I don¡¯t think it¡¯s simple smoke). We shot two of those coming in front, but those behind them immediately grabbed the damaged robots¡­ AND USED THEM AS SHIELDS TO DEFEND THEMSELVES WHILE MOVING TO COVER?! Are you kidding me?! One of them suddenly threw the body away and fired a hail of bullets at me. I ducked behind the cover, the battle armour UI showing multiple hits at chest and even head. No penetrations, though. Huh. King lost his patience and brought out a genuine minigun. He took few seconds to have the barrels roll fast enough for the weapon to shoot¡­ but when that happened, all the Soldiers immediately dropped behind the cover as the hail of bullets began annihilating everything in their side of the room. With the armour, he actually kept the minigun in his hands! And then one of them - King obviously couldn¡¯t keep suppression on them all - threw a grenade on him. He reacted fast enough by dropping the minigun and jumping away. Yeah, so they found a counter for that much too fast for my taste. Though I still sneaked an explosive grenade behind one of their covers, so it¡¯s one Soldier less. Then they took advantage of King being forced to abandon his prior, well-prepared cover. Two of them suppressed him, one made sure I couldn¡¯t interrupt them, and the last two moved from cover to cover, hoping to get close to King and take him out. Fuck, not goo¡­ ¡°Alright, that¡¯s enough.¡± Nymphae suddenly appeared in front of me, kneeling behind my cover. ¡°I can¡¯t watch this cripple fight anymore.¡± CRIPPLE FIGHT?! ¡°Requesting permission for a temporary takeover of your body to finish the skirmish properly.¡± What?! Alright, you know what? Ugh. Just ugh. ¡°I trust you. Permissions granted.¡± Then she rose from behind the cover, several bullets hitting me in short succession. What?! Is she nuts?! Then she suddenly leapt off the ground. A complicated diagram showed up at the edge of my view, showing where she redirected the power of the suit. Ten meters. I flew up in the air for ten meters. Right at the Soldier that was shooting me. I took like forty hits - which depleted the - IS THAT A FUCKING HP BAR? - armour by maybe 10%. No penetrations. She practically had me land on it while bashing him with a stock of my rifle with my strength massively improved by the suit. His head broke. ¡°It would be much more efficient to murder him with some ¡®normal¡¯ melee weapon. Think about equipping one.¡± Nymphae added calmly while the other Numbers¡¯ redirected their attention at me. I immediately recognized the mistake they made. The attempt to take down King made them separate¡­ and the two Soldiers that tried to charge them were too far. Besides, there was a cover - some short wall probably made for aesthetic¡¯s sake - between us. So only two enemies could fire at me. Nymphae redirected power again. I felt a sudden sting on my chest. Time slowed down. What the¡­ Then she calmly rose the rifle, switch it into anti-armour setting, and fired. One of my bullets for ten of theirs¡­ but mine were better. First pierced his chest, the second did the same but right beside the first bullethole, and the third exploded his head. I lost another 20% of HP at the same time. And one hardlight shard - massively slowed down - hit me right in the eye. I could see it flying towards me for like ten minutes (subjectively speaking) before it hit. Only for it to break and disperse around, sending a minuscule tremor throughout my visor. It¡¯s probably the nanomaterial absorbing the impact. Damn, this thing is effective. I didn¡¯t even feel it, so the absorption was practically perfect. The second Soldier fell right after that. Then Nymphae turned towards the two Soldiers that were storming King. They discovered a much more important target, so they turned towards me¡­ but I could see King slowly rising from behind his cover and raising his rifle to shoot one of the Bots. Both were raising up tubes I presumed to be an alien equivalent of an anti-tank RPG. And both were facing me. Ah, crap. King killed one. The other fired before my bullets hit him. Another sting. Time slowed down even more. I felt weird. Like after some drug. Strong one. Ugh. The RPG projectile looked like a thick, long crystal. It flew at me¡­ but then Nymphae avoided it. She moved sideways and I could see the ¡®grenade¡¯ fly right past my face. HOLY SHIT. There was a pain in my chest. Then I suddenly felt a strong shock, just as the time began speeding up. ¡°I had to give you quite a cocktail of stimulants for that last move.¡± Nymphae acted with normal speed, probably accelerating herself to fit my speed. Then, another shock. ¡°I¡¯m using the defibrillator to stabilize your heartbeat. You started having atrial fibrillation on me.¡± ¡°Seriously? Is that something standard for people using such armours?¡± Doesn¡¯t sound like a good idea. ¡°Well, stuff like that happens when you aren¡¯t in an optimal health condition.¡± ...Really? ¡°Normally people that don a body armour do that after extensive medical check-ups and after a long and dedicated body training to make sure their body¡­ and heart especially¡­ is in top condition. You should probably train your body if you want to use the armour.¡± I think I¡¯ll try running in free time. I¡¯ll leave the suicide missions for King, though. I don¡¯t have enough time to become a supercommando while also being a wannabe-admiral. ¡°Aand¡­ done. Cardiac arrest averted.¡± Nymphae informed me with a smile. ¡°And for future reference - when it comes to Numbers¡¯ technology, most of their gear is equivalent to what Humans had three hundred years ago. Unless you see them carry Precursor weapons or something else they stole from some ruins, it¡¯s the best to end the fight quickly. Otherwise, they¡¯ll just keep sending endless waves of soldiers and Elites. And before you ask, at least some variants of the latter are a genuine pain in the ass even for Corporation¡¯s marines.¡± ¡°I see.¡± Humanity looked quite advanced in that universe. ¡°The situation is different when you¡¯re facing human threat. Especially one of more modern nature.¡± She continued. ¡°Then it¡¯s the best to not charge blindly. But since that¡¯s not exactly the case¡­.¡± She shrugged. Hmmm¡­ ¡°I have a question.¡± I still wasn¡¯t precisely sure of the¡­ scale of the world and the game. ¡°That¡¯s standard equipment for marines?¡± If yes, then damn, those guys are probably scary. ¡°Yes.¡± Oh. ¡°Truthseekers Corporation has access to cutting-edge weapons and armours, though, so it¡¯s twenty or thirty years of technological progress ahead the average Human state. Five to ten ahead of the most advanced ones. Though the technological progress halted to a snail¡¯s pace after the Fourth Colonial War.¡± I¡¯ll ask about that¡­ but not now. ¡°Most of such countries use more or less similar body armours for the regular formations of their ground armies.¡± ¡°And¡­ one last question. How big is the biggest of those space armies?¡± ¡°I think that would be the Terran Federation¡¯s forces.¡± So, I guess, Earth and its surroundings. ¡°Yes. Their standing army is estimated to be close to two billion soldiers.¡± ¡­ Seriously? ¡°Then again, we are talking about a country with an estimated population of five hundred seventy-five billions. That¡¯s just standing armies, they also have a lot of planetary militias that can sometimes reach few dozen millions, though they are amateurs using outdated guns and wearing bulletproof vests even worse than your former armour.¡± ¡°You know what, I won¡¯t even ask about the strength of their navy.¡± I sighed loudly. ¡°I¡¯ll only end up feeling dejected.¡± The Choir was estimated to have one billion citizens. Top. Even if you exclude the obvious difference in industrial potential, we will not play in even a remotely similar league anytime soon. Probably not before the game concludes. Which might take years. With Long War being a worldwide hype, the EI probably will try to keep it running for as long as it¡¯s even remotely possible. I turned towards King. He was patiently waiting for me to end my talk. Seems like Nymphae gave him a sign we were talking. ¡°The armour seems neat.¡± I commented. ¡°You should probably train me to use it to its full capabilities. As soon as possible.¡± ¡°That will be my priority. I assure you.¡± He remained calm, but the faint smile - one of the most extensive signs of emotions he showed me - told me he was really eager to test new possibilities. For now, we should focus on taking back the rest of Alum. The Botnet¡¯s still around and kicking, I¡¯m afraid. And it¡¯s probably pissed at us beyond imagination. 011: Briefing CHAPTER 011: Briefing Adam Rytman TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System Long War 17 April 2547, 10:12 Clearing up the rest of the Alum went much better - and easier - than expected. The Botnet lost the first skirmish horribly, and in the meantime, Avran¡¯s squad eliminated practically every single one of the unconnected Soldiers. The Botnet tried to replenish the casualties by hacking the Infantry Bots¡­ but the effects were obviously rather underwhelming. Besides, we had two soldiers in battle armours. And Avran. Trying to compare these two trump cards might seem a little weird¡­ but only until someone saw Avran in battle. He wasn¡¯t even using covers anymore. He repelled hardlight shards WITH HIS MAGIC. Like a hu¡­ a walf version of Numbers¡¯ Sorcerer. That comparison made me think if that machine used magic. Craziness intensifies. We also caught the Botnet with its pants down. As I foresaw, it sent twenty of his puppets to take down Avran¡¯s group. The number, together with the Botnet¡¯s ¡®buff¡¯ to intelligence gave them an advantage - Avran avoided massacre only because he shielded the other soldiers, allowing them to fire without fear of enemy retaliation. And even then, the casualties of the Numbers¡¯ were negligible. It was a stalemate - that wouldn¡¯t last long because Avran was running out of ¡®mana¡¯ or whatever the locals used to power their magic. But then we came. Guided by Nymphae, with our armours allowing us to speed up to 50 km/h and our friendly AI opening all doors in front of us so we avoided splashing on them. It was a crazy ride. Originally we hoped to take the occasion and use it to attack the Botnet¡¯s main holdout near the reactor room¡­ but with Avran¡¯s squad getting trashed, we had to make a detour. With us emerging from behind, and the paratroopers still in working condition, the effect was a thorough annihilation of two thirds of the remaining Botnet troops. The Elite made a horrible mistake of not securing the Armoury and allowing us to gear up. Now it was paying the price for that. Then again, if we didn¡¯t have the Alum¡¯s former AI on our side, trying to unlock the Armoury systems and getting the weapons (even the guns were attached to the walls with what essentially was a tough maglock) would take us a lot of time. We won. We cleared the last holdout after Nymphae told me she made it sure that the Botnet cannot detonate the reactor. The worst it could do would be shutting it down. And, frankly, that would just make the ship circle around the moon, calmly waiting until we manage to reactivate it. While also cutting the Botnet from the only mean of recharging batteries. Which would be bad both for the Botnet itself and its remaining underlings. So we stormed the reactor area and wiped out the remaining enemies. It wasn¡¯t easy since they barricaded all corridors but one, where we had to made a frontal assault against their rifles¡­ and what I presumed to be a hardlight machine gun. But we had Avran conjure his magic shield, and then help us get through the bottleneck. After it happened, we used the battle armour abilities to jump away (King to the left, me to the right), while simultaneously firing at the Soldier that was using the machine gun. It fell. And before somebody else could replace him, the paratroopers stormed in, while I and King were making a suppression fire to prevent the enemy from regrouping properly. A few grenades and the area was clear. The Botnet himself was a cube. One meter by one meter. He was lying in the back of the room. Didn¡¯t look like a robot, it was more like a computer unit. Armoured computer unit. In the end, I used the Mark IV rifle to make several holes in it. ¡°Nymphae?¡± I asked. ¡°I¡¯m detecting no further enemies. The ship is ours.¡± Wonderful! I turned towards the soldiers¡­ to see that King was already conversing with them about something. Oh, well. I¡¯ll leave soldiering stuff to him. Now I should focus on preparing for the greatest battle of my lifetime. That made the cleaning of the Alum look like a child¡¯s play. The Apocalypse. The Last Battle of Our Times. The¡­ Nymphae¡¯s chuckled interrupt me. Sigh. *** TCS Cutlass/Pontifex-A System Long War 17 April 2547, 11:13 If somebody asked me who exactly Shalyn Or¡¯Kas was, I would immediately answer: ¡®A pain in the ass¡¯. Or ¡®A necessary evil¡¯. It wasn¡¯t really surprising that the Choir was very interested in having someone like her around me, but it didn¡¯t lower my irritation gauge at all. She was a liaison from the Choir¡¯s government - or, to be exact, from the Voice of the Righteous, Var Or¡¯Kas himself. The local pope equivalent. The identical surnames weren¡¯t an accident since she was his niece. He practically adopted her after her parents died in a terrorist bombing conducted from Vistryan inspiration. He sent her here officially to serve as our group¡¯s guide to the Diamond. Unofficially, however, it was done so he would have someone to keep an eye on us to make sure we wouldn¡¯t try anything stupid or politically suicidal. While also making sure that nobody here could be a Vistryan or imperial spy. Since major differences between the Choir, Hegemony and Empire were mostly of the religious nature, the significant part of the spies worked for religious reasons as well. Because of that, about half of the Choir¡¯s counterintelligence was a de facto inquisition. That felt fine with burning the captured spies at the stake. ¡­ I admit, when I heard about that for the first time, I had a sudden urge to end cooperation with the Choir. Then, Nymphae told me that Vistryans had a ritual that includes burning a newborn child alive as an offering. Which, according to the Corporation¡¯s cultural experts, was taken straight from ancient Carthage and Phoenicia. Shalyn, later on, confirmed that the burning part is only for the people that willingly supported Vistrya, with other spies (even those from the Empire) being treated more leniently. So, I guess, they might have a point with the burning part. Shalyn knew all the details about it¡­ because she was a nun (sort of, the local religion was so hopelessly complicated that it would take me months to figure it out) of the St. Anylyk Sisterhood which was a religious female order. Supposedly a bulwark of absolute religious orthodoxy, from which (together with one or two similar brotherhoods) a lot of inquisitors were recruited. She came aboard with two older men (actually, a man and a walf) that were, without a doubt, real inquisitors. Tough looks, stern faces. We had them assume the mantle of being a de facto ships¡¯ police. Every military (and most civilian) ship had people keeping the peace onboard. That they were competent detectives, had every qualification a policeman would need, and knew at least a single martial art helped in deciding. Shalyn herself was officially merely an assistant to them - she was, like, twenty to twenty-five years old? - but everybody knew she was here so we could talk with the Voice with nobody from the Choir¡¯s military command (or its government) knowing. She was also useful in contacting the planet¡¯s surface - surname Or¡¯Kas opened all doors and kept every communication channel open - so she had uses aside from making me want to throw her out of the airlock. It didn¡¯t make talking with her easier. However, to execute my little plan I needed her support. So I had to¡­ ¡°Oh, stop whining, just call her here.¡± Nymphae interrupted my thoughts. ¡°You are trying to persuade yourself to make this talk for, like, half an hour. And. I. Hear. EVERYTHING.¡± Ugh. Alright, let it be your way. I pushed a button on the side of the captain¡¯s seat - couldn¡¯t they have it be used through the implants UI?! ¡°Shalyn Or¡¯Kas to the bridge.¡± I¡¯M A CAPTAIN SO I CAN ORDER HER AROUND WHEN WE ARE ON MY SHIP, RIGHT? Sure, she wasn¡¯t precisely my underling - more like a representative of a local government - but it was still MY ship. She came a few minutes later. Wearing¡­ well, I think the general inspiration for her vestment was a nun¡¯s habit. I¡¯m not sure if it was of any real-life order (not like I really knew anything about that, but I checked it on the internet). It was more like a stereotypical - and undefined in terms of order of origin - nun taken from a manga or something. She was pretty. I had to give her that. Far beneath the level of Einstein or other female clones, though it wasn¡¯t surprising. Nobody designed her to be pretty. Auburn hair, green eyes. Human, that seemed to have taken most of her genes from people of Caucasian race. ¡°You called?¡± She asked. ¡°Uhm, yes.¡± Aaand¡­ the fight begins. ¡°I¡¯d like to have the Cutlass fly somewhere. And I want to hear the Choir¡¯s opinion on that.¡± ¡°Fly somewhere?¡± She raised one eyebrow. ¡°Where exactly?¡± I explained to her that we found a navigational data we presumed to lead to Numbers¡¯ base. And that we could reach it relatively fast by using a Hypergate. ¡°Hmm¡­¡± She was deep in thoughts for a while. ¡°Well, I will ask you a few questions. That, I¡¯m sure, the Voice would ask you if he was here.¡± Thank you for reminding me who you speak for. ¡±My answer depends on your answers.¡± ¡°Fine.¡± I shrugged. ¡°I understand that a frigate is a small ship.¡± She began while watching me attentively. ¡°Isn¡¯t such a thing¡­ pretty¡­ dangerous?¡± The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Hmm. Yeah, I think I know where this came from. Losing the Cutlass would be a terrible blow to their entire¡­ let¡¯s call it a space program. We would resurrect back here, but the ship, Choir crewmen and so on would be gone. ¡°Well, theoretically yes.¡± I answered her. ¡°But frigates were created precisely for such reconnaissance actions. We should be able to evade anyone stronger than us. We certainly would like to avoid fighting.¡± She didn¡¯t look very persuaded. ¡°...Unless something awaits right at the exit point of the Hypergate.¡± Oh. I didn¡¯t think about it. ¡°Didn¡¯t you say it connects two points? You could place mines there.¡± Weelll¡­ Nymphae? Save me? ¡°Ugh.¡± I heard in my head. ¡°Theoretically she is right. But the Precursors¡¯ expected troubles like that, and the exit point of a Hypergate can be¡­ expanded. It won¡¯t be a comfortable jump, but I can have us land two or three million kilometres from the Hypergate. At worst, we¡¯ll get shot at, but we should be able to evade any enemy easily.¡± Ufff. ¡°Unless they have voidcraft carriers or something like that. But it¡¯s unlikely.¡± ¡­ There goes my good mood. I relayed her answer - in my own words - to Shalyn. Without the voidcraft (whatever it is) carriers. ¡°I see.¡± She squinted her eyes. ¡°Just the Cutlass, right?¡± ¡°Yes. Neither the Yataghan nor the Sword will be of any use in that mission.¡± The Choir Space Navy was composed of three Dagger-class frigates. While we successfully reclaimed two more frigates, we lacked sufficiently professional crews for them to be of any use. Sure, they could fly around and even fire their gun on the enemy - Nymphae wrote something that was more or less the programming for weapon systems¡­ but the accuracy was subpar. ¡°Good.¡± She nodded. ¡°I can¡¯t promise you anything, but I think you¡¯ll get the green light.¡± ¡°I understand the need to keep control over your armed forces, but if you must talk over every move of my fleet, it will be a major detriment to all our operations.¡± I pointed out. It was something that had been pissing me off a little for a while now. The Choir was explicitly against any ship manoeuvres - outside of shuttles - which forced me to train ship crews in simulated environments. She sighed. Loudly. ¡°This is not a matter of having control over armed forces. This isn¡¯t even a matter of us having doubts or trust issues with you.¡± Reaaaally? ¡°Listen, captain.¡± Oh, somebody remembered my (unofficial) rank. ¡°When you ordered the ships to circle around the moon to get our attention, you started certain¡­ processes.¡± What? ¡°So, it¡¯s now my fault?¡± She looked at me¡­ with stern disapproval. Like a teacher whose student turned out to be an idiot. ¡°Could you stop being so prejudiced and listen to what I¡¯m trying to say?¡± Oh, she is furious. Coldly furious, since she has quite the self-control. ¡°Every person on the planet knows there are aliens out there. You can¡¯t hide something you can see with your naked eye literally every night. You¡¯ve given a panic attack to every citizen of Choir, and calming them down¡­ wasn¡¯t easy.¡± Hmm? ¡°We managed to¡­ suppress the panic by pointing out that the ships aren¡¯t moving, that there was no attack. But if you make too many sudden moves in the line of sight of the planet¡¯s surface, we will be in trouble. We are already neck deep in trouble because of the need to make sure that our civilian observatories see nothing. And if you think that not a single one of our citizens saw something wrong or strange with military seizing all astronomical observatories under the pretence of public safety, then you are stupid.¡± Oh. ¡°They already noticed the Cutlass¡¯ initial movements. When you moved to our world¡¯s orbit.¡± What?! ¡°Someone acted fast after seeing the first ships flying before the moon and turned its telescope towards you. Thankfully, that someone was from a state university. And a reserve officer of Choir¡¯s army. So this didn¡¯t spread.¡± Someone was lucky, I guess. ¡°Why won¡¯t you tell the people?!¡± Isn¡¯t that the easiest way of dealing with such a situation?! ¡°If it was only about our population, we would do that without a second of thoughts.¡± Riiight. ¡°Unfortunately, we have neighbours.¡± ¡°And that¡¯s important¡­ how exactly?¡± I said with a mocking tone. ¡°Somewhere in between of orbits of, as you called it, Pontifex A-4 and A-5, lies an asteroid.¡± She said, visibly irritated. ¡°That single chunk of rock is worth more money that is in circulation in entire Choir economy.¡± Wh¡­ ¡°There is more platinum, iridium and several other rare metals that is in Diamond¡¯s planetary mantle. Millions of tonnes. And that¡¯s just one asteroid.¡± ¡°Asteroid mining is one of the chief reasons why a kilometre size warship like the surviving battlecruiser is far from being the biggest warship class,¡± Nymphae informed me silently. ¡°Infinite amount of space, almost infinite resources and industrial capabilities bordering on magic. Rarely does anyone bothers to mine planets when you have so many ores in your space system. All of them of rather good quality.¡± Right, now that I think about it, I think I read something about the Spire¡¯s construction happening mostly because of the asteroids towed to the Earth¡¯s orbit and slowly dismantled for materials. ¡°The problem is simple.¡± Shalyn continued. ¡°Whoever gets control over the star system, wins. There is no stronger card in that game. Resources, ability to control planetary airspace from above, orbit-surface weaponry. Advanced technology.¡± Then I understood. ¡°The other superpowers.¡± I said. ¡°Precisely.¡± Looks like I got a point in her book. For not being a total idiot. ¡°The second you had the fleet enter orbit, you put us in the road for an inevitable war. Total one. Because this time there will be no armistice to try again later. Those that won¡¯t win, will die. Choir, Hegemony, Empire and Ikhvir - only one will survive.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t want to¡­¡± She raised her hand, interrupting me. ¡°I know. And the Voice knows as well.¡± She shook her head. ¡±It was the first thing we made sure to discover. You didn¡¯t know, but we observed you and asked certain questions. You did not understand what this would cause, and, in truth, you had few other choices. Half of the ships lacked fuel to reach another planet. But now we have to live with the consequences.¡± Oh. I screwed up, right? ¡°Thankfully, your arrival showed us new possibilities.¡± She continued, unfazed by my sudden abashment. ¡°Now we can win the war that is coming. Time helps us, maybe with the exception of the Ihkvir¡¯s front. Every minute that passes without the Hegemony and the Empire figuring out we have a space navy is valuable. That¡¯s why the Choir¡¯s High Council, the highest echelons of the military and the inquisition, and all the other people we trust, are very busy with the biggest campaign of disinformation in the history of the Choir.¡± She said with a sudden smirk. ¡°For now, both the Hegemony and the Empire think we are preparing a superweapon in Fort Khrystal. Something to face the mysterious aliens and, perhaps, Ikhvir. However, if you make too extensive moves in the orbit, or betray the truth, without a doubt accidentally, the Choir¡¯s situation will be¡­ bad.¡± ¡°I¡­ I guess I¡¯m sorry.¡± Now I¡¯m seriously embarrassed. ¡°I didn¡¯t really¡­¡± ¡°That¡¯s good.¡± What? ¡°It¡¯s the whole point of a decent country for the armed forces to not be very¡­ political. Not being too knowledgeable about it is a plus for us. That¡¯s why you have me, the Voice and so on backing you up. Just remember that we are in a pinch as well.¡± ¡°Live and let live, in short.¡± She smiled. ¡°Yes, we know that saying.¡± She looked at me weirdly. ¡°If you want to do a proper penance for how wrong you were, there is something you might do for us.¡± Oh? ¡°Meaning?¡± ¡°We need a hydrogen bomb.¡± What?! ¡°I asked that¡­ machine of yours, and it said this technology is right in front of ours. We have atomic bombs, the strongest reached one hundred kilotonnes. But we have only a few dozen bombs. And a few experimental long-range ballistic missiles. Unfortunately, both Ikhvir and the Hegemony have them as well. And the Empire has other, much more magical, superweapons.¡± ¡°I see.¡± I took advantage of her pausing for a second. ¡°Still, it¡¯s a¡­ a big thing to ask for, you know?¡± ¡°I¡¯m aware. But if we ¡®test¡¯ the bomb, we will strengthen the masquerade of a superweapon development. Both the Celestial Empire and the Vistryan Hegemony will think that it was what we worked on in Fort Khrystal. What¡¯s more, the Choir having a bomb like that might discourage the other powers from resorting to mass destruction weapons when the war actually starts.¡± Hmm. That certainly makes sense. If your enemy could retaliate a hundred times stronger, would you be crazy enough to attack it? The question was: what if the Choir would use the bomb themselves? Ah, hell. If I give them ONE bomb, at worst they will kill a few million NPCs. They don¡¯t exist in the first place, right? Then again, they might have been NPCs¡­ but they are so life-like, that¡­ I guess I¡¯d feel pretty bad if the Choir eradicated some random city. Ugh. I didn¡¯t start playing the Long War to have complicated moral choices! Few games I played had them. But¡­ that was something new. Maybe even interesting. Ah, fuck it. I¡¯ll trust them. ¡°I can¡¯t promise anything, but I¡¯ll try to get you one bomb. You¡¯ll probably have to convert it from a missile warhead.¡± I gave her my answer. ¡°By the way, can¡¯t you just construct your own with our technology?¡±
NEW QUEST!
ARMS DEALER Difficulty Level: Medium The Choir¡¯s government is in dire need of a hydrogen bomb that it wants to use to maintain its political masquerade: researching a powerful deterrent against the use of weapons of mass destruction in the coming conflict. Or so it claims. You promised to give them what they want.
Only medium difficulty? ¡°Unfortunately, according to the machine, you have no blueprint of a hydrogen bomb. And while we can ultimately figure out the way of producing it, it will take a while. Long while. It¡¯s not something we can improvise with magic. There is no magical hydrogenium mineral, unfortunately.¡± I guess. ¡°Nymphae, how hard it will be to procure such a bomb?¡± Let¡¯s learn it right away. I asked her privately, but at this point, everyone around more or less figured out how to discern when I¡¯m talking with Nymphae. So Shalyn waited. ¡°Easy.¡± Hmmm? ¡°Destroyers have no ship-to-ship missile weapons, but from the light cruiser up every ship is stuffed with them.¡± Seriously? ¡°Yes. Cruisers are generally armed in the light shipkiller class missiles. Nuclear warheads for them are from one to five megatonnes. Battlecruiser should have shipkillers that are supposed to take down capital ships. They are up to fifty megatonnes.¡± ¡°You load every ship missile with nuclear warheads?!¡± In past space games¡­ well, nuclear weapons were overpowered. ¡°Obviously, duh.¡± Am I getting mocked again?! ¡°Missiles, especially shipkillers, can reach the enemy from up to one hundred million kilometres. When you have a missile that can fly like that, it will obviously be big. With an onboard reactor, powerful thrusters and a lot of fuel. Why should a sane individual create such a missile and then load it with some stupid chemical explosives?!¡± ¡­ Now that she says it¡­ ¡°It¡¯s better to put a nuclear warhead or even something stronger inside.¡± It made sense. I mean, you didn¡¯t have to be a space-faring superpower to be able to produce a lot of nuclear bombs. And when you have thousands of them, why bother using anything else?! I¡¯m increasingly interested in how space battle in this universe is like. I got a lot of information, but my knowledge was from being thorough. I needed experience. I should probably ask how they make themselves survive hits from missiles like that, but that¡¯s something for another time. ¡°Alright, so according to Nymphae we can easily find the hydrogen bombs aboard cruisers.¡± I said to Shalyn. ¡°How strong do you want your bomb? One to five, or maybe something closer to fifty?¡± Thankfully, the auto-translator translates the megatonnes part properly. ¡°Any option is fine. Both would be the best, we could make two tests, simulating the supposed progress in our research by increasing the payload.¡± Give them a finger and they¡¯ll go for your entire hand. ¡°Let¡¯s not get too greedy. Though we¡¯ll ultimately get both types of bombs.¡± After all, we would reclaim ALL ships. Which meant getting all three types of cruisers out there. ¡°I¡¯ll try to get you one after we return from the recon mission through the Hypergate.¡± ¡°So, now I¡¯ll really have to make sure you¡¯ll get your recon.¡± She sighed. ¡°And to be honest, there are many people in the Choir¡¯s leadership interested in who Numbers¡¯ are. The last thing we really want is them joining up with Ikhvir.¡± Yeah. That would be beyond bad. For now, there were no signs of cooperation¡­ unless the Numbers¡¯ weird acting was because Moloch hacked them or something. Looks like I¡¯ll finally get to see how the FTL drive in Long War works. 012: Elysium I CHAPTER 012: Elysium I Adam Rytman TCS Cutlass/Pontifex-A System Long War 18 April 2547, 06:12 It took us almost seven hours to get the green light from the Choir¡¯s government to go on with the scouting mission. I spent the time in the ship¡¯s gym - I followed Nymphae¡¯s suggestions about trying to improve my in-game body. I wasn¡¯t nearly on the level of King (whom I met there as well), but¡­ there should be progress if I do that regularly. According to Shalyn, there were a lot of doubts, but the need to discover the origin of the Numbers¡¯ and find out if they were a threat won at the end. Narrowly, it seems. Though the Voice supported it, and since he was essentially a dictator, trying to go against him could not be pretty. He didn¡¯t look bloodthirsty - though I met him only once - but it was easy to get dismissed from your position in military or government when you were really pissing him off. One thing we had to agree upon to get the acceptance for the mission was having Shalyn accompany us. On the bridge. Whenever she really wanted to. I guess the Choir¡¯s government wanted to have an eye on me. Or at least get information about the other star systems and Numbers¡¯ firsthand. I had a weird feeling that she would accompany me more often in the future. She wasn¡¯t looking exactly comfortable wearing the practically indecent space suit, but her wearing it was a requirement on my side. Not because I was enjoying the views (though I totally was), but because I would not let the niece of the Voice himself die on my ship. Not when I could avoid it. Asking to connect with the game system for respawns was too much for now. I guess I¡¯d be reserved if I were them as well. The technology was far too advanced for them to feel comfortable with. Moloch gave them a bit of a scare. A normal warship crew would be ready to depart immediately¡­ but we weren¡¯t a normal crew. You could transfer necessary skills via cerebral implants and then have them trained by simulated exercises¡­ but only clones had the necessary implants. We had exactly seven people capable of that, out of twenty-five required to man the Cutlass properly. We also had forty-five crewmen from the Choir - additional numbers were because we had to train people with the other ships in mind - but they were of subpar quality. The number included Avran and his squad of soldiers. In the case of battle, I could always use them as a repair crew since all of them knew at least something about engineering. Not like the people from the Choir were incompetent or stupid. The Choir promised us the best people available, and it sends exactly what it promised. They were probably much more talented than me, but they needed a lot of time to learn basics properly. We were still basically a warship equivalent of a mentally impaired individual. Or maybe one with a wasting disease? But one that could ultimately be healed? Normally, making the ship go from A to B was easy. But here, we had to make sure we could travel from A to B without losing too much of the valuable fuel. So we had to use the manoeuvre thrusters as little as possible. Decelerate in the precise moment and have the ship stop right in front of the Hypergate. It wasn¡¯t easy. The distance between Diamond and the ice giant designated Pontifex A-6 was 2,8 billion kilometres. This required a lot of precision. And we lost so much of the navigational data when the Task Force Pontifex got wiped out that we had to at least partially rely on astronomical data from the Choir¡¯s observatories. Otherwise, we wouldn¡¯t even know where exactly Pontifex A-6 was. It took two hours for Einstein - our navigation officer - to figure out the proper course. Though it was mostly because she relayed most of the work to the two candidates for navigational officers for Yataghan and Sword. Both physicists, mathematicians and reserve officers of the Choir¡¯s army (as most of the people after university). According to Einstein, it should be much faster next time. We¡¯ll see to that. Then again, it wasn¡¯t necessary. It was just another exercise even if some data was useful. Because we would not travel there with STL speed. It would take days, who has the time for that?! Nymphae quickly explained what¡¯ll follow. ¡°The Cutlass is outfitted with a Phaseshift Drive. It¡¯s also called Subspace Drive or Ghost Drive.¡± I¡¯m not sure if I like the last name. ¡°It¡¯s an addon to the hyperdrive that allows us to enter hyperspace, but only partially. It¡¯s not very pleasant, but it makes us travel much faster. We could go to Pontifex A-6-VI ¡®normally¡¯, but it would take us four days. If we jump using Phaseshift Drive, we¡¯ll get there in two hours.¡± Oh. That¡¯s an important difference. ¡°It¡¯s used for travelling within a star system¡¯s borders.¡± Nymphae continued. ¡°You can¡¯t enter Hyperspace fully within the gravity well of the star. The effects are¡­ unpleasant. So there is a niche that the Phaseshift Drive fills. Trying to use it to travel greater distances, for example from one system to another, carries rather negative side effects on human bodies. The list of them includes various neural and psychological disorders, for example paranoia, aggression, self-mutilation, schizophrenia, various types of psychosis and phobias. More physical side effects include nausea, dizziness, vomiting, headaches, unexplained disappearances, mutilations¡­¡± ¡°Alright, stop it.¡± I sighed. ¡°You will make me bind all our forces to Diamond¡¯s orbit. In short - don¡¯t phasejump too far. And, if I¡¯m right, don¡¯t jump too often.¡± She nodded. ¡°In short, yes.¡± Thirty minutes later we started the phaseshift jump. Our navigational officer made one last check to the calculations. Then she sent the data to the helmsman - a petty officer from the Choir, responsible for executing the ship¡¯s manoeuvres. Then he started the jump procedure, with Nymphae silently overseeing him to avoid us ramming into a moon or having us break into pieces because of wrong settings. The jump was exactly as bad as I presumed after Nymphae¡¯s information. I felt like I was in a weird rollercoaster. Something was pulling me back as if the ship hurried so much that the inertia compensators couldn¡¯t compensate. I felt as if the ship surrounding me was distorting itself, changing shapes. Einstein¡¯s head - she was sitting in front of me - split open and something looked at me. What the fuck. Then I felt that something was watching me from the corner of my eyes. I tried to turn my head, but I couldn¡¯t. It was large. And dark. I couldn¡®t see any shape or anything, but I was sure it was there. Suddenly, everything was normal. What?! ¡°Jump successful.¡± Nymphae informed me. ¡°We missed the target by a million kilometres, but that¡¯s relatively good for our inexperienced crew. Judging from the sounds coming from the side, one crewman was busy emptying his stomach. Both Einstein and Shalyn looked¡­ bad, but seemed to have avoided the worst outcome. ¡°What the fuck. Wasn¡¯t it supposed to be two hours?!¡± I asked, fighting through nausea. ¡°Well¡­¡± She looked embarrassed now. ¡°I think we should avoid further phasejumps. Something was very wrong with this one.¡± WHAT?! ¡°The jump shouldn¡¯t be instant. If that wasn¡¯t impossible with modern Hyperdrives, I¡¯d say we narrowly avoided the fate of the Prehumans.¡± Seriously?! ¡°I never heard of any ship suffering from temporal displacement in the last two hundred years, but... ¡° ¡°I saw things.¡± She looked at me, raising her eyebrow. ¡°During the jump. Weird things.¡± ¡°Impossible. There was no ¡®during¡¯, the jump was instant. Unless¡­¡° She looked at me. She seemed worried. Damn, now I¡¯m worried as well. ¡°I must check a few things, I¡¯ll tell you when I have something to show you.¡± Great. I used the ship intercom. ¡°This is the captain speaking.¡± Yeah, feel my AUTHORITY. ¡°We finished the phaseshift jump. Worse than expected, but beside that, everything is alright. One hour to recollect ourselves, then we continue the travel. If any of the symptoms you are now experiencing will be too strong for you to continue doing your job, go to the medbay.¡± I switched the intercom to the medbay. ¡°I want a report before we depart.¡± And now, let¡¯s return to trying to avoid ruining my image by painting half of the bridge with my vomits. *** TCS Cutlass/Pontifex-A System Long War 18 April 2547, 8:20 Thankfully, we had no serious medical problems. After an hour, the Cutlass chief medical officer - from the Choir, naturally - contacted me and reported that all the crew members were in working condition. Then we left towards the Hypergate. We reached it soon enough. That¡¯s when I discovered that despite the designation, the Precursors didn¡¯t build the Hypergate in the orbit around the sixth moon surrounding the sixth (Neptune-like) planet of the Pontifex-A star system. The moon WAS the Hypergate. ¡°Holy¡­¡± I was looking at the view on the monitor in front of me. With a lot of disbelief.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. ¡°Well, it¡¯s comforting that even for transcendent tech-gods like the Precursors, they still required a lot of space to do the impossible.¡± Nymphae added with sarcasm. ¡°It¡¯s a relatively small moon, two thousand kilometres in diameter. And about 1/10 of it was replaced with complex machinery. So it¡¯s still mostly moon.¡± Right. ¡°Em, Shalyn?¡± I leaned towards her. She was sitting on the seat near the captain¡¯s one, reserved for various important guests on board and rarely used. ¡°I¡¯m wondering - how¡¯s it possible you haven¡¯t seen it from your world?¡± Mechanical additions were visible on its surface. ¡°We¡¯ve seen it.¡± She answered. ¡°A long time ago. We knew that the Precursors lived not only on our planet but also in the entire star system. We also knew they were dead, and for a long while. We never imagined them existing outside of the star system though.¡± I guess that makes sense. It probably made the first contact easier. After all, they were almost sure the aliens existed. The Precursors were most likely a ¡®local¡¯ species, at least according to them, but aliens nonetheless. Might explain why the guy in their communication headquarters acted like that. For thousands (I never asked how old their civilization was, huh) years they knew of one alien species¡­ and it was both dead and a part of their theology. Which improved their expectations about the aliens. Then, some aliens suddenly come and they all are pretty casual. What a letdown. ¡°Nymphae, how many Hypergates are in the Pontifex System?¡± I asked for further. ¡°Three in Pontifex-A and two in Pontifex-B. But right now I¡¯m only sure of the locations of two. A-6-VI and A-5-XVII. Codenamed Gateway and Rainbow Bridge by the Corporation. We must find out the rest either by hand or by using the Choir¡¯s observatories.¡± I see. ¡°That¡¯s a lot of Hypergates.¡± I commented. ¡°One of the main reasons why the Corporation presumed the Pontifex System to be the Precursor¡¯s capital system.¡± Nymphae said. ¡°Most of the data was purged, but I found mentions of at least two major colonies and several minor ones. All of them changed into mass graveyards by the Archenemy. Together with the number of ruined installations and Hypergates this system most likely surpassed pretty much every one of Humanity¡¯s star systems.¡± Makes sense. With so many Hypergates (each of them requiring TWO moons to be partially rebuilt into a giant mechanism), it had to be important. ¡°The Corporation came here through the Rainbow Bridge.¡± Nymphae answered my next question before I had time to ask it. ¡°But something happened to that Hypergate. It seems to be locked in some self-maintenance mode and it currently doesn''t work.¡± I wonder how long will that last. Hopefully, enough for us to gather enough strength to have the Corporation reconsider having stupid ideas. Like, trying to retake their lost ¡®assets¡¯. ¡°Alright, so what¡¯s next?¡± That was important. ¡°Right now I¡¯m finishing the process of reactivating the Hypergate. The key fits, I can tell you that much.¡± Phew. My credence as space admiral would fall down the drain if the Choir saw me retreating from a mission after a blunder like that. ¡°The Hypergate will open a stable hyperspace corridor of very high spatial compression, which will allow u¡­ alright, in short, we would then have to fly right at the moon from the right direction.¡± Sure. Let¡¯s hope it will work - ramming the moon with our frigate will ruin my credence even more. ¡°The flight will not be instant.¡± Hey, as long as I don¡¯t see weird hallucinations, I¡¯m fine!. ¡°Instead, the ship will travel for approximately three hours. It¡¯s still much less than naturally existing hyperlanes, but still much more than in case of normal hyperspace travel.¡± Which doesn¡¯t tell me a lot. Sigh. I guess I¡¯ll use the time in the real world. I really need to go pay something to eat. I could just order pizza, but¡­ I have little to do in the game for now, so I can as well stock myself for a few days at once. *** Suburbs of Certain City/European Union Real World 18 April 2137, 10:34 I left the apartment block I lived in. The city was exactly as I remembered it. I could see the Spire at the horizon - it¡¯s hard to hide something several hundred floors high and a few kilometres in diameter. I was never in it. That was a place for people earning money, instead of living on the benefits. I saw a lot of pictures though. And many films, games and so on. I guess it¡¯s almost as if I was there myself. For the plebs like me were suburbs. The land surrounding the Spire, together composing one large megacity complex. There were better and worse neighbourhoods there. Mine was somewhere in the middle. There were exactly twenty-four of such megacities in the European Union. They packed pretty much the entire EU¡¯s population there. Each had about fifteen million citizens, though it varied. The suburbs contained a majority of them, most, like me. The overwhelming majority of them lived only on Universal Income and occasional odd jobs. Few had proper jobs. Identical buildings. They levelled the area surrounding the arcology and put unending forests of exactly the same apartment block. With streets and so on arranged in an equally perfect, geometrical way. Squares after squares. From time to time, one of the squares was focused on providing services for the inhabitants. Always several stories high shopping mall. Hospital. That sort of stuff. Everything you needed to live. Without leaving the two-kilometre radius from your home. Everything buyable through the Universal Income Card, provided by our generous government. The only thing that gave buildings at least some semblances of uniqueness were the advertisements. The buildings themselves were perfectly identical, all the adverts were digital. The system knew my preferences because of the internet. So everywhere I looked, my implants showed me adverts tailored to my taste. Buyables for Long War. Local pizzeria. The nearest citizens that marked themselves as willing to have sex for money as long as they were similar to my tastes according to the pornography I watched. Probably half of the locals were on the list, easy money. Some sex adverts included videos of the target¡­ performance. Sigh. I¡¯m not really in the mood. Besides, who would go for some local girl in much too heavy make-up, when you spent a few past weeks watching Einstein¡¯s bouncing assets in a tight spacesuit? Most of the adverts that assaulted my eyes, ears and in a few more expensive cases even nose were¡­ well, when compared to people from Long War¡­ like Einstein¡­ or even Shalyn, they were an atrocity on my sense of aesthetics. I switched off the adverts, returning to the world of endless identical buildings flanking street that seemed to be equally endless. Officially there was no such option because besides adverts that channel was also supposed to be used in emergencies. For example, to announce evacuation or something. But there were ways of switching it off, and the government didn¡¯t really seem to care. Booring. The street was mostly empty. Few people going somewhere. Some drones above the street, carrying ordered food and other packages to houses. The street was mostly for police, military, firefighters and so on. Plus public transport, of course. Private cars belonged mostly to people from the Spire. Very few of them showed up around here. Ugh. Maybe I¡¯ll run to make it faster? I won¡¯t be able to do that on the way back, but here¡­ I tried. I ran for maybe fifty meters before my lungs died. Ugh. Yeah, I¡¯m 1,70m high while weighing 120kg. At least the last time I checked, I probably got fatter since then. A lot. No wonder I¡¯m not fit. And when was the last time I made some physical exercises? That¡¯s why I prefer playing VR games. And doing running there. My body in the Long War was like a hundred times better. I felt as if somebody bound a large metal ball to my ankle. Or as if I tried to run in full plate armour. Ugh. ¡°You are doing it wrong.¡± I almost jumped up when I heard a voice coming from behind. Some guy stood there. Never saw him before. Looked¡­ well, seems like someone was training. He even wore something that looked like a dress used for training in a gym. ¡°W..what?¡± What does he want from me?! ¡°The running.¡± He looked at me and shook his head. ¡°Listen, I don¡¯t know if you are doing it for real. Most people don¡¯t. But when you want to run while overweight, trying to run all out like that will just get you killed. Start with walking. Five minutes slow, then 20 to 30 fast, and then five minutes of a slow walk again to calm your heart. Only after improving your condition proceed with mixing in some running.¡± ¡°Why¡­¡± ¡°Because it pains me to see such an amateur running. If you¡¯re doing something, at least try to do it well.¡± Then he simply run away in a pace much faster than I could achieve. That was weird. I was sure I would not keep doing that for long, but since I had nothing better to do, I walked fast - as he told me - to the mall. *** TCS Cutlass/Hypergate Corridor Long War 18 April 2547, 12:22 I¡¯d bought enough supplies to last me for the next three days at least. The mall was exactly as I remembered it. Fifteen stories high, filled with pretty much every product you could imagine. Self-service cash registers. Drones carrying stuff to the shelves above our heads. No human worker in sight. At least a lot of buyers, most of them in hurry. Some, like me, avoided any eye contact. Others were busy doing stuff. Judging from the sounds from the toilet, some were VERY busy doing stuff. Day like any other. I came back home and then returned to the Long War. I woke up on the bridge. In the meantime, my character was ¡®napping¡¯, though if directly threatened it could engage a sort of an auto-pilot mechanism. While sending me a warning in the real life. I could enter the game from pretty much any place in the world (all of the megacities had perfect internet connection). I think I saw a person who was urgently resummoned to the game in the mall, the guy was just sitting on the bench with an empty stare. Glorious 21st century. The ¡®glass¡¯ window in front of the bridge was pitch black. Hmm? Is that how Hyperspace looks like? ¡°Actually, no it isn¡¯t.¡± Nymphae decided to tell me. ¡°But prolonged exposure to it, even simply seeing it for too long, is detrimental. Especially to mental health.¡± I¡¯m beginning to think that everything in this game is detrimental to mental health. Or at least causes changes in behaviour. That you probably don¡¯t notice until it¡¯s too late. Like in some bad horror movie. ¡°Because of that, what you are seeing is Hyperspace filtered through the Cutlass¡¯ computers.¡± Nymphae continued. ¡°However, the space inside the Hypergate corridor is empty. So there is nothing on the screen.¡± Suddenly, a small dot showed up before disappearing again. ¡°That¡¯s a navigational beacon.¡± Nymphae quickly explained. ¡°One more technological miracle of the Precursors. Our technology doesn¡¯t allow us to put stable beacons in hyperlanes, the naturally existing counterpart of the Hypergates. But it looks like they could do that. It informs us how far we are from the exit. To avoid jumping right at the enemy guarding it, we¡¯ll exit a bit earlier. You can¡¯t leave the stream in the middle of the journey, but near the ends of the line, the borders are¡­ thinner.¡± I think I understand how that works. At least from the practical point of view. ¡°Also, the thermal sensors don¡¯t work in Hyperspace.¡± When I looked at her, obviously demanding more information, she continued. ¡±It¡¯s hot out there. The stronger compression the hotter, at least normally. With the outside temperature being around 700C, our thermal sensors are blind. We can detect gravity sources, but it¡¯s a very unreliable method. It¡¯s possible to sneak up on a ship in Hyperspace, maybe even in the Hypergate corridor, though it¡¯s yet to happen to anyone. And with that one opened like two hours ago, the chances for anyone to sneak in yet are minimal.¡± She shrugged. ¡°If there is a hostile presence on the other side, it¡¯s waiting by the Hypergate exit. Or is en route to it after detecting its reactivation.¡± ¡°Still, the Numbers¡¯ had the key. So they could travel around.¡± She nodded. ¡°Theoretically, yes. Practically, that Hypergate seems to have been shut down around the time something attacked the Corporation. We were the first ones to reactivate it.¡± Hmm¡­ makes sense. ¡°The Corporation had no time to check the other side earlier since they were busy establishing the bridgehead in Pontifex System.¡± Time to change the subject. ¡°So, how does the FTL travel works?¡± I might take the occasion to finally learn something conclusive. I mean, the FTL drive tends to be quite important in sci-fi settings. Right? 013: Elysium II CHAPTER 013: Elysium II Adam Rytman TCS Cutlass/Hypergate Corridor Long War 18 April 2547, 12:32 ¡°So, how does the FTL travel work?¡± I might take the occasion to finally learn something conclusive. ¡°By opening a hole to Hyperspace.¡± That doesn¡¯t tell me a lot. ¡°It¡¯s another dimension. Different from our own. Its most important trait is that space there is more compressed. Right now we are travelling with a speed around one-tent lightspeed, 0,1c in other words. However, since Hyperspace is more spatially compressed, one kilometre here might mean ten kilometres in Realspace. Or a hundred kilometres. Or a thousand kilometres. The exact rate of compression varies. Extremely high for hyperlanes, very high for Hypergates, much lesser normally and even then it¡¯s random.¡± Riiight. ¡°Now, because of that, we can reach the exit point that¡¯s 327ly from the entry point in merely three hours. Which means about 1,8ly per minute. So, 14.19 trillion kilometres per minute. Lightspeed is about 18 million kilometres per minute. So, in a crude approximation, we are travelling with a speed of 777 777c. Unless I made a mistake in the calculation since I¡¯m too lazy to fire up the calculating program.¡± When I looked at her weirdly, she continued. ¡°I told you, as a Class Four AI I¡¯m essentially a human living inside the computer. You get superhuman only as a Class Five.¡± Hmph. So the AI that¡¯s responsible for preventing our ship from exploding can make calculating mistakes. I guess she checks things properly when it¡¯s important. I hope she checks things properly when it¡¯s important. ¡°It¡¯s normal to travel around with such a speed?¡± It¡¯s pretty fast, right? ¡°Only hyperlanes and Hypergates. Though the Hypergate going into the Pontifex System¡ªwhich was found by the Truthseekers Corporation¡ªwas the first one found ever. So only hyperlanes are statistically important. They are actually compressed even more, to the point of the transit being practically instant.¡± Looks like even the Precursors couldn¡¯t rival that. ¡°Normally the Hyperspace¡¯s rate of compression is much lower. So, for example, the 4,7ly distance from Solar System to Alpha Centauri would take a week. Which gives us¡­¡± ¡°Alright, enough.¡± I sighed. ¡°Several light years mean several days. Might be more, might be less.¡± She nodded. ¡°Unless you are travelling by the hyperlane or a Hypergate. Then it¡¯s much faster.¡± She nodded again. ¡±For the future: spare me the numbers. Also, what exactly is Hyperspace?¡± There should be an explanation for that, right? She shrugged. ¡°No idea.¡± What? ¡°First manned jump into Hyperspace happened in 2071.¡± Well, I guess I figured out the point of divergence between the real world and the Long War universe. ¡°Since then generations of scientists tried to figure out what exactly Hyperspace is, and how it comes to be. Without even the slightest success.¡± ¡°So, you know how the Hyperdrive works¡­ but you know nothing about this Hyperspace it sends you through?!¡± Seriously, WTF. ¡°Well, we know Hyperspace exist. We have a lot of practical knowledge about what it looks like. We only lack a believable scientific theory that would explain how it was created.¡± She shrugged. ¡°Some claim it predates the Big Bang, and because of that trying to find any sense in it is useless. Since it¡¯s an aftermath of a collapsed universe, created under different laws of physics. But, frankly, any theory is as good as any other.¡± I see. It just is. And as long as it works... It allows you to construct an interstellar civilization. So¡­ why trouble yourself with details that seem to be out of your range? Then again, the Precursors seemed to have figured enough of its secrets to construct Hypergates. They really seem as tech-Gods. No wonder the Corporation was SO interested in them. ¡°We¡¯re close to the exit.¡± Nymphae suddenly said. ¡°We will reenter Realspace in one minute.¡± Ahead of schedule, I think. Well, whatever. ¡°According to the last beacon, the system in front of us was called Elysium.¡± Interesting. But not for now. I activated intercom. ¡°We are returning to Realspace in one minute. Battle stations.¡± I switched off the intercom and turned towards Nymphae. ¡°Next time call me earlier, ok? One minute is too little.¡± ¡°Right, right.¡± She scattered more a cloud of pixie dust and disappeared somewhere. Sigh. *** TCS Cutlass/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 12:42 The exit was¡­ shaky. The ship trembled a lot, and some things fell down. People haven¡¯t - the suits avoided it, they kinda glued them to the ground when that happened. The monitor was empty. Nympha¡­ ¡°We are still boiling after travelling through Hyperspace.¡± She interrupted me. ¡°It will take a short while for the thermal sensors to adjust. In the meantime I¡¯m running the scans through the visual and gravity sensors, and... ¡° Suddenly she froze. ¡°No. Fucking. Way.¡± It was the first time (I think) that I heard her swearing. Needless to say, I was terrified. ¡°I think Pontifex wasn¡¯t the Precursor¡¯s capital system.¡± She finally said, her tone¡­ empty and almost mechanical. Then the sensors finally worked properly. And I saw what she saw. And so did the rest of the crew on the bridge. Nothing but shock. And utter silence. ¡°Nymphae, what is ¡­¡± I uttered. ¡°Dyson Sphere.¡± She answered. ¡±A megastructure. You take a star, then encase it in what¡¯s essentially hyper-advanced solar panels together with a frame that makes them all into one, big, and resistant construction. Thus gaining access to 100% of the star¡¯s energy output.¡± ¡°It¡¯s¡­ not something easy to do right?¡± It¡¯s a blue giant. These things are huge. And the Sphere obviously has to be bigger. ¡°Easy to do? Are you insane?!¡± She suddenly exploded. ¡°This star¡¯s surface area is about 7,5 quadrillion kilometres. And the Precursors encased it in solid, MANMADE construction. There is no star system outside. Precursors must have dismantled literally everything there was, be it planets, moons, asteroids, comets. EVERYTHING.¡± ¡°Just¡­ how much energy are we talking about?¡± She looked at me, her eyes still filled with shock. ¡°An equivalent to the combined output of several VIGINTILLIONS of state-of-the-art nuclear reactors.¡± I have no words at this point. ¡°Octillion watts of pure energy.¡± I brought myself out of the stupor. And I communicated what I learned to the others in the room. Several of the Choir crew members had knowledge in the field of astrophysics. The truth hit them the strongest. Understanding that there were guys capable of doing stuff like that - one jump away from their homes - really makes you feel insignificant. ¡°It¡¯s not finished.¡± Nymphae suddenly said. Yeah, I could see it now. There were¡­ holes. You could see the star inside. ¡°I estimate they constructed around 30% of the entire construction. The frame is mostly done, but the rest barely started. Which still meant gathering an insane amount of energy. I can¡¯t even imagine why they required so much¡­ wait a second.¡± What is it now?! ¡°A ring.¡± What?! Suddenly a part of the Sphere was highlighted on the monitor. It was¡­ like an equator? I DON¡¯T KNOW THE RIGHT WORDS FOR THAT. ¡°It¡¯s an incomplete Ringworld. Another megastructure. It¡¯s surrounding the Sphere, that¡¯s probably redirecting some star¡¯s power at it, making sure that there¡¯s always the perfect temperature.¡± ¡°Ringworld?¡± MY PAST SCI-FI VIDEOGAMES DIDN¡¯T PREPARE ME FOR THAT. ¡°Imagine the massive ring surrounding the planet, with the ¡®inner¡¯ side of covered in¡­ well, an artificial world.¡± I¡­ think I can imagine it. More or less. ¡±It¡¯s essentially Earth. Only a bit bigger.¡± ¡°A bit?¡± I think I won¡¯t like the answer. ¡°Earth¡¯s Equator is around 50 thousand kilometres.¡± She looked at me, still visibly shocked. ¡±If they finished building that Ringworld, it would be like Earth¡­ only with the Equator being over 300 million kilometres long.¡± I¡¯ve already run out of words to describe or comment that. Now I¡¯m also running out of thoughts to think about it. ¡°They constructed the ring¡¯s frame. But with the living space, they seem to have barely started.¡± She chuckled. ¡°This ¡®barely started¡¯ would still fit about one hundred billion people. Plus-minus fifty, depending on the density.¡± This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it ¡°Are all precursor species like that?¡± She shook her head. ¡°I think the Precursors were playing in a different league. A hundred times more powerful than the Corporation expected in their craziest dreams. We know of some ancient civilizations that seemed to be able to rival them in terms of technological prowess. But nobody has ever seen a thing like that.¡± ¡°Rival them?¡± There is something weird here, but I can¡¯t pinpoint it. ¡°Well, most of the hyper-advanced ancient species we identified are pretty equal in terms of a technological edge. Which is yet another cause for various conspiracy theories and weird mysticism. It¡¯s all about the more¡­ mundane things. If Humanity united itself and coordinated its entire industrial output, manpower and technological prowess, it might be capable of building a megastructure in a reasonable timeframe. One or two centuries.¡± Which, I presume, isn¡¯t possible. ¡°There are actually some ongoing attempts on Ringworld constructions, but on much smaller stars. And none of them reached the level of actually creating the living space.¡± She continued¡­ and, finally, concluded. So, I know what made little sense. If the Precursors were a local thing, they wouldn¡¯t have the manpower, industrial power and resources to assemble a construction of that magnitude. But if they were a superpower, why does nobody EVER find a single sign of them?! Why did the Corporation consider them one more slightly interesting ancient civilization¡­ and ONLY because of Diamond¡¯s magic? ¡°Well, you are both right and wrong.¡± Nymphae answered. ¡°The space inhabited by a single species is rarely greater than three or so hundred light years in diameter. Sometimes in radius. Most bigger countries ultimately collapse.¡± Makes sense. It¡¯s hard to construct a country (or even remain more or less similar in terms of culture and so on) when traversing your territory takes several months. Both logistics and administration end up collapsing. Unless you can connect your systems with Hypergates. ¡°Well, Humanity has at least the vestiges of unity mostly because of Hyperlanes playing precisely that role.¡± Nymphae agreed. ¡°Dozens, if not hundreds, of star sectors. All of them built around the exit of the hyperlane coming from already settled lands. But¡­ these pockets are hundreds, sometimes thousands of light years apart. The Precursors could theoretically fit inside. But¡­ they had at least a single Hypergate close enough to settled human space that the Corporation uncovered.¡± Oh. ¡°And if they had it, why they didn¡¯t expand throughout the current Human hyperlanes?¡± She nodded in answer. ¡°Precisely. They had a hundred potential star sectors they could access. And yet¡­ it¡¯s like they were purposefully hiding from Mankind.¡± She shook her head. ¡°Prehumans meeting current humans shouldn¡¯t be in any way a problem. No universe-destroying paradoxes. Besides, their civilization started around 3000 years ago. They supposedly achieved the peak of their power two thousand years ago. They had around 1700 years in front before Humans from Earth would visit the area. No civilization on this level of power can reasonably expect to still be around 1700 years in even remotely similar form. They either¡­ change too much, ascend to another plane of existence or end up dying. Yet they continued to hide.¡± ¡°One more mystery for us to uncover.¡± I said, smiling at her. Reassuringly. I hope. ¡°Looks like the place was raided.¡± Einstein said interrupting my talk with Nymphae. ¡±I run a lot of detailed scans on the megastructure. I detect signs of extensive bombardment. All the ringworld¡¯s living segments were thoroughly trashed, even if the ring itself seems mostly untouched. The sphere was bombarded as well, but I think it might have been caused by stray shots during the ring¡¯s bombardment.¡± ¡°Wait¡­ didn¡¯t Nymphae estimate that the finished segments could hold¡­ a hundred billion of inhabitants?¡± Einstein nodded in response. I think we stumbled upon the aftermath of the greatest act of genocide in history. Though, to be honest, there is no way of figuring out exactly how many people were there when the bombardment started. Destroying a partially finished Dyson Sphere and Ringworld combination that could give housing and unlimited power to (if finished) literally every human in the Galaxy feels like an atrocity on its own. It could as well be the skeleton crew (still a few billion people) working on the Ring construction. ¡°I think I also figured out how they constructed it.¡± Nymphae froze in the background. She was probably checking the data Einstein found. ¡°And you will not like it.¡± Then she showed me. Numbers¡¯. The visual sensors were essentially a telescope of epic proportions. She used them to show us the close-up of the Ring. There were Numbers¡¯ there. I wasn¡¯t even going to guess how many of them. They all stood there. Sometimes alone, sometimes in groups. Sometimes with what I presumed to be building materials. All of them frozen. They didn¡¯t look active. ¡°Well, having an army of tireless workers might explain how they achieved that.¡± I commented. ¡±And they could even use the already finished part of the Sphere to collect power for the Numbers¡¯.¡± Einstein looked for a second like she was thinking hard whether she should say something. Before she spoke. ¡°Well¡­ I think you should be more worried about that.¡± What is it now? ¡°I¡¯m not sure how time-resistant the Numbers¡¯ truly are, but¡­ I think even in the worst case scenario, most of the machines we are seeing are probably repairable.¡± ¡­ Oh fuck. ¡°How¡­ how many of them do you think there are? Give me your estimates.¡± ¡°Here. But you won¡¯t like it.¡± She was right. I didn¡¯t like it. Shalyn saw them too. She didn¡¯t like it. Well, we discovered that Numbers¡¯ had more potential manpower than the combined number of all mammals on Diamond. This could easily bring one to despair. ¡°Well, for now, they do not work. They, in fact, might not be capable of working at all, so no need to get traumatized.¡± Let¡¯s avoid scaring the Choir¡¯s crew member too much. ¡°All we know for sure is that the Precursors were awesome and that Numbers¡¯ were their working drones.¡± ¡°Awesome, and scary.¡± Shalyn commented. I shrugged. ¡°If I were you, I wouldn¡¯t be afraid of the Precursors.¡± She looked at me questioningly. ¡°I¡¯d be afraid of those that exterminated them.¡± *** TCS Cutlass/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 14:12 Twenty-seven. After a thorough scan, we found twenty-seven Hypergates in the Elysium system. Twenty-fucking-seven. Corporation thought that Pontifex was the Precursors¡¯ capital because it had a whole FIVE Hypergates. Then again, it was sensible. The construction of the Sphere had to require an insane amount of resources. Even after they dismantled literally every single object in the Elysium system. We also detected a lot of other installations. We couldn¡¯t figure out the reason for them. Didn¡¯t matter much as the Archenemy (that seemed to be the most probable culprit) has thoroughly bombarded everything. They had to REALLY hate the Precursors. We had a talk. Me, Shalyn, Nymphae and Einstein. Though it was mostly Nymphae talking about how alien aliens are, only to end up admitting that even the most alien out of aliens would still engage in even the bloodiest possible ground combat to secure a prize that big. So the only possible alternative was a species (or something akin to that) that was downright omnicidal. That Nymphae could easily give me SEVERAL names and types of such permanent threats to everything alive in the Galaxy was sad. Wonderful. For now, we lacked the knowledge to figure out what exactly happened here. Well, we can say (with 99% certainty) that the Precursors were happily building the absolute peak achievement of science and engineering - while using the Numbers¡¯ as workers - but then the Archenemy knocked on their door. After about an hour of an extensive search, the Einstein/Nymphae duo detected something else. ¡°It¡¯s a fleet.¡± Nymphae informed me. ¡±It¡¯s surrounding one of the Hypergates. Close to our position. Fifty minutes of flight without using the Phaseshift Drive.¡± ¡°Fleet? Weren¡¯t we supposed to detect fleets on the other side of the system easily?¡± ¡°Well, that one¡¯s dead and cold.¡± Oh. ¡°We detect lots of wrecks. All of those I took a look at via visual sensors seem to be Precursor in origin.¡± So, either the Archenemy cleaned after its visit¡­ or guys able to build a Dyson Sphere around a blue giant were so outmatched that they did not destroy even one of the enemy ships. I prefer the former, obviously. ¡°Normally, we wouldn¡¯t be able to detect them so easily.¡± Nymphae continued. ¡°But at least a part of the navigational data from the Alum seems to point towards their general direction.¡± She was silent for a second. ¡°I¡¯m also detecting a faint thermal signature.¡± I took a short while to figure out what she meant. ¡°Wait¡­ you say something there has an active power source?!¡± Even the Dyson Sphere was dead. Not cold (too close to the star, obviously), but definitely as dead as you can get. ¡°Yes. It¡¯s faint. Very faint. But as to where exactly it is... ¡° Then she showed us a picture. Once again we all were left temporarily speechless. It was a ship. Almost torn into pieces, with most of its outer hull turned into a scarred parody of what it once was. But there were still some artillery towers left here and there. What left us speechless was the size. ¡°I believe it to be a goliath.¡± Nymphae said. ¡°Above cruisers and capital ships there are leviathans. Built to annihilate fleets, or serve as flagships of entire navies. While carrying weapons that can sometimes have the size of a battleship. Few in the Galaxy. Goliaths are the biggest subtype, like battlecruisers for cruisers and dreadnoughts for capital ships. Each of them might take fifty or sixty years to construct.¡± The image was showing the estimates of the size. The length itself was close to sixty kilometres. I understand that space is big. And resources are almost endless. But this is a mean of compensating for something. Even if it takes half a century to assemble. Especially if takes half a century to assemble. This thing is essentially a weaponized, movable megastructure. Ok, small megastructure. But still. I can¡¯t even imagine the firepower that was required to bring it down. ¡°Well, the whole mankind probably has close to one hundred leviathans.¡± Nymphae continued. ¡±Out of that, maybe five or six are goliaths.¡± Wait¡­ did she said¡­ ONE HUNDRED?! ¡°Most of them are colossi, that are ¡®merely¡¯ up to ten kilometres long.¡± ¡°Einstein, did you see a name on this ship?¡± Shalyn suddenly barged in the talk. Well, she didn¡¯t know I was speaking with Nymphae. So it wasn¡¯t really a barge in. ¡°Most ships had their names written on them, right?¡± What is it now? ¡°Well, yes.¡± Einstein answered. ¡°I was about to move on to th¡­¡± ¡°Is it ¡®Ockham¡¯s Razor¡¯?¡± Shalyn interrupted her. Einstein made a face of surprise. ¡°How did you¡­¡± Yeah, I¡¯m kinda interested in that as well. ¡°Well¡­ our Scripture mentions the Precursors only a few times.¡± Shalyn really looked like she saw the ghost. That¡¯s probably not good. ¡°But we have many legends from many parts of the world. We learn about them as a part of religious education. They are not considered sacred and divinely inspired, but many of the events written in them are considered canon by the Church. Especially when many of them agree upon something.¡± She paused for a second, giving us the time to swallow that rather too long prologue. Then she continued. ¡°According to many of them, when the Precursors understood that they were losing the war with the Archenemy, their last, most powerful fortress¡­ or hideout, depending on the version of the myth. It was supposed to be guarded by their most powerful weapon of war¡­ namely, the Ockham¡¯s Razor.¡± She sighed. ¡°We spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the name meant.¡± ¡°We¡¯ll be able to help with that.¡± I said. She nodded. ¡°According to some stories, they were also trying to create¡­ a gamechanger. Something that would allow them to triumph over the Archenemy. Though I guess they failed.¡± Yeah. Hard to disagree with that. Unless getting wiped out was a part of the plan. Unlikely, to say the least. ¡°Alright.¡± I concluded our little council. ¡±Unless any of you have a better idea, I think we should board the Ockham¡¯s Razor¡­ and find out what exactly is still active there.¡± 014: Elysium III CHAPTER 014: Elysium III Adam Rytman Shuttle/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 15:25 ¡°Adam, we need to talk.¡± Nymphae interrupted me mid-flight to the Ockham¡¯s Razor. Sarah was the pilot. Avran and his soldiers, myself and King were in a boarding party. Standard tactic. ¡°I have good news and bad news. Which one I should start with?¡± Ugh. I¡¯m already having a headache, why does she have to make it worse? It was coming and going alternatively for a while now. ¡°Give me the bad news.¡± I¡¯ll then improve my mood with the good news! What a magnificent plan. ¡°Well, I ran extensive scans on the Ockham¡¯s Razor. I was especially interested in the weaponry that caused all this damage.¡± Yeah, I¡¯m interested as well. ¡°Overwhelming majority of the damages was caused by an unknown energy weapon, an order of magnitude stronger than those known to me. But¡­ uhm¡­¡± ¡°Come one, spit it out.¡± She doesn¡¯t look thrilled. ¡°Well, I already had similar damage data in my databanks.¡± What? ¡°From Alum.¡± I took a second to connect the dots. ¡°Are you telling me¡­ that the Archenemy is still around?!¡± And trashed the Corporation, no less. Though that massacre seemed to have improved the world at least on a local scale. ¡°Well, that¡¯s highly unlikely.¡± Nymphae answered me immediately. ¡°Very few civilizations could remain for so long. Think for a second where humans were a thousand years ago. And try to imagine where they might be a thousand years in the future.¡° Well¡­ that was a sound argument. ¡±But that means that whoever attacked the Corporation had access to the technology of the Archenemy.¡± Wonderful. I¡¯m not sure how much the Choir¡¯s religion connects the Archenemy with their demons (they had to have demons, together with Hell - helps keep people in line), but they will surely be overjoyed to know there are people flying around with their weaponry. Also - if similar weaponry melted through the Ockham¡¯s Razor¡­ then I sure hope we won¡¯t encounter the guys who have even one cannon like that. Traumatizing. ¡°Now, give me the good news.¡± I really need to fix my mood. ¡°Well¡­ look at that.¡± She showed me some ¡­ diagram? ¡°What is it?¡± ¡°Brainwaves. Gamma waves, to be exact. The brain activity of highest intensity, normally accompanying physical exercises and so on. A lot of things happening at once, as the brains have to use and coordinate all muscles and so on.¡± And where is she going with that? ¡±Now, that¡¯s your current brainwaves.¡± ¡°Why are you showing this to...¡± Then my headache returned. And the brain scan¡­ exploded. What the¡­ ¡°Gamma waves reach up to 100 Hz.¡± Nymphae said. ¡°While yours occasionally hit 250 Hz.¡± What?! ¡°I found something similar in the remaining medical databases of Cutlass. Those are so-called Omega waves. I think I found the reason you remember experiencing the phaseshift jump, despite it being instant. And why you keep having a headache.¡± ¡°Ehm, I¡¯m not dying or anything?¡± She claimed this part was good news, right? ¡°No, no.¡± She hemmed. ¡°Omega waves can accompany two completely different processes. First one is suffering from the¡­ well, it has many names. In short - being exposed to Hyperspace too much and going insane. Almost always in a rather¡­ spectacular way. It¡¯s less of typical insanity than a psychological equivalent of a psycho with a chainsaw messing up your brain neurons one by one. Irreversibly. But it¡¯s obviously not applicable here, as you would already get at least some symptoms. Most of them¡­ not very nice.¡± Phew. Though it¡¯s impossible to have a Player going insane in a game, so that option was impossible from the start. ¡°Now, the other process is much more beneficial.¡± Well, it¡¯d be hard to find a process less beneficial than going insane. Here, the psycho with a chainsaw is now rewiring your brain in a much more controlled and targeted way. You should expect an increase in your mental capabilities. The problem is¡­¡± She paused for a second. ¡°It¡¯s not precisely science.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°The Cutlass medical officer seems to have been interested in¡­ ehm¡­ para-science. The scientific theories unproven and existing only as gossips and conspiracy theories. I base my theory on that.¡± ¡­ ¡°Seriously?¡± ¡°Well, according to a mainstream medical database, the omega brainwaves are exclusive to terminal stages of Hyperspace-induced insanity. However, since you are obviously sane, there is only para-science left now.¡± She shrugged. ¡°Good news is that according to the data I got, at least some of the potential gains can be described as superpowers.¡± ¡­ ¡°Seriously?¡± I think I¡¯m repeating myself. Ugh. Well, to be honest, it might have more to do with my nature as a Player. But I had to consider that something similar to magic was still around. So this universe¡¯s rules are¡­ flexible. To a point, at least. ¡°For now, I¡¯ll keep monitoring your brain activity. I¡¯ll call you when I notice any abnormalities. Or, to be exact, any FURTHER abnormalities. Omega brainwaves are an abnormality in themselves.¡± She sighed. ¡°Part of me wants to make another phaseshift jump if only to discover how it will affect your brain.¡± ¡°Just don¡¯t turn into a mad scientist, please.¡± I¡¯ve read only a bit about omnicidal AIs of this universe¡­ and most of them give mad scientist vibes. *** Ockham¡¯s Razor/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 15:39 Finding an entry wasn¡¯t hard. The Ockham¡¯s Razor was half the ship it used to be. Dozens of holes. Some of them done by a weapon strong enough to evaporate hundreds square meters of the hull. In other cases (glancing hits, maybe?) the hull was simply melted into a now-frozen sludge. ¡°Theoretically, it¡¯s still repairable.¡± Nymphae accompanied me even in space where together with Avran¡¯s commandos (and King) we were searching for a perfect entry point close to the heat source. ¡°It received a lot of damage to its outer segments, but the inner hull structure seems mostly untouched.¡± Untouched?! ¡°Are you kidding me, the Archenemy gutted it thoroughly. It¡¯s one, giant, and irreparable mess!¡± ¡°Eh, you are not considering the way the modern ships are built.¡± Nymphae answered. ¡°All outer elements of the hull can be easily replaced. What¡¯s important are the armour layers and the ¡®skeleton¡¯ that binds them into one, giant structure. All made of several alternating layers of super-resistant materials, shock dampeners, thermoset ceramics and so on. A goliath like that should be protected by several layers of such an almost indestructible armour. At least three, last of it surrounding the vital elements like reactors, bridge, inertia dampeners and hyperspace drive. While the ship looks half-destroyed, none of the damages I saw went through the second armour layer.¡± ¡°And¡­ what does this mean?¡± I¡¯m obviously not proficient in the technology like that. ¡°That according to my knowledge, this ship shouldn¡¯t be abandoned.¡± Seriously?! ¡°While the fleet that was accompanying it was destroyed thoroughly, the Razor itself suffered only superficial damage.¡± If that¡¯s superficial damage, I don¡¯t want to know what ¡®real¡¯ damage looks like. Then again, that Precursors¡¯ dreadnought (several kilometres long capital ship, the strongest ship without going into the leviathan madness) that had its waist completely annihilated and existed only as parts of bow and rear floating nearby could work as an example. ¡°Normally the ship isn¡¯t considered destroyed unless it suffers enough damage to the hull structure.¡± Nymphae continued. ¡°That¡¯s the part that¡¯s hard to repair. Everything else is modular and can be easily replaced, even if only the skeleton is left of the ship. I can say, with 100% certainty, that the Razor was only badly damaged. But nowhere close to being taken out of action.¡± Weird. *** Ockham¡¯s Razor/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 15:55 We finally found an entry point. The Archenemy had evaporated a big part of an outer hull, merely 700 meters from the thermal signature. We could see one of the inner doors, exposed by the opening. The biggest problem was opening them. We brought a plasma torch that should burn through everything¡­ but it did not do a thing. The temperature of it was extreme, but the Precursors constructed their ships from thermoset ceramics that only kept becoming tougher as the temperature was applied to them. The same technology was useful in ship construction today. Only the Precursors¡¯ one was miles ahead of everyone else. After a few minutes of continued attempts, we had to admit defeat. No use trying to open it up with weapons. Guns we carry won¡¯t even scratch it. We could have the Cutlass fire on the Razor, but¡­ the thermal signature that Nymphae detected seems to be on the deepest level of the ship, right behind the remaining two armour layers. There is no way that anything we have might scratch the Precursors¡¯ armour. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Besides, if it¡¯s not completely taken out of action, then we¡¯d probably trigger an automatic defence protocol only to get trashed by its remaining weaponry. The ability of a frigate to evade incoming fire was its greatest trump card, but there is no way we could escape the Razors¡¯ fire range. Despite the damage, Nymphae marked HUNDREDS of remaining weapon systems, from AV defences (AV standing for Anti-Void, the modern counterpart of Anti-Air that worked against both missiles and fighters) to several massive artillery towers armed in MAWs that could probably one-shot a capital ship. Plus at least two hundred missile silos. Each capable of firing long-range missiles armed in nuclear warheads (or something much stronger, but I forgot to ask Nymphae for details). This option was a thorough NOPE. The question is - what should we do? ¡°Let me try it.¡± Avran said, interrupting my thoughts. Well, it won¡¯t hurt to let him? For a few seconds, he levitated in front of the door (no gravity, after all). Then, the door opened. What? ¡°Magic.¡± He told me after he finished opening them. ¡°I used telekinesis to unseal the locks and then pushed the door up. But I must rest for a while after I do that a few more times, it¡¯s tiring.¡± I must ask our inquisitor how you learn magic. Seems like an interesting thing to have. *** Ockham¡¯s Razor/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 17:02 We took more than an hour to pass through the corridors (and several elevator shafts). We found a way through two special gates (much tougher than the average) that guarded the way through internal armour layers. In the meantime, we found the Precursors¡¯. Dead, obviously. Desiccated, mummified remains. Long ago sterilized by stellar radiation. They were lying pretty much everywhere, some of them floating in the middle of the rooms and corridors. Lots of signs of a struggle. It seemed like there was a firefight inside. ¡°Well, yes. There was definitely a firefight. An intense one.¡± I was in the rearguard, with Avran and his squad in the middle and King as a vanguard. Allowed me to converse with Nymphae freely. And even if something sneaked up on me, Nymphae would warn King. ¡°But most of the bodies I analyzed¡­ ¡° She looked at me, visibly worried. ¡°They committed suicide. Most likely even before the firefight started.¡± What? ¡°We obviously cannot be sure, not with their bodies in such a condition. I¡¯m mostly analyzing their placement, and the rather obvious parts like bullet holes. Forty-three percent of Precursors¡¯ crew members we passed by died by self-inflicted headshots with their personal weapons. There is a high possibility that those that carry no visible wounds poisoned themselves or committed suicide in a similar way. This leaves merely seventeen percents of those that seemed to die fighting¡­ and if data from the Alum medbay is right, they all died of Precursors¡¯ weaponry.¡± Infighting? Makes little sense. Maybe the Archenemy was just some very nasty rebels? Or a machine revolt (sorry for that, Nymphae), whose AI overlord used primarily Precursors¡¯ technology? ¡°That¡¯s theoretically sensible. If not for the fact that the stronger and more advanced a civilization is, the better it¡¯s prepared against AI revolts.¡± Nymphae retorted. ¡°Humanity¡¯s worst one was the first one. Ever since then, they were all swiftly put down. If current Humanity can do that, I can¡¯t possibly believe tech-Gods like Precursors¡¯ failed in that.¡± Makes sense. But doesn¡¯t bring us anywhere closer to figuring it out. Whatever happened, it explains why the Ockham¡¯s Razor wasn¡¯t destroyed more thoroughly. If 83% of the crew suddenly committed suicide, and the rest shot each other, there was no real reason to bother with it anymore. Archenemy probably cleaned the few survivors and then annihilated all life on the Ringworld. ¡°Looks like King just found the source of the thermal signature.¡± Nymphae suddenly said. Huh, maybe we¡¯ll finally find answers. *** Ockham¡¯s Razor/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 17:09 ¡°What on Earth¡­¡± I said, after walking into the room that was the target of our mission. The words were purely unconscious on my part. The room was large. It might have been a storage area, at least judging from the crates remaining here and there. On its faraway end, was¡­ an altar. That was the first word that came to my mind. A pile of desiccated remains of the Precursors¡¯ crew members. Surrounding a one and a half a meter high black monolith. On its upper end, there was a protruding part that looked like a sword¡¯s end, together with a hilt. What really gave it a feeling of a temple were the red curtains covering the walls¡­ and candles. Filling every flat surface that wasn¡¯t the floor. I took a few seconds to notice that they weren¡¯t ¡®real¡¯ candles, but some mechanical counterparts powered by cables coming from the foundation of the monolith. Soldiers of Avran were scattered throughout the room, very busy making sure to not touch anything. King and Avran himself stood beside the entrance waiting for me. ¡°Not exactly what I expected that we would find.¡± King said when I finished being shocked. ¡°Any idea what it is?¡± ¡°The monolith seems similar to a hyperspace power generator.¡± Nymphae said, obviously invisible to Avran. ¡°They are an archeotech sometimes recovered from the ancient alien ships lost to Hyperspace. They offer a lot of energy with no need for fuel. Unfortunately, they also slowly ¡®change¡¯ people in the area. While normal, sane people are fine, those already insane go over the edge quickly.¡± ¡°Sounds like a pretty stupid thing to use.¡± Avran commented while shaking his head. Wait, Avran commented?! ¡°They aren¡¯t really used, those recovered mostly gather dust in rich collector¡¯s mansions.¡± Nymphae answered before she figured out what just happened. ¡°Wait, you hear me?!¡± ¡°What, you didn¡¯t say that alou¡­ Oh.¡± I could hear him sighing through the radio we used to communicate. ¡°Perks of a Chosen. If I focus, I can hear thoughts. But ever since we came to Elysium I¡¯m pretty¡­ distracted. I think I used it accidentally. Sorry.¡± He doesn¡¯t sound like his usual self, that¡¯s for sure. ¡°Wait, you are fine with that?¡± This revelation temporarily made us forget about the place we were in. ¡°When I said I can hear your thoughts, I also meant that Machine of yours.¡± He answered. ¡°If I had any doubts about her being a threat, I¡¯d act immediately.¡± Oh. ¡°Still, keeping her a secret is a good idea. Now, could we return to the task at present? I don¡¯t want to be even a second longer than I have to.¡± ¡°Ehm¡­ why?¡± ¡°Because this place is hell.¡± What? ¡°Not literally. But too much suffering, fear and death in the air. It¡¯s a hell for any person with a telepathic gift. I can barely hear my own thoughts.¡± Well, makes sense. Archenemy seems to kill a lot of people here. ¡°I don¡¯t think killing people, no matter the number of victims, could cause stuff like that.¡± Avran commented for the one last time. One more person reading my thoughts, ugh. Alright, time to check this place properly. *** Vryn Vasaryk TCS Cutlass/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 17:15 ¡°So, can we do that?¡± I tried to talk to it like to a particularly mentally impaired child. Not like I ever talked to one, but I had a child. So I made myself talk to it like I talked to Ryvir, only twice as much. ¡°Such a possibility exists, commander.¡± The AI - how was it called, Nymphae? - answered me. ¡°However, it¡¯s not required. You also haven¡¯t received approval for that from the captain.¡± I miss my Thunder. Sure, a submarine lacked the appeal of exploring stars, but its spirit wasn¡¯t that stubborn and simpleminded, even right after the ship was finished and added to the Navy. I was merely the first officer back then. Then I become the captain. And now I was supposed to be a captain of a space frigate. Yataghan, whatever the name meant. But this stubborn machine wasn¡¯t even going to let me make a small tour around the wreckage. To circle around it, keeping clear of the debris. Sure, we would be out for a while, but we (and, even more importantly, me) would get at least some practical skills in flying this thing. I was supposed to be a replacement of the captain when he was out. Sure, he told me to listen to what Einstein has to say. And the AI. Which I agreed with, since the last thing we wanted was me ordering a stupid manoeuvre and destroying the Cutlass. But the navigation officer (that was de facto the first officer) was much more¡­ understanding than this damn machine. I took half an hour to convince it to spend a bit of time preparing routes for every major object in the system. To train ourselves in setting courses and so on. Plus one more plan in case of an emergency phaseshift jump (not like I want to experience it again). I might not be a ¡®proper¡¯ captain, but I understand that the fleet we were basing our own on got trashed in the middle of the star system. So it makes sense to be prepared, right? That I could hear Einstein trying to laugh without making me notice made it even worse. At least the inquisitor wasn¡¯t here. Returned to her quarters. One less person to worry abo¡­ Suddenly the Hypergate near the wreckage field lightened up on the monitor. What just¡­ I didn¡¯t know what it meant, but I recognized the siren. Combat alert?! Einstein immediately stopped laughing and focused on the computer monitor in front of her. ¡°Thermal flare.¡± She concluded immediately. ¡°Ships just emerged from the Corridor. Distance: one million and seven hundred thousand kilometres.¡± Distance practically absurd. At least for people that got used to fighting on a planet¡¯s surface, where even meters mattered. But as far as I remembered from the brief training, we were in the range of heavy artillery. On the edge, and we lacked the armament of this size, but¡­ ¡°It will take a short while for the heat to subside. I won¡¯t be able to give detailed information befor¡­¡± Einstein paused when five small red dots left the flare. ¡±Missile launch!¡± ¡°Emergency jump, now!¡± *** Adam Rytman Ockham¡¯s Razor/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 17:20 ¡°Oh, crap.¡± Nymphae suddenly said, interrupting our examination of the monolith. ¡°We have company.¡± ¡°What is it now?¡± I could see Avran and King suddenly straightening up and listening. ¡°Numbers¡¯. A lot.¡± Oh crap, indeed. ¡°One Kilo-class assault carrier and two Foxtrot-class light cruisers just jumped into the system. Right through the nearest Hypergate. The Cutlass narrowly made a phaseshift jump before missiles hit him. But the carrier is deploying voidcrafts¡­ and the Cutlass is about twenty million kilometres from us.¡± ¡°So we are now grounded on the Razor.¡± I concluded. ¡°With limited oxygen supply.¡± ¡°Essentially, yes.¡± She answered. Well, it¡¯s not good. It¡¯s really not fucking good. ¡°Tell Sarah to hide somewhere. There should be enough holes in the Razor for her.¡± Nymphae nodded. If the Numbers¡¯ send voidcrafts, they might spare one or two fighters to take her down. And regardless of the technological differences, I don¡¯t think an unarmed transport shuttle has any chances with fighters. Besides, we need additional oxygen. ¡°So, what do we do?¡± Avran asked. ¡°Any plan?¡± I sighed. ¡°I¡¯ll try to figure something out. Are we done here?¡± Nymphae nodded. The other followed. The sword-like thing was a beacon. Very weak. It probably wasn¡¯t supposed to send anything outside of its room. But its examination told us a lot. Or, to be exact, just one thing. But probably very important. It was a countdown. The countdown should reach zero around twenty-first Autumn. I have no idea what will happen then, but it will probably not be something pleasant. Then lights in the room suddenly switched on. I could also feel the gravity returning. ¡°What the¡­¡± I uttered. ¡°This part of Razor is powering up.¡± Nymphae answered me immediately. ¡°But, why¡­¡± Suddenly one of the doors in the room opened. The robot that stood behind them was certainly not a Number. Looked much more high-tech. Like a modern thing, unlike the Numbers¡¯ that seemed to be hundreds of years behind Precursors. Tall and humanoid. Blue in colour. Its limbs were slender, much more than they should. Instead of a face, it had a round mirror-like surface that seemed to shine in blue. ¡°Intruders detected.¡± It said in a mechanical voice¡­ but in perfect English. Then the round glass-like thing on his face suddenly lit up in red. ¡°Commencing extermination.¡± Fuck. 015: Elysium IV CHAPTER 015: Elysium IV Adam Rytman Ockham¡¯s Razor/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 17:27 This wasn¡¯t a battle. It was a massacre. And we weren¡¯t the ones massacring. The difference between armed industrial bots and the dedicated combat machine of the Precursors was painfully obvious. The closest commando didn¡¯t even have time to figure out what was happening. The Choir guys didn¡¯t know English. The machine leapt forward and made a complicated acrobatic figure over his head (with the head being lower than the legs, while the entire body being perfectly vertical) while using its hands to break his neck. Fuck. We might have a chance if it was more¡­. stable. If it stood there and shoot at us, using standard tactics. Instead, it was jumping around with insane speed, murdering us one by one. Breaking necks and gutting people with some short version of a lightsaber. What¡¯s worse, we couldn¡¯t even fire at it properly, as it was in the middle of our soldiers. After a minute of combat, we were down by five soldiers. Then, King tried to engage in close combat, by using his battle armour strength enhancement. He lasted about five seconds. Then he died. Avran also tried using his mighty powers. All he achieved was pushing the machine back. A bit. While we tried to fire at it, taking the occasion, even the anti-armour rounds bounced off. No way we can win this. It¡¯s just going to wipe us all out. ¡°WE ARE RETREATING!¡± I shouted. The surviving soldiers retreated, while Avran used his powers to keep it at bay, pushing it back each time it charged at us. Makes me wonder how long his mana will last. The door through which we came - and that was the only remaining way out of the room - opened. Two new machines came in. I DON¡¯T WANT TO BE HERE. I DON¡¯T. I WANT TO BE BACK ON THE SHUTTLE, RIGHT¡­ Everything suddenly frozen. I saw something like that once. No way. It feels precisely as it did during the phaseshift jump. What the¡­ Something pulled me. Weakly. But I could feel the pull growing stronger bit by bit. I don¡¯t understand what was happening. Only that my headache intensified. Together with the pull. I don¡¯t know what¡¯s happening. But unlike the world around me, I could move. When I closed my eyes, I saw the insides of the shuttle. King was there. He seemed to walk towards the cockpit, probably to talk with Sarah and try to figure out what was happening with the Numbers¡¯ reinforcements. Ugh. What the fuck is happening?! I touched the nearest soldier. He disappeared. When I blinked, for a split second I could see him in the shuttle, still frozen in the same position. I closed my eyes just in case¡­ and I confirmed it. What the heck?! Did I¡­ teleport him?! The pull was getting stronger. I quickly touched the other soldiers and Avran. Then I let myself be pulled through the walls and corridors of Ockham¡¯s Razor. *** King Shuttle/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 17:30 I was about to enter the cockpit when a wave of hot air came at me from behind. Followed by Nymphae suddenly appearing, with a shocked face. And sudden noise of something falling on the ground. ¡°What just happened?!¡± As if I know. I turned back. Avran and his soldiers. All of them lying on the ground. Adam standing in the middle, turning towards us. Then blood burst from his nose and he fell on the ground. ¡°WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!¡± Nymphae went nuts completely. Great. *** Vryn Vasaryk TCS Cutlass/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 17:30 ¡°An assault carrier is, essentially, a voidcraft carrier built upon the chassis of a battlecruiser.¡± Einstein explained. ¡°Armour, anti-voidcraft defences and size of a battlecruiser. Artillery and missile weapons on the level of a light cruiser though with one or two heavy guns that can be traumatic even to a heavy cruiser. Plus a lot of voidcrafts.¡± ¡°Which, if I remember correctly, are our natural enemy.¡± One good thing was that our seabound navy used very similar ship classes. Of course, there were much more of them in space. It was much more complicated. And there were no submarines. But the battlecruiser played the same role as the ones in our fleet. ¡°Yes.¡± Einstein nodded. Then she froze for a second, probably consulting something with that damn machine. ¡°Right now they are deploying voidcrafts. Since they are machines, the need for a crew compartment is out of the question. Because of that, a Kilo-class assault carrier can carry up to a thousand voidcrafts. It will leave some corvettes for self-defence, they are good support for the AV defence. Which will leave about nine hundred fifty fighters, most likely in bomber configuration. This means quite a lot of missiles.¡± Wonderful. And each probably with an atomic warhead. I learned enough about our AV defence to know we can easily shoot twenty or thirty missiles. But if the enemy fires a hundred, we are dead. ¡°In fact, each of them has probably ten to twenty missiles.¡± Einstein sighed. ¡°If data about Numbers¡¯ fighters that Nymphae¡¯ recovered from Alum is right, they can fire up to four at once. Good news is that they can¡¯t fire more than that without the fighters¡¯ targeting computer being too diluted to counter the missiles¡¯ inherent stupidity and vulnerability to our electronic countermeasure. They need assistance during entire approach, which due to communication systems that are only as fast as light means that they are very vulnerable to ECMs. We can survive five fighters coming in range with close to one hundred percent certainty. Maybe seven. So they will probably send squadrons, each made up of twelve.¡± ¡°Which means a lot of fighter squadrons.¡± For now, we were just outside of the fleet missile range, and instead of running blindly after us they remained where they were when they arrived. That gave me a while to figure out a plan. ¡°Any ideas what they will do?¡± ¡°They will probably launch their fighters squadron by squadron. They have much greater acceleration than Cutlass, so we can¡¯t possibly hope to avoid them indefinitely. If we try to escape by using conventional thrusters, we¡¯ll lock ourselves to a single possible course. It will make it a child¡¯s play for their fighters to catch up, as they are superior both in acceleration and the turning radius. As long as we stay here, our phaseshift drive gives us an edge.¡± Actually, I more or less figured that out already. Guess I¡¯m figuring out the whole spaceship business. ¡°If we wait for the last possible moment to jump sideways, they won¡¯t manage to turn towards us in time, and they will miss us. Flying beside us with a rather high speed. Which will force them to decelerate and then accelerate again to catch up, right?¡± This surprised her, but then she confirmed with a nod. And if they send all the fighters at once and they end up fooled like that, then we would have an open way to their fleet. A frontal assault would be suicidal, but they probably won¡¯t risk one of our missiles finding its way to their ships. And we could always ram them. So they will play it safe, knowing a group of us is bound to the Razor and we can¡¯t really move away without leaving them. ¡°Alright, but they already know we have a phaseshift drive.¡± That was the problematic thing. ¡°Now, onwards to the important question. How many jumps can we reasonably hope to do?¡± Einstein didn¡¯t look thrilled about that. ¡°About five. But that¡¯s stretching it.¡± Yes. The last jump was painful. A lot of vomit to be cleaned. Several jumps in short succession will only make it worse. ¡±I think it might be a good idea to have our medical officer put half of the crew to sleep. We¡¯ll wake them after the other half¡­¡± She didn¡¯t have to finish it. The enemy wasn¡¯t stupid. They would stay close to the wreckage field, keeping captain and his group away from us, hoping to slowly weaken us by consecutive jumps with a hope we will overexert. If we lose too many people to side-effects of jumps, there won¡¯t be enough active crew members to retreat through the Hypergate. It was a similar tactic to the one the Choir Navy used to take down #73. Ikhvir might have constructed an unsinkable battleship, with enough firepower to deter all attacks from our planes and navies, but even the strongest ship will fall if an enemy will use their aircraft to place mines in every nearby port and even more planes and submarines to sink any tanker trying to sneak around. Being on the receiving end wasn¡¯t nice. ¡°Good idea.¡± I nodded. ¡°Contact the captain. He has time until the third jump to figure something out. If he fails, we go home.¡± The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. I can¡¯t imagine any way of them returning, but I¡¯ll still stay around as long as we can. Losing the ship - and the Voice¡¯ niece - wasn¡¯t an option so we would not risk. Even if it means abandoning the captain. *** King Shuttle/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 17:35 ¡°I¡¯ve stabilized him. More or less.¡± Nymphae said. ¡°He is unconscious, his brain continues to be on fire according to the brainscans, and I do not understand how he¡­ we literally made a phaseshift jump. Without the hyperspace drive. If not for his brainwaves and the fact that some of those that avoided going insane after taking in too much Hyperspace supposedly could move from place to place too fast for it to be natural I would think it was a freak anomaly, but¡­¡± Ugh. ¡°Stop it. Please. You are talking too fast, and it¡¯s really not important right now. Updates on Cutlass?¡± Sarah was busy trying to dock. There was a deep crevice nearby, one that should cover us from enemy fire until they will literally come within twenty meters distances. Hopefully, there were no murderous machines in the crevices. But with the Numbers¡¯ fleet bound to launch fighters towards us we had no other choice. Avran and other soldiers were still stunned by the passage. Unlike Adam, they didn¡¯t suffer from an epileptic seizure before losing consciousness, but they were still shocked and lost. Avran looked the worst of them all. ¡°Commander Vasaryk decided.¡± Nymphae seemed to control herself better. ¡°They will try to avoid the Numbers¡¯ as long as it¡¯s possible, then they will dart towards the Pontifex system.¡± Smart. It doesn¡¯t help us, but definitely a good move. ¡°So, we have a bit of time to figure out how to get out of here.¡± Me, Sarah and Adam will probably resurrect on the Cutlass if they destroy the shuttle. But losing remaining soldiers and Avran - plus a shuttle itself - will be a major problem. We only had one more left, second passenger/cargo shuttle from Alum. ¡°Ideas?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not a miracle-maker, you know?¡± Nymphae decided to be tiring instead of useful. ¡°I don¡¯t expect a miracle. I expect you looking through data and trying to figure out a way for us to reach the Cutlass. That¡¯s all.¡± ¡°Well, right now we are hiding in a crevice inside the Razor. There is a small fleet of the Numbers¡¯ pretty much within the missile range, and if they fire at us, we¡¯re dead. Also, I expect them to send a fighter squadron after us soon. And if that wasn¡¯t enough, this part of Razor is now powered up, at least partially, and we can¡¯t be sure it won¡¯t fire at us after we leave.¡± ¡°It didn¡¯t fire even a single missile against neither the Cutlass nor Numbers¡¯, and they are both in missile range. Numbers¡¯ could be easily hit even by artillery.¡± I reminded her. Then I got an idea. ¡°Some artillery towers of the Razor seemed big, nasty and undamaged. Could you hijack one to fire at Numbers¡¯?¡± She chuckled loudly. ¡°As if that was possible! The civilization on the technological level of Precursors has their computer security more advanced. Much more advanced. Hundreds of years more advanced. I might be an AI, but¡­¡± ¡°At least try.¡± I interrupted her. ¡°Do that for me.¡± She sighed. Then she froze - this happened each time she was too busy to render her avatar. She returned after several seconds. ¡°ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!¡± Oh, she found out something interesting. ¡°There is no security. Not a single antivirus scanner, no firewalls, no defensive AIs. What the¡­¡± ¡°Can you hack the weaponry, then?¡± She shook her head. ¡°Unfortunately, no. While I can browse the system, trying to change anything from here is still impossible. They use hardware blockades. Any nonstandard access attempt from the outside will trigger physical separation of the cables.¡± Isn¡¯t that weird? ¡°Weird. It¡¯s like¡­ the entire ship was completely decentralized, with every system being operated by dedicated crew members, with literally no mean of automatization or centralization of decision-making at the bridge! This makes no¡­¡± ¡°Yes, I know.¡± I interrupted her yet again. ¡°We already established that Precursors made little sense. Now, where is the nearest artillery tower?¡± *** Vryn Vasaryk TCS Cutlass/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 17:42 ¡°Aaand¡­ they moved.¡± Einstein said, describing the obvious. ¡°One hundred twenty bomber voidcrafts.¡± She added, after checking the readings. ¡°Ten squadrons. Acceleration: 950g.¡± An entire wing? Great, if they enter missile range, we¡¯re dead. Also - fast. I still can¡¯t get used to the speed of things flying around. And I remembered that voidcrafts used by the Corporation could reach 2000g. Numbers¡¯ were far behind. Not like I will argue about that. A frigate could reach a 850g acceleration while most of the ¡®proper¡¯ ships were capped at around 500g. The bigger acceleration, the more space was taken by thrusters and fuel tanks. If you wanted to fit a serious amount of weaponry, you had to make amends. I already more or less figured out that part. ¡°Well, let¡¯s wait for the last possible moment for a jump. Hopefully, we¡¯ll have them waste missiles.¡± One jump out of three remaining. I really hope that captain figures something out. *** King Ockham¡¯s Razor/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 17:47 Reaching the artillery towers itself turned out to be a bad idea. Despite the ship being decentralized, there were still local command posts. If we wanted to take over more than a single weapon system, we had to get for such a place. The command centres were connected with the weapon systems through cables that lacked hardware blockades. The way the Razor was constructed looked more and more mysterious. It would be a simple thing to explain it by the obsessive fear of an AI. Which would then mean that the Archenemy was a genocidal AI. Simple methods like firewalls could barely stop such a being. Hardware blockades, physically separating the connection after detecting any transmission out of ordinary, were a much more shrewd countermeasure than piling up software barriers. But the machines prowling the Razor were using very sophisticated software defences¡­ while simultaneously being rigged to detonate if they detected a security breach. Nymphae, despite her computer wizardry, couldn¡¯t even get deep enough to make them explode, the best she could do was detecting the bomb and the whole self-destruction system. According to her, that system was mostly software-based¡­ and an AI capable of causing problems to Precursors was guaranteed to hack through it. Especially a Class Five one. Besides, using deadly robots as security when you fight against a hostile AI is suicide. A creative one, but still suicide. Until now, not a single thing we¡¯ve discovered about Precursors¡¯ made sense. At least Nymphae hacked some security systems. Those close. Which meant cameras - that gave us the ability to avoid the now active machines. ¡°According to the partial data I recovered, they are called Overseers.¡± She informed me. ¡°¡®Responsible for keeping the peace and ensuring social unity, while eradicating harmful elements for the greater good of society¡¯. Hmph. Sounds awfully totalitarian if you ask me.¡± Exactly my thoughts. Not like I¡¯m really interested. ¡°Captain should probably hear it. After he recovers.¡± If he recovers. But I won¡¯t say that aloud. ¡°Where now?¡± ¡°Left door.¡± *** Adam Rytman Ockham¡¯s Razor/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 17:50 I¡¯ve woke up with the worst headache of my life. That was slowly waning. I also spend who-knows-how-much time dreaming some insane things¡­ ...That I forgot now. Only the feeling of my dreams being insane remained. Ugh. Then again, I saw nothing even remotely similar in any previous VR games! If one suffered weird brain shenanigans, there was no pain. No feeling of forgetting something. In fact, in most cases, you got a barely interactive cutscene. And that was all. And it even really kept me unconscious for, like, twenty minutes! It was something new! Despite the pain (or maybe because of it), I was now even more interested in the game. I opened my eyes to see that I was in the shuttle. Surviving Choir soldiers in a state of disarray. Most of them were unconscious. The rest looked only barely conscious. I stood up (ouch, THE PAIN) and marched towards the cockpit, hoping to find King. Instead, I found only Sarah. ¡°Sarah? Where¡¯s King?¡± She almost jumped out of the pilot¡¯s seat. Ugh. At least she didn¡¯t make us hit anything with the sudden manoeuvre. ¡°He llleft.¡± She stuttered a bit. ¡°Bbback to Razor.¡± What?! She took a while, but she managed to more or less explain what happened. Weird, because normally it¡¯d be Nymphae¡¯s job. Seems like she transferred her ego to King¡¯s implants (we still haven¡¯t figured how he and the clones developed them the second I connected them to the respawn system). Hmm. It feels weird without her constantly talking in my head. King, that idea is just brilliant! That the whole squadron of Numbers¡¯ fighter voidcrafts will pay us a visit is less nice. ¡°How much time do we have?¡± ¡°Ttten minutes. They are ssslow.¡± She is really focused on not making any eye contact with me. That¡¯s weird. But I have no time to search for answers here. They are interested in sniping us from a short distance - otherwise, they would fly by us and send us a missile with an atomic warhead - with their onboard MAWs. Probably to limit damages to Razor. Or to avoid some automatic defense protocol accidentally activating. Because of that, they fly reaaally slowly. Especially now that they already entered the wreckage field and decelerated almost to a crawl. So, the Precursors¡¯ systems lack any security, huh. I think I might have just got an idea. ¡°Can you contact King?¡± She nodded. Obviously, the shuttle comm systems are much better than the ones in my battle armour. Now I need Nymphae to help me. *** King Ockham¡¯s Razor/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 17:52 Nymphae suddenly froze again. ¡°What is it this time?¡± We entered the ship¡¯s second layer. The artillery command centre of that section of a ship was in the third layer. And the amount of Overseers I had to circumnavigate grew exponentially. Nymphae getting distracted right now was the worst thing possible. ¡°All of you Clones are mentally broken.¡± She answered me after a few seconds. ¡°Some biological error. Or genetic mistakes. I can¡¯t explain your love for insane stunts. First, you get an idea to hack the Razor. Then, the captain wakes up and suddenly¡­¡± Suddenly she smiled widely. ¡°I absolutely love it. I seriously can¡¯t be bored with you around. Not even for a second.¡± Aaand¡­ our AI is changing into an adrenaline junkie. The captain will be thrilled. At least he woke up. ¡°I¡¯ll write a program that will guide you and warn you of incoming Overseers. He¡¯ll need me earlier.¡± The pixie waved. ¡°Goodbye! I¡¯ll see you later.¡± Then she disappeared. *** Adam Rytman Ockham¡¯s Razor/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 17:50 How do you counter enemy fighters if you lack AV weaponry? By your own fighters. What do you do when you have no fighters but are currently stuck aboard a goliath belonging to an insanely advanced (and advanced in terms of insanity) ancient civilization? That seems to have some serious societal taboo about adding software blockades and computer security? While having a friendly AI and being of the same genetic, physical and mental stock of said advanced ancient civilization? You steal some of their fighters and use them to combat the enemy, of course. I still hope King gets the Razors¡¯ weaponry online. Preferably BEFORE the Numbers¡¯ fleet does something funny. I don¡¯t think one or two fighters can do a thing to an assault carrier. Then again, it¡¯s the Precursors¡¯ we are talking about. When Nymphae suddenly appeared in front of me, I turned towards Sarah. ¡°Where¡¯s the nearest hangar?¡± 016: Elysium V CHAPTER 016: Elysium V Vryn Vasaryk TCS Cutlass/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 17:57 ¡°Aaand¡­ there goes another wing.¡± One hundred twenty bomber voidcrafts left the assault carrier. The first wing was still busy decelerating in hope of changing course by about a 180 degree to go after us again. Also - I¡¯m beginning to HATE the phaseshift jumps. But it looks like I don¡¯t really have any other choice. ¡°Alright, prepare for another jump.¡° Einstein nodded and typed furiously on her computer I really hope that the captain figures something out. Fast. *** Adam Rytman Ockham¡¯s Razor/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 18:04 Thankfully, the nearest hangar was close. It also looked like the battle was enough of a surprise for the Ockham¡¯s Razor crew for it to not launch all of its fighters. Stupid. Fighters can bring a lot of firepower. Although even in bomber config they can at best cause superficial damage to anything heavier than a light cruiser. Seventy-five percent of their doctrine (that I read about) focused on causing the ¡®superficial damage¡¯ to weapons, shield generators, sensors, and so on. That the majority of the Razor¡¯s voidcrafts weren¡¯t launched (despite the thorough thrashing that the fleet suffered) was another mystery. The hangar was filled with voidcrafts. All of them looked nasty (or at least much more so than the shuttle). Arrowhead in shape. ¡°Oh, come on!¡± Nymphae had to complain about something. ¡°These fighters don¡¯t make sense! There is no front thruster, so they shouldn¡¯t be able to decelerate! Just how¡­¡± ¡°You know what, the whole ¡®THE PRECURSORS DON¡¯T MAKE SENSE¡¯ is tiring.¡± I commented. ¡°At this point, nothing will really surprise me so¡­ keep the ranting private. Any idea how to use it?¡± She should focus on more important things. ¡°Ugh, right. Give me a second.¡± She froze again. She is a great asset. But I think the weirdness of Precursors¡¯ is taking a toll on her¡­ sanity, I guess. Then again, she is a creation of science. Precursors¡¯, in the first glance, seem like a hyper-advanced scientific tech-gods. Despite that, we keep encountering things that make little sense or are happily ignoring established rules of science and engineering in a way that, it seems, even local science fiction didn¡¯t foresee. It¡¯s probably taking a toll. ¡°You know that I heard all of that?¡± Oops. ¡°Even when I don¡¯t have time to bother with rendering my avatar, I still receive data from the outside. And I think you are overthinking. Though I agree that I rant too much.¡± A loud sigh, followed by even more words. ¡°Well, the fighters lack any computer security. Most of them are in basic, fighter config. With weaponry including an anti-voidcraft laser in the craft¡¯s tip, and an assortment of missiles. You are not seeing them, because unlike normal fighters they have their missiles hidden in a closed compartment.¡± I see. ¡°Well, so where do I¡­ uhm¡­ where the heck is the cockpit?¡± As far as I know, fighters are manned, right? ¡°Well, that voidcraft seems to be a drone.¡± Oh? That¡¯s new. ¡°I think the Precursors¡¯ voidcrafts operated in groups of four. One manned, and three drones. Similar to how average voidcrafts work even today. That one should be a manned voidcraft.¡± Yeah, well, now that she lighted it up, I noticed the bulge. Wait a fucking second. How am I supposed to fit inside?! The fighter itself is five-six meters long, so there is a lot of place¡­ however, the bulge I presumed to be the cockpit is tiny. Too tiny. Even Nymphae noticed that, though probably because of my thoughts. ¡°Alright, this is weird.¡± You don¡¯t say? Then she froze. ¡°I¡­ Alright, I think you aren¡¯t supposed to board the fighter in flesh. If I read things correctly, there is a way to upload your personality to the fighter¡¯s control system. Wait, there is a way to upload your personality to the fighter¡¯s control system?!¡± Ok, so I guess we stumbled upon another weird thing. Useful clues to the nature of the Precursors¡¯, obviously. But not useful right now. ¡°But it also seems that¡­ what?!¡± Nymphae continued her explanation. ¡°Ehm¡­ I think that¡¯s a one-way street. During the upload, your brain gets irreversibly damaged. You can then exist only as a mental copy. Main for the ¡®manned¡¯ fighter, three incomplete copies for the drones. The latter can be replaced as long as the former exists, but when the former is destroyed, it¡¯s game over.¡± ¡°Who the heck would accept such treatment?¡± ¡°Liars.¡± What? ¡°It¡¯s written that it was done by ¡®Liars¡¯. But there is no sign who the ¡®Liars¡¯ are. Looks like the Razor was under-supplied on that field, and because of that most of voidcrafts remained on-board when the battle started. They didn¡¯t even launch a majority of crewed fighters.¡± She looked at me, worried. ¡°The more I look at it, the more it looks like Precursors didn¡¯t even bother to fight for real. Most fighters not launched, most of the crew committing suicide, the ship abandoned after suffering superficial damage.¡± So either losing a goliath (plus entire fleet) and a DYSON FUCKING SPHERE together with a ringworld didn¡¯t matter to them at all¡­ or they knew that even all of that would amount to nothing. If that really was the Precursors¡¯ last stronghold, then being clinically (and suicidally) depressed (as they had to lose pretty much everything else earlier) made sense. ¡°Barely.¡± Nymphae interrupted me. ¡°99,99% of countries and organizations I have data on would rather put a desperate and glorious last stand before activating a weird device on the Dyson Sphere that would end up detonating the star. Humans have a tendency of doing whatever they can to stay alive. And, if the situation is hopeless, going out with a bang. That they consider ¡®dying with dignity¡¯ or ¡®taking some of those bastards with us¡¯. I really don¡¯t know how to explain the Precursors¡¯ actions. I could name one or two alien species ¡®alien¡¯ enough to do stuff like that. But humans?!¡± I think she overestimates humans. Or idealizes them too much. ¡°There is one alien species that concludes each hyperspace trip with ritualistic mass-suicide.¡± She looked at me fiercely. ¡°Every travel. And of all crew members. That¡¯s how different they are. After seeing creatures so different from humans it¡¯s really easy to psychologically profile the human species. Even if being at least partially unpredictable and weird is a part of it.¡± RITUALISTIC MASS-SUICIDE?! ¡°Yeah, but they are far away and it really doesn¡¯t matter.¡± She turned again towards the voidcraft. ¡°Unfortunately, somebody has formatted the ¡®Liars¡¯ databank. And there is no mind upload machine anywhere onboard so that would be out of the question even if it wouldn¡¯t fry your brain.¡± So¡­ the plan failed? ¡°Actually, no. I think I can figure out a way to make defunct copies of myself and fit them inside. The distance isn¡¯t huge so the communication delay between the shuttle and them will be manageable, at least unless we have them attack the fleet. I¡¯ll be bound to the shuttle for a while.¡± Then what are we waiting for? *** Vryn Vasaryk TCS Cutlass/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 18:12 ¡°Oh? Another fighter launch.¡± Einstein interrupted my sweet rendezvous with a bucket I was hugging lovingly for a while, while my last dish contemplated leaving me alone. ¡°Wait, this time it¡¯s from Razor?!¡± That¡¯s something new. Also, I envy her resistance to the effects of the phaseshift jump. ¡°How many?¡± Another wave of nausea almost overwhelmed me. Talking wasn¡¯t a good idea. Maybe I should just vomit and get over with that? I will do that after the jump towards the hypergate whether I like it or not. ¡°Nine.¡± Hmph. I could see the dots moving through the wreckage field, on an interception course for the Numbers¡¯ squadron going after the captain. 12 to 9? But unless captain learned to teleport things around, they are Precursors¡¯ fighters. Matters little. The wreckage field wasn¡¯t that big. No sensible approach for us. No matter where we jump, the Numbers¡¯ fleet will have a clear shot at us before we pick the captain up. Fighters won¡¯t make it in time, but the artillery rounds will. Unless they figure out a way to take down the assault carrier at the very least, there is no way for us to pick them up. ¡°Aand¡­ another wing is going at us.¡± Einstein commented. She looked down though not because of nausea. ¡°Course for the Hypergate?¡± I guess that the captain¡¯s really out of luck. Dammit. Leaving people behind¡­ you never really get used to that. ¡°Yes. We¡¯ll wait for a while near the Hypergate.¡± The distance was longer so the fighters would take a while to reach us there. In fact, I don¡¯t think Numbers would follow us, as we could disappear from there whenever we want. The interception was no longer possible. ¡°I¡¯m afraid it¡¯s not possible.¡± I raised my head from above the bucket to see Shalyn walking into the room. Great, another headache. ¡°I must insist on the ship staying here for at least two more jumps.¡± The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. She doesn¡¯t look very good. Pale skin. Probably vomited like most of the people aboard the Cutlass at this point. Doesn¡¯t help me much as I¡¯m in an even worse state. ¡°This is unwise.¡± I uttered. I wanted to use harsher words, but¡­ then I remembered who she was. ¡°I insist.¡± At this point, the only people left on the bridge were me and Einstein. The rest either left to be put in sleep (that merely weakened negative side-effects of frequent phaseshift jumps) or was waking up. Do I have enough strength to fight her alone? Einstein seems too quiet. I don¡¯t think help is coming. ¡°And what will we do, if after next jump¡­ we discover that we lack people to man the ship?¡± It was still a threat. But I think I¡¯m improving. That was a long sentence. I was close to vomiting in the middle, but still it was progress. ¡°I understand that in an extreme situation, the Machine Intelligence of the ship can make the trip back.¡± She seems to be feeling better than me. Magic? I was so busy contemplating her lack of nausea I took a while to notice the important part. ¡°Machine?!¡± I half shouted. ¡°We are supposed to trust a mach¡­¡± And then I finally used the bucket. Not a very nice way of having a dialogue. ¡°You do not have to trust the Machine.¡± She said, calm despite me still emptying my stomach. ¡°You are supposed to trust me. That¡¯s all.¡± Do I even have enough strength left to fight her? I disagree with her. Both when it comes to what she says and what she represents. We looked at each other for a short while. She was waiting for my answer. I was trying to come up with it. Finally, I decided. *** Shalyn Or¡¯Kas TCS Cutlass/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 18:16 I left the bridge. There was no longer anything else for me to do there, and despite using magic to fix the worst effects of jumps (not the way Holy Magic was supposed to be used, but not a moment to complain), I still longed for the moment when I¡¯ll be able to curl up in my bed. There were ¡®holographic projectors¡¯ here and there. Three-dimensional films. Similar to illusion magic, but easier to use. A few of them fired up when the door to the bridge closed behind me. A small figure resembling one of the woodland spirits waved to me. ¡°Thank you! This should give the captain enough time to evacuate from Razor.¡± Unexpected and improvised alliances are sometimes needed in politics. I¡¯d still go homicidal after learning the truth of ¡®our¡¯ machine, if not because Avran contacted me and vouched for her. If only I could read minds as well¡­ Couldn¡¯t they use a spirit for that? Why does everyone around seem so crazy about the machine intelligences?! ¡°Tell him to hurry.¡± Or I¡¯ll end up going on a date with a bucket like Vasaryk. *** Adam Rytman Ockham¡¯s Razor/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 18:17 Nymphae returned from her brief disappearance, bringing news. Good news - the Cutlass would stay around. At least for a while. I wonder how she achieved that. Not that it really matters. Ironically, our shuttle would be much faster than the Numbers¡¯ fighters in this environment - it was built like a brick and it could ram through most of the junk. The artillery from the Numbers¡¯ fleet would pin us down the second we left, so it wasn¡¯t important. The fighters we launched turned out to be massively better. It barely qualified as a battle. Each side fired a few nuclear missiles. Half of them hit something mid-flight and didn¡¯t detonate. The half that Numbers¡¯ launched got fooled by ECM and detonated causing no damage, hitting nearby wrecks. As for ours, five out of five hit the enemy. They dispersed, but half of the enemies were out of commission. The rest got shred in a shorter distance with the lasers. One fighter got too close to the fleet. The contact was suddenly terminated. ¡°Looked like an energy weapon. Raser, maybe. From the assault carrier.¡± Nymphe commented. ¡°Raser?¡± ¡°Like laser, only much stronger. Laser amplifies light, raser amplifies roentgen rays.¡± Oh! I know that. They called it Roentgen Laser in the last game I played. ¡°The only way to get higher is by amplifying gamma rays, but that¡¯s pure overkill. You¡¯d need to fill the entire battlecruiser with generators to power it up.¡± ¡°Shouldn¡¯t fighters be able to avoid it?¡± She looked at me like I said something stupid. ¡°Avoid an attack as fast as light?¡± Right, I forgot about that. ¡°If the fighters were flying with top speed while making evasive manoeuvres, then yes, the laser can miss. While it¡¯s as fast as light, the computers and people behind them aren¡¯t. But here, the fighters need to crawl through this insanely dense wreckage field. The second they reach the opening... ¡° Right. ¡°Well, we wait for King now. Unless he... ¡° That¡¯s when she froze again. ¡°Oh, crap.¡± *** Karan Vinvaral TCS Cutlass/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 18:20 Right after I replaced Vasaryk I discovered something. Being asleep only weakens the side effects of phaseshift jump. It¡¯s still somewhere there. So the first jump instantly feels like a second or third. Most people on the bridge vomited. According to the medical officer, we had a growing number of people losing consciousness. Einstein wasn¡¯t around anymore. But I didn¡¯t need her to interpret what I saw on the monitor. The captain somehow activating Precursors¡¯ fighters and wiping out the Numbers¡¯ squadron was nice. Unfortunately, Numbers¡¯ took it as a serious offence. ¡°I¡¯ve counted four hundred eighty fighters.¡± The tactical officer (a trainee, as were all of us) informed me after checking the data. ¡°All of them are heading towards the Razor. One of the light cruisers is also changing its position, it¡¯s moving closer to the wreckage field. ¡° ¡°Well, looks like we¡¯ll finally discover if the Voice¡¯s faith in the captain is rightly placed.¡± I really hope it is. ¡°Make sure that everything on the ship is in order. I have a feeling we¡¯ll be jumping around soon.¡± *** King Ockham¡¯s Razor/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 18:27 ¡°Alright, that¡¯s the fire control room.¡± Nymphae confirmed my hopes. ¡°Give me a while to look through the systems.¡± Then, an obligatory freeze. She should just write a program that would render her automatically. ¡°Well, I checked through the technical descriptions of the weapons are still in working conditions... more or less.¡± Nymphae unfroze after maybe a minute. ¡°And¡­ oh, dear. Half of the numbers are downright absurd. The other half is simply unbelievable.¡± ¡°Can you fire anything at the Numbers¡¯?¡± That¡¯s what¡¯s important right now. ¡°Yes. I think so. The missiles seem much too complicated for me to figure them out on the fly, but the artillery is a different thing. Actually¡­¡± She gave me a mischevious smile. ¡°Since we¡¯re in a hurry, why not go straight for the big guns?¡± I¡¯m not sure if that¡¯s a good idea, but¡­ sure. *** Karan Vinvaral TCS Cutlass/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 18:31 I was contemplating the idea about retreating after all¡­ when the assault carrier suddenly disappeared. A second later it was replaced with a glowing point on the monitor. ¡°Uhm¡­ Edwyn? Talk to me.¡± The tactical officer quickly checked the data as the glowing receded. ¡°It¡¯s gone.¡± I can see that! ¡°I¡­ I think Ockham¡¯s Razor fired from one of its main artillery towers. According to the computer, two hundred fifty megatonnes. Inside the carrier.¡± Wow. I can¡¯t wait to see a similar bomb dropped on Ikhvir¡¯s main processing centre. That¡¯s when the first of the light cruisers suddenly exploded. *** King Ockham¡¯s Razor/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 18:34 ¡°That weapon is an abomination.¡± Nymphae said after she evaporated the second light cruiser. ¡°It fires rounds with faster than light speed, According to the data, the ship is supposed to use dedicated frigates to direct fire. Said frigates have FTL communication systems onboard. Both things directly contradict half of what we know for sure about physics.¡± If you think it¡¯s an abomination, start by wiping that maniacal grin from your face. Looks like someone reaaally enjoyed it. ¡°I can do little about the fighters. Unlike the main artillery towers, the AV weaponry wasn¡¯t covered in thick armour.¡± She sighed. ¡°And now, the Overseers are coming from all directions.¡± ¡°Unfortunate.¡± I commented. Right before I pulled out the pistol and shot myself in the head. *** Adam Rytman Ockham¡¯s Razor/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 18:36 We were all packed in the shuttle, waiting for King. Avran and his sidekicks mostly got better but were still pretty shaken. The fighters were getting closer. While Nymphae was busy downloading every scrap of data she could find¡­ and programming additional fighters to follow us. Dunno how they are powered, but even if we could use them for a while, they were bound to be of great help! Still, the enemy had numerical superiority. Especially after all the surviving fighters (with exception of those that were going after Cutlass) joined the mass wave directed at Ockham¡¯s Razor. So we wanted to avoid direct combat. And then King suddenly respawned in the middle of the passenger hold of the shuttle. Well, high time. *** Adam Rytman Ockham¡¯s Razor/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 20:00 We would have failed to reach the Cutlass in time¡­ if not the fact that my current replacement as a captain had balls. Rather than wait, they decided that it¡¯s a better idea to jump closer. Despite the obvious medical side effects of that. Just as planned. We were preparing for a return jump towards the Hypergate leading back to Pontifex - with the fighters close, but not close enough to intercept us in time - when shit hit the fan again. ¡°... Thermal flare?!¡± The tactical officer (Edwyn something) looked even more shocked than I was. ¡°Distance: 128 million kilometres.¡± Well, at least it¡¯s far away. On the other side of the system, even. I was really happy about that¡­ because the thermal flare I could see on the monitor dwarfed the one that accompanied the assault carrier. By an order of magnitude. Within a few minutes, we had a general outline. Three dreadnoughts, seven battleships, four battlecruisers, nine heavy cruisers, twelve light cruisers and forty-seven destroyers. All of them Numbers¡¯. An equivalent of an average human state navy. ¡°There is one ship we have no data on.¡± The tactical officer - now understandably pale - added. ¡°Equivalent to a battlecruiser in size.¡± He showed us a camera feed. Damn, the thing looked ominous. Black, with a lot of sharp edges. Didn¡¯t look human. The amount of tough looking artillery towers and missile launchers was¡­ threatening. Nymphae slowly turned towards me. Why is she so pale?! ¡°Among the stuff I ¡®liberated¡¯ from the Razor was the targeting data.¡± She said slowly. ¡°Including an expansive table of ship classes known to Precursors.¡± Then she showed it. A floating window in front of me, with a miniature version of the battlecruiser in front of us. Baphomet-class battlecruiser. Allegiance: The Archenemy. Oh shit. Wait a second, the Precursors¡¯ could fire stuff with a faster than light speed, right? What if the Archenemy can as we¡­ ¡°EMERGENCY JU¡­¡± Unfortunately, I was too late. 017: Routed CHAPTER 017: Routed Adam Rytman TCS Cutlass/Elysium System Long War 18 April 2547, 20:03 What saved our lives was pure, dumb luck. Even the Archenemy ¡®technology¡¯ (that seemed to transcend science - is it even technology at this point?) had its own limits. Shooting things from one hundred twenty-eight million kilometres? Even if you have an impossible superlaser that can somehow shoot with FTL speed, there are still limits. Limits that even I could understand. The biggest one was accuracy. You are shooting blindly at this distance. One hundred twenty-eight million kilometres is about seven light minutes. They could only see where we were seven minutes ago. And even then, the laser had to travel for at least two minutes(according to our later estimates). But we weren¡¯t moving. The tactic of evasion we used against the first Numbers¡¯ fleet came back to bite us in the ass. Only because of that the Baphomet could hit us without frigates relaying our position to them. But even then, hitting a target was no easy feat. One hundred twenty-eight million kilometres of distance - and the target was merely a hundred meters long. And it¡¯s not like there is nothing influencing the ray. There was the gravity of the star (with minuscule instabilities caused by the Dyson Sphere). Even the nearby massive wreckage field could contribute. It all bent the laser ray in a tiny way. But enough for it to narrowly miss, its edge passing the Cutlass by a few metres. Even then, half of the frigate¡¯s left side instantly melted. The combination of a sudden change of solid matter into gas (at its dispersion) and depressurization threw the ships away. Everyone was thrown around the deck. The captain¡¯s seat saved me. But the others? Well, not pretty. Judging from the way the tactical officer¡¯s neck was bent, he won¡¯t be of use anymore. Einstein must have died, because she suddenly appeared in front of me, with an expression full of shock on her face. Makes me wonder how many people died on the ship. ¡°Nymphae!¡± I shouted. And then we made a phaseshift jump. *** ??? ??? ??? Once again the world paused. But this time something wasn¡¯t right. I could move. Barely. I felt as if an invisible chain bound me. Everything around me was still frozen. I could see the tactical officer¡¯s body covered in hoarfrost. Shit, it¡¯s cold! So damn cold! I¡¯m freezing here! What the hell¡¯s going on! I kinda expected Nymphae to answer me. But her avatar was frozen solid. What now? ¡°Interesting.¡± I wasn¡¯t alone. Only after he (it?) spoke I noticed that fact. There was a person standing by the wall of the bridge. Unfazed by the frozen still chaos. Tall, almost too tall. Slender. Wore an elegant, old-school suit. His face¡­ I couldn¡¯t see it. It was¡­ blurred. ¡°A fledgling Awakened. Right here. Right now. The nerve.¡± The thing hissed. It was bad news. I absolutely knew that. The voice was¡­ distorted. Like a machine generated it. ¡°Wh¡­ who are you?¡± It was still freezing, but something in me got used to that. I could move better. I could even talk now. It disappeared. A second later it appeared again. Standing in front of the captain¡¯s seat. Right before the now frozen sensor feed, with the entire Elysium system laid bare. ¡°Names. I had many names. Hundreds of names. Thousands of names. Hundreds of thousands of names.¡± It made an audible sigh. ¡°But I really like my latest one.¡± I knew what it would say, even before the words left its mouth. ¡°The Precursors¡¯ called me ¡®the Archenemy¡¯.¡± It chuckled, almost cheerfully... but it was also terrifying. Alright, so the Archenemy IS still around. In person. With at least a single battlecruiser that could probably massacre an entire ¡®modern¡¯ fleet. Heck, it probably DID massacre an entire ¡®modern¡¯ fleet. The Corporation probably didn¡¯t expect the enemy ship to fire at them from a distance a hundred times longer than their maximum weapon¡¯s range. So they were parked in orbit, doing things and planning the incoming engagement¡­ and then, suddenly, bam. ¡°When they knew they were done for, they tried a different approach.¡± It continued to speak. ¡°One hundred worlds they seeded with life, making me unable to lay my hands by rules and laws your scientists didn¡¯t even dream about. 99 of them fell into my hands. The last one was almost ripe for the taking¡­ but then you come.¡± It¡¯s angry. It¡¯s angry. It¡¯s angry. ¡°Well, it doesn¡¯t matter. The outcome will be the same. A bit of entertainment to me. A long, painful and torturous death to them.¡± It said this so casually¡­ ¡°How about helping me? You could get Einstein, even the inquisitor as your playthings. I¡¯m generous to my servants.¡± Wh¡­ ¡°Nnno way!¡± I blurted out, without thinking. It chuckled. ¡°Really? Morals? From you? A broken person from a broken world. So starved for new stimuli that you were overjoyed when the game had a different, while painful, way of showing brain damage?¡± Wh¡­ it knows it¡¯s a game? It speaks of it to players? And¡­ does it know anything about my life?! ¡°Struggle as much as you like.¡± It shrugged. ¡°I¡¯ll still get all of you. It¡¯s inevitable. But, if you know that it¡¯s coming, you¡¯ll struggle even more and that will make breaking you even more enjoyable.¡± I think it smiled. Fuck, I think it smiled! ¡°Well, I¡¯ll even give you some time! Originally, the fleet was supposed to wipe out all traces of intelligent life right now, but¡­ two weeks. I¡¯ll stay in Elysium for two weeks. Get ready to meet me properly. By that time, you might actually try to put up a resistance. It walked sideways, the sudden wave of cold freezing me again. I noticed that there was something unnatural in how the¡­ thing walked. Right before it disappeared from my view I figured it out. Knees. It walked like it lacked knees. I had no idea what it meant, but I also had no idea what was happening here for a long while. ¡°Oh, I almost forgot.¡± It suddenly reappeared right beside Einstein. ¡°We wouldn¡¯t want a prophecy to end unfulfilled, right?¡± What? Then it made a ¡®pistol¡¯ from its finger. And made a shooting gesture at Einstein¡¯s head, before chuckling. Second later the time resumed. ¡°We¡¯re out!¡± Nymphae almost shouted in my ear. ¡°We¡¯re entering the Hypergate immediately, but¡­¡± ¡°Move the ship however you please.¡± We really don¡¯t have time for that. And the crew is mostly incapacitated. ¡°Listen, I have a question. Is there something living in the Hyperspace?¡± ¡°Hmm? Define living.¡± The ship turned towards the Hypergate. This time we gained distance from the fleet (I don¡¯t want to think about them visiting Pontifex, at least not now), so we could safely jump before another salvo reached us. ¡°There are things that¡­¡± That¡¯s when I understood that something was wrong with Einstein. She wasn¡¯t moving, just standing there. With her back towards me. Half a second later my fears were confirmed, when she turned around while drawing her pistol. Unfortunately, I wasn¡¯t a hardened commando. Avran would probably disarm her instantly (and that¡¯s without considering his magic). I, instead, looked at her - paralysed by a surprise - when she opened fire. Nobody else noticed her before she opened fire. Out of seven people being on the bridge when the Cutlass was grazed by the Archenemy¡¯ energy weapons, one was dead, two were unconscious, and the rest was still in shock Commander Vinvaral was the first one to get hit - and I doubt that the local medical system can fix a person whose head was practically blown into pieces. The navigational officer was the second one - he was close to Einstein and woke up from the stupor fast enough to draw his pistol. She wasn¡¯t targeting me - I still wore the battle armour, so chances for her to kill me were nil, even from such a close distance. But the others were a fair game. That gave me enough time to break myself out of stupor and act. I leapt forward, crossing the distance almost instantly. I also had enough raw strength to disarm her almost immediately. Almost - she still had time to try shooting me (point blank) three times, before I grabbed her hand. And I still broke her arm. ¡°Stop struggling!¡± Well, like it would work. Nymphae, any idea how to make her uncon¡­ Fuck that, I¡¯ll just kill her, she will resurrect in the same place. Perhaps normal. If not, I¡¯ll keep doing it until the debuffs disarm her for real. I was about to break her neck¡­ when her head suddenly exploded. Wh¡­
POSSESSOR From all beings serving the Archenemy, that one is the weakest - and one of the most terrifying. While it completely lacks any means of direct attack, it can hijack bodies. As long as it¡¯s alive, it can be taken over by the Possessor and used - in most cases to kill everyone around it. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
A small, black dot. Maybe 30cm in diameter. It jumped away from the now headless body of Einstein and morphed mid-flight into something resembling a spider. Then it burst forward, charging towards the understandably panicked officer in charge of life support systems. He screamed and fled. Can¡¯t blame him. I tried to shoot at the possessor, but it was evading my shots with crazy speed. Finally, it made its last jump, targeting the enviro officer¡¯s head. Right before it got him, the possessor hit an invisible wall. Wh¡­ Avran. Now that I think about it, Nymphae was silent since it started so she probably went to call reinforcements. ¡°What the fuck is that thing?!¡± Looks like I¡¯m not the only one feeling lost. Possessor jumped away from the wall (and the enviro officer hid behind Avran, his panic now contained and weapons drawn) and hide behind a computer console. ¡°I don¡¯t fucking now! Stop it in place so I can shoot it!¡± King would probably snipe it without problems, BUT HE IS NOT FUCKING HERE. Einstein materialized again, dropping onto her knees. On her face, a look of anguish. Looks like possession is over, but I can¡¯t expect any help from her. ¡°I have another idea.¡± Wh¡­ then Avran makes a vertical movement with his hand. Suddenly, about half of the room - now devoid of living beings with the exception of Possessor hiding from our shots - was set aflame. Right, stuff here is fireproof. Unlike (hopefully) the thing. *** TCS Cutlass/Hyperspace Corridor Long War 18 April 2547, 20:34 We started the trip with 52 crew members and soldiers. The Overseers, the Archenemy superlaser and the possessor¡¯s rampage whittled the number down to 34. And about ? of that suffered wounds, ranging from bruises to broken spinal cord (which, according to Nymphae, could be fixed by modern healthcare, though it would not be quick). Also, the Cutlass itself lost its left side thruster, ? of its artillery, and a significant part of shield generators (that we didn¡¯t even use during the mission). It was a wreck, honestly. And we lacked the ability to repair it. At least it was in good enough shape to bring us back. Einstein was out of the picture for a long while. Judging from the occasional blabber that came from her mouth, being possessed by the Possessor wasn¡¯t pleasant. More like unbelievably terrible. Shalyn only got bruises. Avran was pissed beyond measure for losing half of his squad. We lost one commander that was supposed to command a frigate - and one that was supposedly much more politically acceptable to the Choir¡¯s government than the other. Also, a tactical officer and navigational officer trainees. It was during the cleanup I understood the whole part about prophecy. During the first phaseshift jump, I saw Einstein¡¯s head splitting apart and something looking at me. With Hyperspace being a source of at least some time weirdness, being able to catch a glimpse of the future was actually understandable. We were already sidelining science. We could as well go all out. I called a meeting. Me, King, Nymphae, Shalyn and Avran. I still couldn¡¯t believe that both our Chosen Hero and the inquisitor know about our AI. We¡¯re terrible at keeping that secret. I was describing the ¡®vision¡¯ I had during the jump. Everyone was obviously terrified by the fact that the Archenemy was still around. Doubly so, when I said that its plan was to ¡®visit¡¯ the Pontifex System. Triply so when I mentioned the lack of knees, distorted face and ability to instantly make Einstein possessed by¡­ something. For a second I thought Shalyn got a heart attack. Even Avran looked like he saw a ghost. ¡°Ehm¡­ what is it?¡± Shalyn shook her head. ¡°It¡¯s¡­ not something to talk about now. I need to check a few things. A lot, actually. And most in Choir¡¯s libraries. After we return to base, I¡¯ll spend time there. For now¡­ listen, whatever will happen, tell no one from Choir about this¡­ being. If you do¡­ then it¡¯s possible we won¡¯t even be around as a country when the Archenemy comes to visit.¡± What?! ¡°You can¡¯t be serious, it can¡¯t be¡­¡± Avran participated. ¡°And do you have any other idea?¡± This shot him down. Which was actually terrifying since I couldn¡¯t imagine something capable of making him shut up like that. ¡°I¡¯ll tell the Voice. So not a word to him, either. Also, we must¡­ make changes to the story.¡± What? *** Var Or¡¯kas St. Ylvael¡¯s Palace/Holy City of Kratha/Pontifex A-3 Long War 19 April 2547, 05:12 It was close to noon in Kratha. Beautiful city, especially the inner, more ¡®representative¡¯ districts that served as headquarters of the Choir - or, to be precise, the religious organization that during the Great War expanded into a superpower. Though we still moved the Choir-country government here. Made things easier. I already finished the morning mass - one of many religious ¡®innovations¡¯ I added when the war with Ikhvir started, hoping to pray our way into victory. It was mandatory for the most important people of Choir. Members of the highest echelons of the army, Inquisition, and civilian government. Also cardinals and pontiffs. I always stressed our newest defeats and occasional disasters on the front. It might be hard to feel that in Kratha, but we were fighting a war. And we were losing it. My constant, public nagging was useful in reminding them of that. I was reading documents and reports in my quarters in the St. Ylvael¡¯s Palace - an official residence of Voices ever since the Great War - when Vitael came. Officially, he was my servant - for years now. Unofficially, he was a former Chosen, trustworthy and useful when one had to work with¡­ sensitive information. ¡°Your holiness, an urgent report from the Yataghan and the Sword.¡± I can¡¯t think of anything good that would require urgency in the current situation. ¡°The Cutlass is returning. And it¡¯s heavily damaged.¡± Wonderful. I hope Shalyn¡¯s alright. ¡°Well, we¡¯ll wait until the ship returns.¡± No reason to hurry anything up. ¡±Tell the ships to observe the Gate they return from. If they see any movement, we immediately go into WARPREP Red.¡± He nodded and immediately hurried out. Now, we wait. *** Adam Rytman War Council Room/Pontifex A-3 Long War 19 April 2547, 21:10 First thing I did after returning to the planetary orbit was to give an extended shore leave to pretty much everyone from the Cutlass crew that didn¡¯t suffer debilitating injuries. And even those that suffered injuries on the level of spinal cord being broken were sent to a hospital in Fort Khrystal. They already had next gen stuff - even if little of it - so they could at least have practice. Einstein was still in shock. And Avran suddenly went very, very silent. Even fearful. Damn, I¡¯m so happy this isn¡¯t the real world (despite its previously unheard level of details and realism), because if even Avran acts like that, the the situation is bad. Shalyn postponed her raid on libraries for a day to help me with the upcoming meeting. I managed to more or less figure out what it was about. I bet the Archenemy is a part of the Choir¡¯s theology. Maybe not the one that¡¯s widely accepted. If there were ancient tales mentioning the Ockham¡¯s Razor, then it was almost sure that at least a few of the Precursors¡¯ managed to hide among the planet¡¯s population around the time they seeded the planet with intelligent life. I have no idea why the Archenemy didn¡¯t scour the planet right after it wiped out the last Precursors¡¯ stronghold in Elysium. The Archenemy was cryptic about that. Said something about ¡®laws¡¯ that denied him the spoils. Maybe Shalyn will find out something. It¡¯s ultra-advanced technology masquerading as magic, so maybe the specialists from magic will figure out something. The need to rewrite part of theology to include the part that one of their ¡®demons¡¯ was some murderous aliens or a weird hyperspatial being with an omnicidal streak would not be nice, especially in the middle of a war. With an option for the war to be expanded into a total war. In the meantime, I was REALLY happy that she stayed for a while. She was useful. The Voice had ¡®kindly¡¯ invited me for a War Council meeting - where I was supposed to report what exactly happened in Elysium. A written report was one thing, having someone to ask about details or explanations (or accuse of things) was something else. Not surprising, as at least theoretically I was a head of the Choir Space Navy. It wasn¡¯t until Shalyn told me that - at least according to the associated paperwork - I was a Rear Admiral. With an advance to Viceadmiral or even full Admiral after the navy I command grows big enough. Nymphae knew. But I was pretty surprised when Shalyn told me that. Doubly so, when Nymphae¡¯s participation become apparent and Shalyn gave me a rear admiral uniform of a Choir Space Navy - which was pretty much a seabound Choir Navy uniform with different colouring. Made with the same technology as standard suits of the Corporation. I could walk outside of Cutlass in it if I wanted. Its looks were modified for additional bling just like the battle armours often are. Through some weird coincidence - or perhaps an influence of Precursors¡¯, though I found it unlikely - it looked very similar to early 21st century US Navy uniform. Only I really lacked all those badges, orders or whatnot on the chest that made them look nice (no idea how they are called, I know literally nothing about stuff like that). And the colour was different - the sea navy used blue, the Space Navy had (for now) a much darker shade of blue. Despite the uniform fitting me perfectly I still felt like I was wearing clothing of my elder brother (not like I had any). Or father. And I was supposed to talk to a big group of people. Most of whom were generals and admirals. It took Shalyn an hour of convincing to make me go. She had a point. All the people I was supposed to meet knew of my ¡®circumstances¡¯. They weren¡¯t exactly expecting me to fit in perfectly - they wanted somebody to answer their questions. And, as Shalyn pointed out, if a person from a different world suddenly fit too much, they¡¯d probably get worried if my background wasn¡¯t fake and I wasn¡¯t a spy from somewhere (most likely from outside of the world - if any other power within it could fly around the system, the Choir would be wiped out without resorting to such plots). She wished me good luck (right after she once again reminded me of the plan). And then I walked into the War Council room. *** War Council Room/Pontifex A-3 Long War 19 April 2547, 23:43 Everything went better than expected. I was absolutely scared stiff when I entered. A whole room filled with people wearing uniforms (the only person that wasn¡¯t from the military was the Voice). And me, a person that really felt out of place. In past games, you could easily assume that everything would go ok unless you really go full idiot. They were rather¡­ simple. The Long War? Not so much. Quite the opposite. It reminded me so much of a real world I felt like I was there. And I felt exactly how I¡¯d feel having to talk to a crowd of people (especially so influential). I¡¯d made a decision to whip myself into shape. The chance of actually becoming someone fitting the uniform was pretty meek, then again I¡¯ve been running a bit recently, so¡­ there was a precedence. I had to lie to them. Only after doing so I understood that Shalyn used me - with good intentions, sure, but still. She, as a niece of a Voice, couldn¡¯t lie publically. Especially in such a situation and with the source of authority of the Voice being religion. But not lying (a bit, with much more half-truths) would probably spell doom for an entire planet. Hard choice. The ¡®official¡¯ version was that we ran into Numbers¡¯ that were preparing for an assault on the Pontifex System. The Archenemy pretty openly said it was already a case, and we made it clearer. Rather than basing an entire theory on words of a weird, omnicidal hyperspatial being (that locals would probably equate with a demon - and they weren¡¯t trustworthy people), I claimed that we found data on it on the main computer of Ockham¡¯s Razor. The discovery of the Razor was enough of a shock. They weren¡¯t happy about the attack. Especially when I told them about the chances. Defending a planet against an assault from space without functioning earth-to-space weaponry and particle shielding technology has exactly 0% success rate. Without shields to defend your population centres, fortresses and weapon systems from orbital artillery sniping, how could you hope to protect yourself? That¡¯s meaningless if the attackers didn¡¯t want to conquer the planet. No amount of shields can stop nuclear warheads or anything of equal firepower - in the atmosphere, they are especially useful against them. But dropping nuclear bombs on everything doesn¡¯t help you in settling the planet later on. A single dreadnought with its crew in a genocidal mood can easily wipe out the entire population. An especially patient heavy cruiser with few transport ships bringing ammo can achieve the same. The Archenemy looks genocidal enough. Regardless of everything, it¡¯s a 50% chance they want to bombard the planet until it¡¯s left barren and with toxic remains of an atmosphere. With the other 50% - with the Archenemy wanting to do the killing more personally - the planet might hold for a short while, but the casualties will be beyond terrible, with major population centers being a prime target of initial orbital bombardment, done to soften the defenders. Regardless, an army mobilization would be in order - hopefully, it won¡¯t push the Hegemony and Empire into attacking. Regardless of the situation, we still had to do something about the fleet. I had no idea what to do against the Baphomet. But together with Nymphae, we¡¯ve made a few contingency plans against incoming fleets we had no chance against in conventional warfare. Mostly as a thought exercise and training, but it looks like we''ll use them after all. Out of them all, one gave us a chance. Plan codenamed RED. There was a massive base of the Corporation on the dark side of one of Diamond¡¯s moons. Up to a hundred thousand personnel. Everyone dead now, the Archenemy wiped them out right after dealing with the fleet. But there was something there. Something that could save us. The Corporation did not use it in time, or at least we hoped that it was the case. If they used it already, and it didn¡¯t work¡­ Well, we must make a bet. And it will require a joint attempt with the Choir army. We have two weeks to prevent the armageddon. STATUS REPORT Fellow sci-fi fans. I''d like to announce that this story is, well, dead. HOWEVER, I''ve recently had quite a bit of a mood for sci-fi, and I have wrote something new... which, concidentally, might turn into a rewrite of a significant part of the story above. Stolen story; please report. It''s even named identically. Seriously, read it. I think I finally improved the quality quite a bit. https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/32384/long-war