《The Violet Star》 The Thirteenth tear A bag thumps the cold hard floor of a dark room. The smell of metal and cold air can be smelled through the room. A man standing over the bag with an exhausted expression. He has been working far to hard. His facial hair overgrown and misshapen in areas. The cold atmosphere only seeming to only multiply his stressed look, he walks over to a small covered area and yanks the cloth off of a protruding bulbous ¡®thing¡¯. Underneath the cloth is a machine that contrasted heavily with the surrounding. A TDVR capsule sits there. The TDVR capsule he has been working on fixing is right in front of him about to be finished. Soon he can have a hobby aside from just working on the damn thing. Which, usually only adds to his stress due to his hope and anticipation for the thing instead of the joy for working on it. Invented 20 years earlier the new piece of technology decimated any other VR gear competitors. The True-Dive-Virtual-Reality, TDVR for short. The shiny capsule in front of him was a limited edition year 15 capsule he got from his brother who knew he was too busy working to even have a birthday day off. He didn''t mind his job though. Taking off his work jacket, he went back to his bag to take out the last missing part of the machine he had yet to fix. A key to his favorite game: The Violet Star. A sci-fi vrmmorpg. Taking out the key and putting it into a slot at the top of the machine, he got into the machine primed for launch at anytime. As excited as any kid on christmas he pressed the on button. And the machine humed to life. The capsule finding itself already manned closed the doors, beginning initial diagnostics. Scanning and adjusting so that the user would be comfortable. Finding everything comfortable and to his liking, the man awaited the secondary launch where he would be effectively injected into the game. Very Soon the words he wanted appeared before him, like lantern in the dark, it drew him in. the sequence starting the countdown the moment he touched the button. 3...2...1¡­ The machine screamed at response and a crack was heard near the side of it denying any access into the virtual world he so loved. Once again he work so very hard yet even now, with everything in place it was simply about to fail. The man was simply heart broken. And he started to relive bad memories like the time when he was younger, his mum got ill. Even as young as he was, he worked at hard as he could to help pay for his mother''s illness. His father? Never even existed to him. He was so close too. He was 1,000$ away from being able to pay for the procedure, then his mother died from the very illness he was trying to fix. The greedy people didn''t want any money short¡­ A tear fell from his dry eyes. The warm stream from his cheek becoming cold by the seconds. Using the money he had, he used it to help his younger sibling, a brother, to become an excellent man. And so as young as he was he studied all things adult to better raise his brother to become what he couldn''t. A big success. To him, if his brother at least was a success then that meant he was at least a success enough.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Drip...drip...drip¡­ His tears kept falling from his dry eyes, he hadn''t been drinking as much as he should, too much work to be done alas¡­ Many More memories filled his eyes like the stars of the skies. All of them the times he tried very hard but failed. Each one represented by each of his tears. The old weary man didn''t have the energy to even wipe his tears. This would be the 13nth time he tried to activate the capsule. He had been attempting to fix it for 3 years now. Even his unlucky number didn''t help him. His 11nth tear hit the capsule headrest. He closed his eyes remembering the 2 good years he had in The Violet Star. he had a group of friends there, also die hard fans of the game. He bet they would be long gone from the game. Going on with their own lives. But he hoped to see them at least. He missed his companions. Including the rudimentary ship ai. Or even the npc¡¯s that he interacted. All of them he missed. There was one thing he missed the most out of the whole game though. He had a long crush on an npc, yuu. Not her actual name but one he made up for her. The cute npc was a high official of a civilization, he didn''t really care who or what civilization. All he new was that he loved her personality and she was simply the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. He was sure that some one had probably even proposed to her by now, the developers were kind enough to add npc x player marriage. Not like it would be a very ¡®satisfying¡¯ marriage. Sexual content was almost entirely prohibited in the game¡­ The other big problem was that the npc¡¯s had limited ai, even if the ai was simply incredible by any means so far, it was still noticeably ai and that left some people in distaste. Even though he would have little real contact it was something he still appreciated. Still though his game crush was all going to be whisked away by some irritating machine malfunction he had triple check. Every. Single. Attempt. As his 13th tear fell from his closed eyes he slammed his fist down on the machine angrily and hoping to relieve any stress he could. The tear carried the last of his will no more strength was left in him to cry. As the final tear with the last of his resistance and hope hit the capsule, something that defied all sense of science happened, his strike against the machine rattle the internal parts adjusting their posture. And once more the machine roared to life with a newfound vigour that no machine of its caliber ever had before. The machine activated sending him to the virtual world. The tears he spilled however also affected the machine, they conducted the electricity just enough to send it to his brain cutting it off entirely from his body effectively ending his life. Then next time the man will awake, it will be a new experience even more foreign than experiencing vr for the first time, yet also an experience he will be familiar with. So much so, he was used to it all his life: he was waking up for the first time on his spaceship. The wrong way to wake up A heavy creaking noise shakes the walls and floor. It is not enough to wake the man on the bed. However even with his seemingly forever sleep, an alarm kicks on. Instantly he wakes up. Even with the noise, the man can''t shake the delirium of just waking up as well as the confusion of being in a new environment. Like that of a drunken stupor he quickly raises from the bed quickly only to shortly after, fallover. The pain assaulting him probably awoke his senses more than the borreing noise ever could. Fully awake now the man fumbles forwarded while getting up attempting to get his bearingings. He looks around finally realizing where he was. Unfortunately his revelation could only be short lived at this moment, as a distinctly female robotic voice sounds on the speaker system throughout the metal room. ¡°Warning: heavy gravitational pull towards black star. Please change course.¡± Black star? What is that? Rushing out of the room the man locates a familiar direction and heads down it. Shortly thereafter finding himself on the bridge of the spaceship. As if reciting an epic skaldic poem the man roars at the ship, ¡°Cruiser class 5 redirect course away from the mass called ¡®black star¡¯¡± The slightly metallic voice responds to his commands. ¡°Rout confirmed. Redirecting thrusters at 30% power away from black star¡± Immediately the ship roars to life with tremors coming from the thrusters shaking off the gravitational pull from the mass. About 10 minutes passed and the ship stopped the tremors. Soon after the ships ai rang once more on the speakers. ¡°Good morning commander Kensington, you have been in a cryo induced comatose state for about 6 years. Hyperion spider claw 5 sustained major hull damage a fuel leakage and the main ai has been disabled due to a network change causing a drift in space. Please give orders.¡± Kensington raised his head and breathed in attempting to slow his heart rate down. What was that?Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°HSC5 please turn on the main ai and locate the nearest advanced colonized planet or space station.¡± With his command he did not get the answer he was hoping for, ¡°Error main ai has been damaged and must be manually installed. Nearest colonized station is approx 97 light years away¡± ¡°Is Hyper Light Speed drive available to launch?¡± Kensington asks with anxiety. ¡°Negative. Hull damage will be greater after jump, with a 87% chance. This percentage is gauged off of 10,000 simulation tests.¡± After gauging what he has available and due to his guess that he will just respawn after a death. Granted,this is not a ideal outcome. ¡°That''s a good enough chance for me! Engage the drive¡± ¡°Error: command has lethal repercussions against commander please reconsider.¡± With a growl Kensington says annoyed ¡°Launch. The. Drive.¡± Before Kensington could reconsider his decision the ship roars to life once more and changes direction toward where the nearest station is and charges the drive. Kensington walks over to his command chair and sits down to think. And after a bit he remembers that the ai never questioned an order he gave no matter how dangerous it was to the commander or pilot. That''s odd. Was that from a recent update. Speaking of, they really updated the graphics¡­ Suddenly the ship jumps toward the destination. The hull of the damaged ship breaks apart in many places making the once great ship look like a barely mobile scrap heap. Due to the sudden unexpected jump and because not all of the functions of the ship were available there was a heavy kick to the jump causing Kensington to hit his head knocking him out for the trip. Waking up drowsily Kensington gets up from the floor with a blaring headache. He then walks over to the command chair and sits down. Seemingly attempting to gather his own disdain, the female metallic voice hammers words into him. ¡°Warning: commander Kensington has sustained a concussion and is currently bleeding from the nose please receive medical attention before commanding ships.¡± Kensington groans holding his head. He breathes through his mouth but still manages to still smell the blood in his nose. It''s the smell of iron. ¡°I don''t remember being able to smell in TDVR¡­ or anything hurting this bad.¡± ¡°System error: TDVR unknown vocabulary.¡± About to plug his ears with his fingers, kensington responds slowly back, ¡°Please don''t respond unless I specifically address you within the next few minutes.¡± Kensington then makes a Brushing motion and goes back to holding his head in pain. He simply was not use to this pain. Maybe he should log out to get a bit of a rest away from the pain. It felt way to real. He shook his head. He didn''t want to risk not being able to play for a long time so he would play until he felt tired. ¡°HSC5 display the station we are about to dock¡± The First contact Chapter 3 Constant noise rings out all around the command center. As the space station is receiving information from all around the galaxy. Unusually, a massive spaceship came on radar, that originally was not there before. About 100 light years away, the major command center personnel: an observer, came down from his usual office to take personal command over the situation. Completely out of the norm, many of the free personnel in the command center salute the observer and ensuing officers as they enter. ¡°About when did you say this ship appeared officer?¡± ¡°O-only a few moments ago sir.¡± The officer said shakily. Just barely audible, the observer mumbles: ¡°why would such a massive ship be here?¡± Under the circumstances a ship this big would either be preparing to launch some type of blitz attack or be some type of civil ship that carries a large amount of resources, people for a colony ship or food and building materials. The latter is unrealistic as no major government has sent word in anyway shape or form to notify the surrounding stations that a civil ship would be traveling through these parts. That leaves the only other major possibility: an attack of some sort. But there is too many questions revolving around such a thing. Why would anyone want to fight a space station in this remote region of space? No matter what thoughts the observer thought, he couldn''t come up with an answer to why a war ship would be here. Suddenly an alarm went off causing the observer all officers on deck to rush into motion. ¡°What happened!¡± the observer yelled out. One of the people sitting near a radar and other bits and bobbles answered his question. ¡°S-sir, a massive unidentified warship about 100 light years is preparing to move within several kilometers of our station!¡± the man said shakily. ¡°Prepare all guns on the jump point! We don''t know what this ship wants!¡± yelling out commands to all who need to hear them, the observer then goes to his chair, a chair that is in range of everyone in the command center. The chair used to command battles. The observer never wanted to sit in this chair. But some things must be done to protect others, and if commanding a small fleet of fighters and all of this space stations guns could protect others then he would sit in this command chair and do it.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The display showed something kensington did not want to see. Much to his horror, he saw many many guns, some laser, some ballistic, some gauss, all pointed at him. Almost screaming out a command to the ship¡¯s backup AI kensington told the AI to establish a communication to the space station. Thankfully, the space station obliged. ¡°This is observer jackson tallow. Why is a heavy warship in this area?¡± Kensington saw a good sized man with brown hair greying out, probably sweating equally as much as Kensington. ¡°This is commander Kensington Brightwing, my ship has sustain heavy damages my ships main AI is disabled and i am currently injured from using the Hyper Light Speed Drive, i am requesting to dock?¡± warily saying all of that, with a pounding headache, kensington was relieved that they didn''t shoot at him. Though he found it extremely odd that the station was so hostile towards him. The stations usually didn''t have hostile behavior unless they were enemies of some sort or you were a criminal. Kensington wasn''t a criminal and he couldn''t remember being a part of any faction that had space stations that wanted to hunt him down. The observer, jackson, seemed slightly surprised by this asked for a moment, disappeared for about a minute then granted kensington¡¯s request. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The massive warship appeared suddenly as expected but did not take any action aside from appear. The ship moved at a snail¡¯s pace toward the space station, but at least it wasn''t pointing the guns in a direction toward any of the small fighters or ships going about the station. What caught jackson completely off guard was the damage the ship sustained. Bits and pieces shaking off the vessel, a clear leakage was there. It was simply shocking that the ship even managed to get here from where it was at. What terrified jackson was what could have damaged a ship that badly and why did such a damaged vessel appear here? Instead of the major cities with superior repair equipment. Could it be that the ship¡¯s commander had a feud of some with some faction and had to instead come here? Questions continued to float inside jackson''s head but no answer came. What did come was a transmission request to enter a dialogue, immediately accepting jackson saw an unusual sight, a worn down man in commanders clothing a young looking man with brown hair an epic moustache and scraggly beard threatening to turn into a monster of a beard. He had blood leaking from his nose with a pained expression and a hand on his head. Blurting out his title and the most prominent question he had in his mind: ¡°This is observer jackson tallow. Why is a heavy warship in this area?¡± Soon after the commander replied with a slightly gruff voice. ¡°This is commander Kensington Brightwing, my ship has sustain heavy damages my ships main AI is disabled and i am currently injured from using the Hyper Light Speed Drive, i am requesting to dock?¡± Pausing the transmission jackson looked at an officer with a questioning glance then asked if the warship had anyone tailing it. A minute passed the result was it did not. The officer nodded, then jackson gave the commander his approval, hoping the answer to his questions would be answered when this kensington fellow was in the station.