《Destiny Online》
Prologue: Project Hope
Clattering and clicking resounded throughout the brightly lit room as the nervous full on rush of an army of computer technicians and experts tried to salvage a new fatal development on their project. The most highly advanced computing hardware and programming in the world had scrolling text on hundreds of monitors appearing almost faster than it could be read. It had just turned their stressful, overworked jobs into a nightmare that literally made several go into a mental breakdown from stress, worry and exhaustion. Several even fainted from the pressure.
Above the sprawling mayhem an overlook of mirrored glass windows contained the resolute project leaders viewing the horror that was playing out before them. Hearts gripped with fear, their brows sweating, they could barely breath. They knew the consequences of what was happening and the pressure weighed even more heavily on the three of them. They didn''t know what to do as they watched the human races last hope of survival spin completely out of their control. "Tom...Tom how do we stop this. This can''t be happening... can it?" A woman in her sixties with a brown business suit and graying brown hair asked in a quivering voice. The man that was addressed couldn''t even reply. He was still stunned and could barely keep his failing heart from exploding in his chest.
A man in a white lab coat even older than the three standing in the control room burst through the sliding door. His piercing blue eye''s drew others observations away from his wrinkling liver spotted face and white hair of an 80 odd years old. The piercing blue eye''s locked on Tom, "Have everyone stop what their doing. It''s only making everything worse."
Looking at the man that just burst into the room gave Tom the chills. Few people even had the clearance to meet the man before them. Sure Tom, Susan and Macky the three project leaders had the clearance but from them only Tom had met Mr. Harkin and only once at that. Mr. Harkin was the lead scientist on Project Hope long before they even found the Alien drone over 40 years ago in 1985. Tom knew Mr. Harkin has forgotten more about the project than anyone has ever known. He has been the lead scientist for almost the whole time since the start of the project in 1974 to present 2028 over 50 years of brilliance and handwork towards the continuation of the species.
Project Hope was created after an extensive study done by the U.S., Several European nations, also including Korea, Japan and Australia to see if the sustainability of the human race on Earth was viable with the increasing population, resources and pollution. Before Project Hope was even created in 1974 the first of several hundred consensus groups. All major analyses groups since 1957 determined that with the influx of population, pollution and the strain of resources at the detriment of the planets echo system would be so depleted and harsh by 2025 the human race would be unable to survive. Not knowing what to actually do the U.S. decided to put together a multi-national group of the worlds smartest minds. The most brilliant minds came together under Project Hope in 1974 with an almost unlimited budget to find what was needed to help the human race survive. It was decided that technology would be their saving grace. If tech could develop fast enough it might be the deference in survival. Since 1974 Project Hope has been developing tech as fast as possible and disseminating it all out to the most cable company''s to develop further as well as produce it. It was a hard balancing political act through technology summits for who got what. In the end though the human species was loosing the race for sustainability. So far Project Hope has only been able to prolong the disaster that is still on its way.
In 1985 during the tyrannical dictator-ship and chaos of the U.S.S.R. Project Hope got information that Russian''s had a unknown pieces of hardware which was rumored to be not of this world. All within Project Hope did not believe it but yet they could not ignore even a small chance that it could be real. To the extreme luck of the Project they had recovered a Space Drone not of this world now named Destiny. It was hard to recover even a scrap of information through the security protocols of the drone but the little they did advanced technology by decades faster than what was ever possible before.
Tom was finally awakened from his shock, "Mr. Harkin, Wha...What do you mean?" The other two project leaders standing next to Tom was in even further shock. Never having been able to meet the elusive legend himself.
"I mean exactly what I said. Unless English has stopped being a language since I''ve been locked up in this damned mountain. Everyone and I mean everyone and everything connected to Destiny needs to be cut immediately. Destiny went into a intruder lock-down mode, something I have been warning about for years and is now locking everything away. Unless Destiny believes there is no longer a threat it will keep on putting up defenses until were unable to access anything in it." Mr. Harkin walked over to a monitor that had three Plexiglas flip shields with keyboards beneath them.
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Mr. Harkin pointed, "Their no time to think about it. As of five minutes ago their was only 118 ports left to access Destiny. I estimated in the next minute or so their will be no ports at all to connect into Destiny''s mainframe."
Tom stuttered, "We... we need to contact the Presidents and Prime minister to do a hard disconnect."
Mr. Harkin shook his head with sympathy. He knew the three project leaders careers would most likely not survive this action but it had to be done. Mr. Harkin kept his piercing blue eyes locked on to Tom, "Tom their isn''t time. I know what the three of you will go through when you do this but if you don''t, Destiny our last hope for the survival of our species will be lost. Destiny is too far beyond us to even attempt to force it to allow us access. If we lose all of the excess ports Destiny will be forever closed off from our small little prying minds."
Tom went pale as did Susan and Macky. Tom knew not to doubt Mr. Harkin and so made up his mind with a shaky voice, "I...I will take responsibility for this you two. It is...It is my decision. Go to your disconnect consoles."
All three with worry on their faces flipped the protective covers on the secured consoles and began entering their own separate disconnect codes. Finally Tom hit the conformation button and watched a monitor overhead as large cables connected to a large matte-black 25 meter radial sphere started exploding with controlled mini detonations that severed all the thousands of cables connected to the Alien drone Destiny.
Barely able to stand on shaky legs the three Project Hope leaders sat down as they watched the screens go blank down in what they called the pit. As the screens went blank in the pit the techs looked up to the control room where the now disheartened project leaders sat in stunned silence.
Mr. Harkin walked before the three of them and for the first time smiled, "You three don''t need to worry so much. Old Harkin will fix this and pull your bacon off the skillet. I understand Destiny more than anyone could imagine. I have an idea already to go if this were to ever happen. I''ve already sent in dozen of reports and analysis telling the head honchos out their Destiny never did like people poking at it. It''s a limited A.I. from what I understand and for that reason alone we have been very cautious with it and we shall continue to be. However, I have recently created a plan to have Destiny instruct us without poking around at its data banks. It''s not a full A.I. so with my plan it''s natural programming will help us learn without going into lock-down mode. We won''t have to fight to get around or breakthrough almost impossible firewalls. Not only that but instead of having just a few thousand minds trying to save our species we will have millions instead and no one would suspect a thing about it."
Tom, Susan and Macky looked up at Mr. Harkin with a little bit of renewed hope.
Hi everyone, I hope you enjoy my novel. Please rate my writing. It will help me improve and strive to get better. Also please leave me pointers if you see something that I repetitively do wrong. Please keep in mind that each chapter is only barely edited, spell checked and prof-read one or too times. If you come across a section difficult to read or does not make sense please let me know and i will fix it as soon as possible. If you like my story please add me to your reading list, favorites, followers and recommend. It greatly excites and motivates me. Time dependent, I will try to get a chapter a day out their for you all.
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Chapter 1
Coal ran for all his worth towards the workshop and the supposed location of his older brother. His rusty, copper colored hair began to dampen as his six foot lanky frame bound up the 200 meters of incline where the workshop rested in the upper pastures. The dirt road was muddy from melting snow and through his excitement and full out sprint it didn''t take long for the inevitable to happen. Yes, a mud bath happened. Coal¡¯s spirit however refused to be dampened. Shaky himself like dog he was back on his feet in no time at all to continue on his way beneath gray sky¡¯s. He had some of the greatest news of the century. Even the cold breeze of the Sierra mountain range above the 3000 feet line couldn''t stop the excitement of the young teen who only had a white t-shirt and navy blue workout sweats on. Shoes at the moment were even optional.
It was a good thing Cyrus heard his sixteen year old brother hollering all the way from the house. Even with the warning Cyrus jumped slightly at his brother exuberant entrance into his shop, almost burning himself with tig-welder process. Pulling off his welding hood revealing some of his messy, fiery red hair Cyrus turned towards his brother asking, ¡°Whats got you so excite bub?¡±
Coal was practically bouncing up and down on his bare feet and mud covering most of his left side from the fall. ¡°Destiny Online....¡± Coal says still out of breath continuing after a few gasps, ¡°The news just reported a new game coming out. They say it will be in a full dive virtual environment. It¡¯s also all over the internet. All over, everywhere. Suppose to be real virtual reality.¡±
Cyrus waited for more information from the silly, expectant face of his brother. Waiting... Waiting.... Nothing, ¡°Well what the fuck Coal? I¡¯m busy. Is that all you wanted to tell me? I gotta get this pump working again. The cold cracked the hell out of it and it was spraying water all over the pump-house this morning. Get on with what you were telling me, help out or get the fuck lost. Also if your going back to the house take off the muddy cloths and wash your feet or Ria will drop kick you in the throat.¡±
Coals face fell only a little bit. Still he was too excited to let it rest, ¡°Okaaaay fine, but when you get back I want to show you what I¡¯m talking about.¡±
Cyrus already turned back to the pump saying, ¡°Get the fuck out I don¡¯t have time for this shit.¡± Putting the welding hood back on and flipping it down Cyrus began to work again.
Head drooping a bit Coal turned and left back to the house. He knew his brother was under allot of stress right now along with the fact that he was a workaholic. Winter had been harsh that year on allot of equipment, not to mention being hard on everyone else. He knew his brother was stacked with contracts to fix, weld or machine hundreds of part throughout the area. Everything from engine casings to hydraulic systems on farming equipment as well as more mundane things like just welding up busted tanks before spring came.
After re-installing the fixed pump back into the pump house. Cyrus moved onto a backhoe that was poorly winterized. It was one job on a long list of contracts he had on his list of things to do. Two hydraulic chambers busted apart on the shovel arm along with a hydraulic mounting bracket that severely warped and twisted during the cold chaos the hydraulics bursting caused. One of the chambers could easily be welded after a little bit of grinding. The second hydraulic chamber was a total loss. It had busted and cracked right through the seal. The whole thing needed to be recast. That always took allot of time. It was probably cheaper, time wise to just buy a new chamber for that model.
Cyrus though prided himself on self sufficiency and began heating up his foundry and measuring out the metal ingot and chemicals to cast the new hydraulic camber with good SAE 316 stainless steel. After pouring the metal into a metal sheeting cast allowing it to cool till in had only a dark amber glow, he sent it through his heated rollers to compress the metal further getting the right thickness and compression. While the new steel sheet went back and forth through the heated rollers Cyrus poured the remaining molten steel into a cast for the hydraulic mount that had been twisted.
All that was left to do was cut and bend the chamber to the dimensions with a quick clean weld and he was off to the machining portion. The long parallel weld on the chamber need to be grinding down and buffed inside the chamber and out. The the seals then need to be threaded on took only a little time. Afterwards the new finished hydraulic chamber looked brand new. Even the weld was invisible to the naked eye. The hydraulic mound didn''t need much machining because it was a static part. It¡¯s main purpose was strength enough to hold a hydraulic chamber in place and allow the hydraulic system to swivel just enough for the backhoe shovel arm to have full range of motion. A little yellow paint, welding the mount in-place and reconnecting all the hydraulics and its electrical system and the job contract was finished, after a few test with the backhoe powered up.
Cyrus finally cut the video feed on the shop and attached it to the backhoe contract bill with a few sentences saying basically job complete and sent the email to the contractee. He always videoed his work so no one could tell him he was over charging. He charged material down to the gram, plus $35 dollars an hour labor, plus tax. Altogether 110 dollar material fee plus 6 and a half hours of work came out to $335.50 profit. Cyrus wasn''t about to pay taxes so he added that to the price at a whopping 29.3% U.S. ¡®the stupid money grubbing government¡¯ bumping the total up to $436.39. The tax fee would go straight into a separate account for the end of the year so the IRS won¡¯t come dropping by to take away everything he worked for.
It was already 11:30 p.m. By the time he was finished cleaning up in his shop and headed back to the house. All the lights were out besides the outside lamp of the side enclosed patio known as the work door. It had a large wash basis with degreaser soap. To the left of the basin are hooks for work cloth such as mechanic coveralls and welding aprons that someone forgot to leave up at the shop ¡®dammit I always forget. ah, well. That¡¯s why Ria put those hooks their¡¯
The only other light in the house that was left on was the kitchen light. Sitting on the center island of the kitchen was his cold dinner with a note on top from his sister Ria. {¡°Brother, put in microwave on high for 3:30. Love you goodnight...,Ria¡±} His sister Ria was 19 years old and will be heading off to UO (University of Oregon) ¡®Go Ducks(Football Team)¡¯ She is the one that keeps the house in order and cooks. When she leaves the two brothers will probably starve to death. Not to mention a extra ton of chore¡¯s between the two of them around the house.
Cyrus eat in silence while feeling guilty about how bad he treated his brother earlier. Even though Cyrus had been doing everything possible in raising his brother and sister since he¡¯d been 17 years old. He tried to give them a good life, he was at time a bit harsh on them and elusive at times but no one could say he didn''t give them a good life. Cyrus didn¡¯t even have a life of his own to be completely honest. Between all the bills, saving up money for college for both his sister and brother there wasn¡¯t much time between his own company business, taking care of the land and animals and huge $2000 a month payment for his land. Their was nothing but a long 18 hour a day work schedule every single day. ¡®but I do need to spend A little time with my brother and sister. Maybe be a bit nicer too. I could probably start cutting my work hours back as well. I¡¯m over $120,000 in the green on my saving account and that''s not including completed college funds for the both of them or the annual taxes I already got set aside for the next five years. I should take them on a vacation or something this summer before Ria goes off to college. Maybe I should just stop taking the small contracts altogether and focus on the more difficult contracts I charge a $100 plus an hour on? Eh, that''s enough of that tonight ill worry about it latter.¡¯
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Cyrus got up from the counters bar-stool, washing and drying his dirty dishes so Ria wouldn''t have to. ¡®Now what was Coal going on about? Destiny or something? Suppose to be a online game or something. Better check it out and see if I could make it up to him. I am not below buying affection from my siblings if I don¡¯t have the time to earn it properly. ''Mwahahaha, and its more probably works better too¡¯
Every evening walking up to the second story of the house was the worst part of his day. The stairs aggravated his shattered right leg worse than anything. Not to mention the noise of his leg braces made even when well oiled seemed like it could wake the dead. After painfully making it up the stairs Cyrus headed to his study to look into whatever Coal was blabbering about earlier in his workshop.
Cyrus was amazed at the information overload that popped up when he began his search. Coal did have a right to be overly excited. ¡®hmm, go figure¡¯ For the past 24 hours give or take a few the whole world was jumping up and down with excitement. A new company called Terran Bindings came out of the blue straight to prime time on almost every major news network on the planet announcing their Virtual Reality Capsules and their game called Destiny Online. This wasn¡¯t no half arsed Virtual Reality either. Nothing like throwing on a video helmet and a suit that tightened and relaxed to simulate touch. No this Capsule if you could believe it or not is a full on neurological dive using something called DOXplatelets. Not sure what those are exactly, supposedly they are the company¡¯s secret but what the do is allow full Nero immersion into virtual reality. That was only the beginning the Capsule also integrates continuous brainwave scans and optical input through the eye¡¯s to get a full 100% immersion into the virtual world.
To Cyrus the whole system sounded pretty dangerous. The DOXplatelets sounded like the biggest concern which manipulated the body¡¯s nervous system and chemical processes. Same go for the optical inputs straight to the optical nerves. Could it damage eye¡¯s sight or the brain? Not to mention most brain scans or MRI¡¯s used either heavy dosses of radiation or magnetic energy or even a combination of both.
It didn''t even take long for him to elevate his fears. 18 government health and medical research department or their equivalent approved and verified the technology was 95% safe, except with certain medical conditions that would be listed on their website. What was completely astounding is that Terran Binding Corp. gave a lifetime health guarantee stating any medical problems that arise from using their Capsules would be compensated with a large monthly stipend for life.
Cyrus did wonder briefly how this company got all of this tech approved under the radar without no one finding out about it. It was now time to have a look at the game itself. By the time Cyrus was done reading about it and viewing some footage of the game he was practically bouncing up and down his chair. It been along time since Cyrus was even remotely excited about anything other than a vexing engineering problem. Their wasn''t allot of information out about the game but what was out already was an engineers wet dream which Cyrus is. Nothing fancy just a community college masters degree in machining and engineering mostly done while he was in the service over the internet.
Destiny Online could be compared more to a real life simulation than an actual game. Yes their is a leveling system and stats. That system is only in place to improve your in-game mind and body. The stats will actually improve your IQ, Reflexes and Constitution in game. The reason for the leveling system is to slowly and properly build the avatar¡¯s body and brain over time through the Capsules monitoring system and the limited A.I. Building a virtual super-charged brain is not easy you know. This will keep people in-game from wondering around all confused because of conflicting data within their virtual brain. The game actually states that for this reason alone the game could be more addicting than any drug so they had to put a strict Capsule limiter of 16 hours per 24 hour day cycle. The biggest part of the game is what you bring with you. The intellectual reason, common sense, know how, Reflexes and physical build allowing you to begin in a natural state but allowing to build upon the natural gifts your have already worked for. Everything within the game will be as close to normal physics as possible with the addition to possible theory''s. So if you wants just like Cyrus does in the real world he can physically react with every little thing down to the virtual atom and possibly beyond. Yes having to poop, pee, eat and sleep in game will be must. Log-outs can also be counted as sleep cycles withing the game. The spatial awareness system allows for a 1 to 6 hour ratio. Meaning every hour in real life spent in the game will be an actual real six hours within the game. That''s 4 real hours for every day within the game. In a way the time dilation was the biggest eyeopener and most heatedly debate topic out of anything else. Inn a very real sense it multiplied the lifespan by 6 times normal. Say if you lived a 100 years. If your played Destiny Online throughout those hundred years your mind would have lived 600 years in total. It was a for sure a shocker to most people when they discovered what the time dilation effect in the game really meant.
Cyrus didn''t even wait till the next day after looking through a ton of information immediately put in an order in for three Capsules at $17,000 dollars a pop reducing his savings by $51,000 dollars. Even though Ria didn''t ever play any game, Cyrus thought that eventually almost everyone would be running around within virtual reality. ¡®maybe I should look into buying stocks¡¯ Not to mention it¡¯s has home space area not connected (almost like a desktop or game system dashboard) to the game where the time dilation was still possible and perfect for extra studying for a certain college girl.
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Chapter 2
Eighteen project reviewers looked down at a table with three nervous project leaders with prying eye¡¯s. The committee chair began his inquest, ¡°Lady and gentleman of this review board, we are here to get some operational information from Project Hope, Tom Gerald, Project leader, Susan Dimietrie, Assistant Project leader and Macky Dewelt, Assistant Project leader.¡±
The review-board was excited and angry at the same time. It has been year since the review committee had been given permission to get any answers from the Highly Classified Project Hope. A project that has almost brought all the participating country¡¯s to the brink of economic collapse over the years more than once since its conception. Still they knew going into this interview they would barely get anything but vague answers because of its secret classifications.
The Chairmen stated for all to hear, ¡°At all times during this review board we all will maintain operation security. All clearance level information will be maintained how it is. The main concerns for today are as follows. First, what are the real reasons Project hope has decided to remove the highest levels of security enabling it to come to the surface and into the public''s view at all? Even if its under a false guise! Secondly, is why the vast increase in budget that for all intense and purposes will cripple the economy of the country¡¯s involved in Project Hope? Lastly, is more of a moral concern for the Projects Game, Destiny Online. From what we understand the game will be extremely violent with just about all human faults and flaws included within the game. Why is the cover Company Terran Bindings pushing for a 16 year old¡¯s to play this game?¡±
Tom adjusted his microphone in-front of his face, ¡°Mr. Chairmen, Lady¡¯s and Gentlemen of this committee, I will answer the second question which will give you a starting point for the first question.¡±
Tom looked down at his shaking hands for a few seconds. Then he returned his sad gaze back up to the committee, ¡°It it simple lady¡¯s and gentlemen we are literally buying the time for our species with cold hard cash. Since the founding of this project we have succeeded in buying us time fighting a battle we have been slowly losing. In the past 10 years despite our technological breakthroughs we have lost 28% of food yield world wide do to pollution and water contamination. 36% increase in birth-defects and a huge 52% increase in cancers, respiratory and blood related diseases. Our natural resource have dwindled to the point that almost every major city on the planet has reverted to rolling brown outs. We are almost out of time!¡±
Committee member 8 asks, ¡°Mr. Gerald if what you say is true then Project Hope has failed! Why sink more funds into a failing project?¡±
Tom laughed making the committee stir in unease, ¡°Ha, Not even close Sir. At Project Hope¡¯s conception we have far surpassed the lifespan of our impending doom because of the technology we have distributed to all of your country''s. It was projected by the year 2000 that the last hundred-million humans would be barely scraping by on our desolate planet. By the year 2025 our planet would have been completely unlivable. So no Sir, if anything Project Hope has far surpassed it¡¯s predicted mandate by over 150%.¡± Tom glanced over at Susan on his right.
Susan began speaking before another committee member could ask another question, ¡°Lady¡¯s and Gentlemen of this committee. Please take a look at the materials provide for you. I will answer your security questions. First of all, if anything more security has been added. Yes, we will be operating allot closer to the surface to public awareness but we have no choice. As of now with the technology we do have will only give us sustainability for 25 to 40 years from now. That is without further tech advances. We have already outlined to the country''s concerned that we will be reacquiring additional security personal. This will greatly decrease our chances of keeping the Project secret but it will also greatly increase our chances to respond to any threats while Project Hope is coming so close to the surface.¡±
Committee member 3 states, ¡°From some of the reports we already have. The governments of Russia and that of China are already digging into the secrets regarding Destiny Online and that of Terran Bindings Corp. We don¡¯t know why but our operatives are suggesting Russian operatives may be looking for a certain device that has been taken from them?¡±
¡°Sir, Russia and the Chinese government has always had an idea we have had a joint project going. They are as far as we can tell from all of your intelligence networks do not have any operational details. They only assume that Project Hope exists. As for Terran Bindings Corp. being under scrutiny is the reason we our requesting further security.¡± Susan purposing evaded the question about any device. Under no circumstances is the drone Destiny aloud to be talked about except at it¡¯s site. Not even the committee members know about Destiny, only the leaders of their perspective country¡¯s.
committee member 3 asks again, ¡°What about the device?¡±
Susan responded with her best poker face, ¡°Sir¡¯s project Hope has thousands of devices and files filled with information from just about every country in the world. If it advances our species just a little bit we probably have it. Unless we get more information on exactly what the Kremlin is looking for we really don¡¯t have much to go on.¡±
The room stayed in silent for a bit until the chairmen asked, ¡°As for our third question lady¡¯s and gentlemen? It may not be the most important to us but moral questions have a bigger baring on the greater population.¡±
Macky the one designated to take this question and tie everything together because he is the face of Terran Bindings, ¡°Lady¡¯s and Gentleman of the committee allow me to answer this last question. First let me go over why we created Terran Bindings and the VR game Destiny Online. As stated before despite the best minds in the world working on the survival of our species, we are still slowly losing that battle. In order to fix this problem the thousands of the most brilliant minds came up with the idea to allow our whole race to help decide our fate. Thus Destiny Online was created. It began as a simple physic simulation engine but that has been done in the past for our scientist. Destiny Online was created and developed to be the greatest Physics engine ever conceived. However, we didn¡¯t stop their because simply the human computing factor we have available wouldn¡¯t even scratch the surface of what Destiny Online could accomplish. That is where we decided to make it a game where before only a few thousand brilliant minds could work towards our survival but now millions or even billions of minds could. The main reason we will be allowing 16 year old''s into this as you say a very X-rated game is simply put some of our greatest minds throughout history had the concepts of our laws of science we use today. We would have lowered the age even further if our study¡¯s didn¡¯t show that anyone younger than 16 years old would have almost no ability of surviving in our virtual world on their own. No the unaware public of the world will for once in it history all work towards a single goal. The survival of our species in the guise of a game.¡±
***
In a very rare moment for Cyrus the workaholic, had a given himself the day off and was now scanning the TV¡¯s news channels. It has been almost a year since Terran Bindings have announced the virtual Reality Game Destiny Online. Tomorrow will be the launch day and the News was on fire treating the launch as if it were a grand event in history, comparing it to the America independence, The fall of Rome or the horrible act committed in the last days of World War II. The population of the world was more excite about a game, than when Armstrong took his first steps on the moon.
Cyrus couldn¡¯t really give a damn about the game in its entirety. He only wanted to work within the time dilation while expanding his knowledge of engineering, using its world renowned Physics engine. He supposed being able to live in the grater Galaxy might be fun as-well and maybe he was alittle excited about being able to experience zero-g. What little kid didn¡¯t ever have some kind of dream of being an astronaut.
Cyrus heard his brother¡¯s truck coming down the driveway. ¡®hmm... He must have skipped football practice¡¯ It¡¯s no wonder Coal did so. He had been annoying the hell out of Cyrus for the past week as the launch date for the game approached. Not to mention two of three full dive capsules were arriving here today. The other one was already being hooked up at Ria¡¯s apartment near here college in Eugene Oregon. ¡®Let see the installation department for the capsules said they¡¯d be here around 3 p.m. It¡¯s already three so they should be here soon.¡¯ Good thing Cyrus ordered that first day. Millions will still be waiting a year out for theirs that were on a back order list.
Coal came rushing into the house, ¡°Are they here yet?¡± Cyrus grimaced looking down at Coals boot and pointedly staring at them.
¡°Whoops sorry bro. I¡¯ll vacueme Tomorrow,¡± Coal said returning back out the door to take off his shoes. He yelled from the open doorway, ¡°Well did they come yet?¡±
The sound of a large diesel truck coming up the gravel driveway answered Coals question. Cyrus stood up from his recliner, ¡°Mite as-well leave you boots on they will be coming in and out anyways.¡± Cyrus walked out to the front porch towards the arriving truck.
When the truck came to a stop next to Cyrus. Cyrus walked up to the driver side window, ¡°Hey, good-after-noon, follow me around back. I¡¯ll show you where you can excess the basement.¡± The driver nodded and followed him around back to a basement entrance from outside.
All told it took 2 hours for the installer to set up the capsules and test them. After they were fished Cyrus invite them up stairs where Coal had set out a couple of bears and prime-rib sandwiches for each of them. ¡°Have a seat guys and enjoy a little snack and beer.¡± The two installers sat down and began to eat and sip on their beers.
¡°Ah, that hit the spot. Thank you young man for the little treat. It¡¯s been a hectic day,¡± The older man and driver said after filling himself on the snack.
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¡°Not a problem, however it is good that you showed up when you didn¡¯t. My brother their was about to tear the house apart in excitement,¡± Cyrus gestured to his brother who was trying and failing to show how much he want to rush down stairs to his Capsule.
The old man laughed, ¡°I can see that. We would have been here sooner but we had to install a special tower their in your town first or your capsules would have been useless. They don¡¯t run on the internet. It will help keep hackers at bay. All the internet access happens at the mainframe so or Corporation can watch for that kind of thing.¡±
The second installer smiled pulling out a large packet, ¡°Thank you for the lunch we didn¡¯t have any time earlier. Here¡¯s the guide to your capsules and a little bit a knowledge about the game. We suggest you read it but its not required. The capsules is very simple to use and it guides you through everything. When you get to your home space in the virtual would a company rep will guide you through the rest of the set up.¡±
The old man, ¡°Yeah, again thank you for the meal but we gotta hit the road so we¡¯ll get home to our family for. Good-day Gentleman.¡±
As the installers left Coal could no longer wait and rushed downstairs. Cyrus laughed at his mad rush, ¡°Hey wait for me. I want both of us to go over the information packets first.¡±
There was allot of information to go over but most of it was irrelevant to the actual use of the capsule. Most of the information where warnings about certain illness that the game could aggravate. The rest was just brief description about how the capsule would work. Stuff Cyrus and Coal already had already researched.
Cyrus decide he would go first while Coal watched so he would know what to expect. It was rather simple and for the most part painless. When he closed the reinforced lid on the almost horizontal coffin looking capsule the inside lights powered on. It was only briefly claustrophobic until all the fans began wrrr-ing to life. Cyrus could see his brother watching him through the small glass window near his head. As other systems came online, probably scanning his body clamps suddenly griped his right arm spooking him momentarily, until he remembered that he was expecting that along with the needle that jammed into his arm a moment later for the Doxplatelets. It was quickly over as the hum of power began to pick up and buzz with life after his arm was released. A mechanical voice asked, ¡°Do you wish to dive into your home space?¡±
¡°Yes,¡± Cyrus instructed. The world went black briefly. Then all of a sudden he was sitting in a cozy little room with a black leather couch. A TV hung on the wall before it. The room was small and had an off-white tent to it. It didn¡¯t have any lights in it but was still lit almost perfectly.
Cyrus almost jumped when the TV blinked on with a beautiful female face with raven black hair, perfect complexion, small pouty pick lips and soul devouring gray eyes, ¡°Welcome to your home-space Mr. Drugain. My name is Ariel and this is a recorded and interactive program. You are currently in the waiting queue to be helped by me Terran Binding corp. representative. I apologize for the wait. We have a very high volume of customers waiting to be helped. In the mean time we will begin downloading your personal information, including public record, Travel, medical records, college record''s, career information and all contact information. This is required by Terran Binding to be able to fully map your brain and customize your virtual reality experience. It is included in our terms and conditions. All information will be completely confidential. I will now stream the terms and condition. Please state I understand when you have read through them to your satisfaction.¡±
The TV began slowly scrolling through all the legal information for their terms and conditions. It was a very in depth explanation for why they need the information. To Cyrus it still felt a bit wrong but it was information anyone on the internet could probably get. However, he wasn¡¯t going to give them anything they didn¡¯t already have or could get themselves. ¡®Fuck,the information age at its finest.¡¯ After reading through it several times to make sure he didn¡¯t miss anything, he shrugged his digital shoulders. ¡®guess it can¡¯t be helped.¡¯ Cyrus stated, ¡°I understand the terms and conditions.¡±
The terms and conditions disappeared and Ariel reappeared, ¡°Please state that you understand and agree to the terms and conditions. If you do not your connection will be terminated and you can apply for reimbursement for the capsules you have purchased.¡±
Cyrus shrugged again. Their was no helping it, ¡°I understand and agree to the terms and conditions.¡± He stated.
¡°excellent, again welcome to your home-space. I will be with you in 18 to 20 minutes. In the mean time we will be downloading your information to our database. It will scroll all collected data on the TV. Please review it and if their is any discrepancy''s please tell me when we meet. Goodbye,¡± Ariel stated and her pretty face was once again disappeared replaced by Cyrus¡¯s scrolling personal information including every single contact he had made in his life. Including some he has completely forgot about. Even the few past brief relationships he had.
Almost 20 minutes later Cyrus was completely shocked by how much information they could get on him. When a woman in her early twenty¡¯s appeared before him. It was Ariel from the TV. It caused Cyrus¡¯s heart jump into his throat. She smiled till Cyrus gathered his wits and finally she introduced herself, ¡°Hello Mr. Drugain, I am Ariel and will be your capsule and game Rep. Unless you would ever prefer to switch to another Rep.¡± She held out her hand to Cyrus. Still slightly dazed from her instant appearance of and how stunningly appealing she looked in a light blue business skirt and jacket that went just below her ribs covering a purple shirt that clung to her curves.
After a few seconds she coughed bring Cyrus out of his daze. Cyrus jumped to his feet and took her hand in his, ¡°I¡¯m sorry miss. I don¡¯t get away from my work very often and never get to see such a gorgeous woman. I was slightly shocked when you appeared. I thought I would be talking to you over the TV.¡±
Ariel smiled deepened as her cheeks slightly blushing she eecked, ¡°T...Thank you Mr. Drugain for the compliment.¡± She wasn¡¯t used men being so forward without them trying to pick her up. It was just simply honest compliment without any innuendo that she could see.
She coughed again trying to hide her blushing cheeks, ¡°Hmm, yes well then lets get started shall we.¡± Her eye¡¯s went out of focus for a second, ¡°Hah, okay... It looks like you are the sole guardian of Ria and Coal Drugain. Coal is currently in the waiting queue to meet with a representative. Would you like me to add Ria and Coal for me to be their Rep so I can handle your whole family?¡±
Cyrus shook his, ¡°Coal yes but please give Ria the option. She a grown woman now.¡±
¡°Okay, that will be fine. I will put that request into Ria. She has already completed the setup anyways. As for Coal, he has already agreed to the Terms and Conditions. Would you like me to bring him here to your home-space so I could handle both of your setups together?¡± Ariel asked. The setup doesn¡¯t take long and she could do each quickly by them selves but she didn¡¯t want to stay alone with Cyrus any longer or she might say or do something embarrassing. ¡®Like grab that straight fiery red hair and lock my legs around that muscular body. No... Bad Ariel.... Just breath and concentrate...¡¯ Cyrus nodded his consent. Ariel took a deep breath before speaking, ¡°Okay just a moment.¡±
A few seconds later a startled Coal was standing their mouth agape and practically drooling at Ariel. Cyrus slapped Coal in the back of the head, ¡°Don¡¯t be rude. Close that trap of yours, stand up straight and introduce yourself to the lady.¡± Coal didn''t see his brother their. All his attention was pulled to Ariel so his brother slap came as a big surprise.
Coal immediately straitened, shutting his mouth in the process and holding his hand out in introduction, ¡°Um, sorry miss I wasn¡¯t expecting you. I was expecting an older gentlemen like on the TV in my home-space. My name is Coal, nice to meet you.¡±
Ariel smiled shaking the younger brothers hand. ¡®What is up with the men in this family. Their both well built and handsome. God dang-it so much for me trying to make things less awkward for my self.¡¯ ¡°Nice to meet you as-well Coal. I asked to be the Rep for you family and Mr. Drugain accepted.¡±
Coal burst out laughing startling Ariel, ¡°Huh hahahaaa... Mr. Drugain... Ha...hahaha.¡±
Ariel was more shocked when Cyrus smacked Coal in the back of the head so hard it sent Coal sprawling to the floor, ¡°Shut your trap Coal and mind your manners. Sorry Ariel you may call me Cyrus. It does feel slightly unconformable to be called Mr. Drugain.¡±
¡®what the hell??? what the hell?¡¯ He just slap his brother to the floor and calmly just asked me to call him by his first name... What the hell? Now his brothers getting up and apologizing to me like nothing just happened. What the hell?¡¯ ¡°Huh..... Okay no problem Cyrus. Lets get you both quickly set up.¡± She said as she squeezed her legs together trying to stem the excitement that was their. ¡®Fuck, why Cyrus??? Why are you doing this to me? Why the hell am I so turned on by him?¡¯
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Chapter 3
Ariel had been giving the two brothers Cyrus and Coal Drugain instruction on how to modify and use their home-space. She had also instructed them that the only way to enter Destiny Online was through their own home-space. To Cyrus it seemed like the girl was trying to leave as fast as possible. She seemed to jittery like she had to go the bathroom of something.
¡®Huh? I wonder if smacking Coal in his stupid head frightened her?¡¯ Well at-least she had given them all the relevant information they needed. Shortly after Ariel left Coal had quickly disappeared to his own home-space, probably to customize it like Cyrus had just finished doing. Coal would be harried to get into the game tutorial.
Cyrus had modeled his home-space after his great-uncles Wisconsin hunting cabin. Cyrus had simple tastes and loved the cozy old hunting cabin. Home-space had a limit of one acre of space so that it would not overwhelm their company¡¯s servers. More space could be purchased but only at exorbitant amounts of money. He decide to just design the first floor of the cabin for now because he was also pretty curious about the game.
Ariel had told him that the tutorials for the game could be used at any time and also very highly recommended. Game setup was also part of the tutorial so everyone had to do at-least that. The rest was optional their was already a countdown timer in Cyrus¡¯s low left field of view. Another neat trick Ariel had showed him. It was a simple matter to sign into the game. You just had to think or say clearly, ¡°Load Destiny¡± and bamm it should shoot him straight into the game after his homes-space confirmed his request.
Cyrus smiled to himself as he sat down it his new brown leather desk chair, in-front of a large oaken desk. Relaxing back into the chair he thought to his home-space, ¡®home-space display my current time and game time above game countdown timer.¡¯ Two more clocks appeared in the lower right of his vision. He noticed if he wasn''t actively looking at them they would disappear. The three clocks appeared one on top of the other. The countdown time for the game let him know he had a little over two days in virtual reality till the game started. Now the weird thing was the real life clock displaying the American Pacific cost time. It looked like a normal clock but while he was in virtual reality the clocks time seemed like it did not want to continue and that was because of the time dilation effect. Every 6 hours in virtual reality was only an hour in the real world. It was kind of creepy because he has been in virtual reality for almost two hours and only about 20 minutes have passed in the real world. ¡®It crazy right?¡¯
¡®Okay, its time to start this tutorial. Can¡¯t have my little brother getting ahead me.¡¯ Cyrus adjust his comfort level in his very comfortable virtual chair and thought to home-space, ¡®Load Destiny¡¯ Cyrus was trying to get use to non verbal commands. A voice sounded out in his brain with a voice similar to Ariel determined soft voice, no longer that of a computerized voice, ¡®confirmation to load Destiny¡¯
Cyrus thought, ¡®Yes.¡¯
His vision went black and he appeared in a small circular room with metallic walls and a metal grate floor. He was standing before a glowing, undefined blue orb. Unlike in his home-space where all his senses beside sight and touch were missing; it would be costly to add those features to home-space. In-game for the tutorial, he could feel a cool breeze coming from the fans overhead lightly brushing the tiny hairs on is arms and neck. He could smell the rusty tinge of metal and reprocessed air.
The orb greeted him with a female voice that increased and decreased the dimensions of the Orb by the sound of the voice coming from it, ¡°Welcome to your Destiny among the stars. This is the setup phase of the game and the first phase of the tutorial. The setup phase is to introduce you to the fact that this world will always perfectly reflect all human senses caused by your environment and your interactions with it. It would be a grave mistake to think otherwise. We do not do this to scare you. Mental trauma could result if the setup process is not completed properly. Their are mental trauma lockouts governed like reality your body¡¯s natural response deciding when to send you into unconscious to preserve your metal stability. Destiny will do the same and log you out when your mental stability is threatened. All senses are 99.6% lifelike and that includes pain. The setup will include finding out your pain threshold. This is an unpleasant part of the setup but is required in order to adapt your pain threshold properly to mimic your real body¡¯s natural triggers to pain. It is best to get this out of the way first. When you are ready pain will be introduced into your body and will increase until you can not bare it any longer. When you say, ¡°stop¡± we will end calibration updating it as your pain endurance level and your pain endurance lockout. Keep in mind that while playing the game if you hit your endurance lockout you will be logged out no matter what is happening to your Avatar.¡±
Cyrus cringed, from what he could tell is that the higher threshold he had the better the possibility he could keep himself from dying in the game. ¡®This is going to suck. BIG TIME.¡¯ He took a deep breath and said, ¡°I am ready to begin the Pain endurance setup.¡±
The Orb responded, ¡°Very well we will begin shortly. Keep in mind that if your brainwaves become to erratic indicating extreme duress it will automatically set your lockout. Just encase you are unable to answer. Do you wish to begin?¡±
Cyrus gulped hard, nodded and said, ¡°Yes.¡±
He could immediately feel every single nerve in his body starting to tingle. The tingle slowly increased until it felt like he was holding a electric fence making him quietly grunt and clear his throat. Pain increased slowly up-to and pass what his shattered leg feels like walking up the stairs in his house but throughout his whole body. When it starting feelling like everything in his body was being stabbed simultaneously a audible moan began escaping his lips from the horrendous pain. Cyrus finally had to yell, ¡°STOP.¡± after an increasingly painful episode he could barely remember. It felt like it lasted hours during the end. His body actually felt as if it were burning inside and out like he being burnt to a crisp by Satan himself.
The Orb spoke as all pain disappeared and it gave Cyrus a few seconds to collect his agonized mind, ¡°Pain endurance threshold has been set. Congratulations, your have the highest pain threshold record so far recorded in game. It indicates an undeterred personality. In the next room we will begin with the game mechanics of rebirth. Enter when you are ready,¡± The Orb stated
Cyrus shook himself and entered a hatch that just opened in the circular room. The room he entered was lined with with human sized tubes. In the center was a vat of bluish-green fluid with a embryo the size of himself. The Orb¡¯s voice sounded from the ceiling, ¡°Welcome to your revival point. If you turn and look to your right I will activate a hologram of your current appearance.¡±
Cyrus turned and halo-image of himself appeared before him. Completely real looking, no Star Wars wavy blue hologram here. Cyrus did what anyone would do when presented with this situation. He stuck his hand in it. So much for the evolved species of humanity. ¡°You can only slightly change your appearance and must remain your current gender. You can only change your height muscular build and body fat by 10%. You may also change your age as long as it conforms to the previously stated and a naturally occurring age growth. Please let me no if your wish to change anything and I will accommodate you,¡± The voice in his head stated. Cyrus shook his head, ¡°No, I am fine how I... Ah wait. Can you increase my penis size by the 10% please.¡± Come on what guy would not do that? Come on be honest with yourselves? Just like a woman change her in-game bust and perkiness.
Cyrus grinned happily as his holographic penis grew larger and longer. The Orb asked, ¡°Would you like to make any other changes?¡±
Cyrus shook his head, ¡°No, that will do.¡± The vat tank in the middle of the room began to drain revealing his naked clone. A mechanical arm reached into the vat and picked up the limp clone and flopped it onto a table belly first. Another mechanical arm appeared and began drilling into the back of the clones head. After finishing with that it inserted a metal device the size of a roll full of quarters. The large arm then picked back up the clone and stuffed it into one of the tubes lining the walls while the Vat began refilling with the blue-green fluid. It was all pretty shocking and just a bit nauseating. ¡®Damn this game is no joke. It doesn¡¯t do things by half measures¡¯
¡°One more thing. It is advised that you select an in-game name to protect your identity. Please state your in game name and a background profile will be generated for you at the start of the game,¡± the Orb stated.
Cyrus had already been thinking about an alias for a few days, ¡°My name will be Irish......¡± Awkward silence. ¡°Select a last name as well,¡± the orb asked. That wasn¡¯t something he had though about. ¡°Hmm... Guess ill go along with my heritage. My last name can be Fey.¡± ¡®the fair people in old Geiaglage ledgends were always intersing.¡¯
After the brief horror show the voice was back, ¡°In order for this virtual world to be as realistic as possible and to further calibrate your mind to the game, you now have to die your first death.¡± Irish didn¡¯t have time to think as the large metal arm latched onto his face and skull squishing it like a grape.
Irish woke up on the medical table where he had watched his clone be mutilated and thrown in cold storage. Irish felt slightly groggy when he woke up. The back of he head was throbbing. Yep when he reached back he felt a small circular plate in the back of his skull. ¡®Oh shit, this is so freaking creepy. Why did they have to make this damn game so lifelike. Talk about your mental stability¡¯ The Orbs voice anounced, ¡°Welcome to your first rebirth. Since your are only level one their are no penalty¡¯s. When the pain in your head reduces and you are feeling steady enough please enter my room.¡±
Irish asked, ¡°Your room?¡±
¡°Yes the room with my core it should look like a blue orb,¡± the voice responded.
Irish got up and started to slowly make his way back to the Orb after he made sure he was steady enough. Just in time to see the large mechanical arm that killed him, pulling his dead body into the ceiling dripping blood onto the floor into a puddle. He could see several clumps of hair and skull fragment mixed into brain-tissue and blood. It caused Cyrus to grimace. ¡®Don¡¯t think about the War...Don¡¯t thing about the War,¡¯ Cyrus repeated in his mind clinching his eye¡¯s closed to find the exit in darkness.
Standing before the orb Irish asked with a raspy voice, ¡°What am I suppose to do now?¡±
The Orb responded, ¡°I am your Limited Artificial Intelligent or LAI for short. As you are designated a Level 1 sentient being you will only be able to excess a small portion of my operational power. Shortly I will download into your brain via your cerebral port. As your brain and ability¡¯s expand so will your brains capacity to hold more of my programming, allowing me to give you better support. I will inform when my programming expands. Now please hold still while I download myself into your brain. Please give me a few moments to get comfortable in the limited confine¡¯s of your brain.¡±
A mechanical cord slithered its way out from beneath the orbs glow and snaked its way towards the back of Cyrus head. A small click and a cold pressure later the snake-like cable was inserted into his head. For a few seconds the world around him blurred and made him feel dizzy. ¡®Again why the fuck do they have to make everything feel and look so real. Now I feel violated. I hope aliens in this game don¡¯t probe people¡¯ After a few more second the LAI responded in his head.
Their was an actual feeling of LAI speaking in his head, ¡®Does haveing me in your head disgust you so much?¡¯ Irish was dumbfounded. ¡®Was that incredulity LAI was displaying?¡¯
Irish responded in his mind, ¡®No, it¡¯s just my first time being violated by a program. No worry¡¯s¡¯
¡®What do you wish to refer to me as?¡¯ LAI asked.
¡®Hmm? Lets go with Laya its quite close to LAI and it will be easy to remember,¡¯ Irish responded only after a few moments thought.
¡®Let us proceed to another room of your game-space. The Lounge,¡¯ Laya said and another door across from the other appeared.
The next room looked exactly like the inside of his home-space cabin. Laya began to explain, ¡®For now this room has been modeled after your home-space.. This room is for your comfort while your are waiting to reenter the game. When ever you die you will be transport via tachyon emissions to a new clone. I will display a mini map in the upper right corner of you vision and a small directional arrow in the lower center of your vision please fallow the arrow to the designated room.¡¯ Irish went back through the orb room that still held part of Laya¡¯s program and entered another room through a third opened door.
Irish¡¯s eye¡¯s were drawn to a large hanger doors Just to the right of the hanger doors mechanical arms were constructing a small ship of some kind. It was about the size of a car. ¡®As you can see this is your hanger. The KGE-Ultralight is a low-grade junk pile designed by the in-game cooperation Kroton General Engineering usual just referred to as an Ultralight. This size of ship is classified as a Peniace. It will be your starting craft in game. It¡¯s completion time will line up precisely with your count-down clock for the start of the game. It will have the same kind of countdown timer when you die within the game. Right as you leave the hanger your will enter a wormhole gate taking you almost instantaneously to within 10,000 kilometer of your in-game designated base. While in-game you will be able to choose at least three locations for this and change them at will. Your will only have to come to your game-space if you die in-game. Any other time will be optional upon log-off or log-in. My programming is split between your game-space and the actual game. My programming while in game will not acknowledged anything that happens within your game-space. Only the designation you gave me.¡¯
A blue outline of a space suite appeared in Irish¡¯s vision along one wall of the hanger, ¡®Please proceed to the highlighted object,¡¯ Laya just simple stated with no pleases or the like.
Irish did as he was told while Laya explained, ¡®Just like real life everything is done by you or by tech assistance. Their are no magic bags or simply wishing for your clothes to equip themselves. The space suite in front of you is HW09006 Space Suite, made by Howard Wares otherwise known as an 06 spacesuit.¡¯
Irish interrupted Laya, ¡®Please Laya, use only the shorthand names of all items unless I ask.¡¯
Laya continued, ¡®Noted, the 06 space suite is a low durability environmental suite with minimum protection from basic radiation, some chemicals and the vacuum of space. It has a small air supply and rebreather system only enough for 30 minutes to an hour of operations depending the level of activity. It also comes equipped with directional air explosion jets giving you an ability to move around in zero-gravity. The maneuvering jets works from expulseing you oxygen supply. Put on the 06 spacesuit and we can begin the next phase of your tutorial.¡¯
Irish did as instructed. ¡®Man I wonder if the LAI is always so pushy or if I can change it to be more courteous.¡¯
Laya commented, ¡®While you are in the game, I can read your thoughts at all times. You can put my programming into hibernation by thinking, ¡®Laya standby mode.¡¯ Thoughts within the game are deleted every hundredth of a second while I am in hibernation, in-order-to give people a sense of privacy. While I am in full operation I can recall every thought for one week. At which time I will dump all irrelevant thoughts. That does not include memory¡¯s. At any time you can ask me to recall your thoughts back through 7 days. If you request I can store thoughts and memory¡¯s perfectly and permanently as long as you have enough free memory cells. It will come in handy when your making a plan or need to recall some information.¡¯
Irish finished putting on the 06 spacesuit with minimum help from Laya. It took almost a half an hour getting it on. It wasn¡¯t difficult to put on but for survivals, he needed to get quicker. The suit was easy to comprehend getting into. With a smidgen of help from Laya. As he turned around he noticed a yellow Ultralight Peniace had appeared out of thin air into the middle of the hanger bay. Laya explained it was for the next phase of the tutorial.
As he neared the small completed ship seeing the cockpit, landing gear and two main thruster''s at the rear of the ship for the first time his engineering hackles rose. The ship had small stubby wings that were most likely for atmosphere use. Cyrus already wanted to tare it apart to see all the little goodies inside.
He noticed a blinking icon appearing in the top left corner of his vision and when he concentrate on it, it expanded display an information panel on the ship. It had only minimum information.{[KGE-Ultralight] [Model Number: 0951-58B] [Type: Peniace] [Hull Number: EF-013] [Name: N/A] [Crew: 1] [Speed: 120m/sec] [Max Excel: 9g]
¡®I will be able to display this basic information from all ships that allow me to wirelessly connect for their basic information which is normally standardized. Some ships will have lockouts and I won¡¯t be able to excess the information. Ships I cannot excess would be ones that have an inoperable computer core. Once I have identified a ship, I will always be able to recognize it again and display all gathered Data on the ship, including customized ships.¡¯ Laya explained.
¡®Now I will explain the minimum requirements for you to operate this ship. This will be a one time tutorial instruction. In the future you will have to read the instruction manuals to be able to have any idea of how to operate a ship. Right now I will only show you how to enter, take off, land and basic maneuvering of the ship. Once the game has begun you will be able to read the full basic manual of the KGE-Ultralight that will be uploaded into your data-pad for free once you acquire a data-pad,¡¯ Laya explained
A blue outline highlighted a panel near the cockpit of the door, ¡®Go to the highlighted panel and enter the password, ¡®Laya¡¯ and pressing the button stating, ¡®open canopy.¡¯ He did as he was told and sure enough the canopy opened. A small ladder barely big enough to fit a single foot on a rung deployed towards ground from the lip of the cockpit. For the next hour Laya explained how the basic operations of the ship. She also explained that later on he could upgrade her programming so she could move some of the ship displays right into his visual HUD allowing him to not have to look down to find a certain read out. Well if he had the mental capacity for the program upgrade.
It was finally lift off time as the hanger-bay depressurized and opened. Right outside in-front of the hanger was a a pure white, smooth ring slightly bigger than the Peniace. Irish assumed it was the wormhole gate. The stars magnificently shown through the milky white foreground of his Galaxy giving the impression the the universe was not quite so vast. It was shining more brilliantly than he has ever seen before. A wondrous view leaving ones soul humbled.
Stolen novel; please report.
Laya already informed him that the gate was already powered and ready to go. There was only one destination he could use with it right now and it was already preset for the tutorial area. The gate didn¡¯t look like it was on at all but with the little background theory of wormhole¡¯s he new from the basic physic classes he had to take for his degree; he knew in theory the event-horizon of worm holes were invisible to the naked eye.
The small ship was already powered up from Laya going over operations with him. Irish tapped a button to power up his D-thruster''s (Directional Thruster''s). When he tapped the button to power up the main thruster''s the ship shook slightly while the computer core put the mains through its test sequence. It was the first real sounds he heard since the hanger was put into vacuum, besides his own breathing. With D-thruster''s, mains and life support all checking out green, he was ready to go. It was also the only three system he knew how to check. Irish tapped the button for the magnetic seals on the landing gear. The ship didn¡¯t move because no force was exerted on the ship from any direction. When he clicked the button to retract the landing gear the ship began to slightly drift the D-thruster''s kicked on and stabilized the ship to zero drift, with no input from the controls. It was just fine for him at the moment but he would need to know how to allow the ship to just drift when he needed to. It would help to save fuel when he wanted to drift through space with no thrust.
The joystick on his right controlled the pitch of the ship just like on a fighter in real life. The sliding hand grip on the left side called the throttle controlled the main thruster''s power and the ships speed. The further forward the faster you get to max speed. Max speed had a governor in place. The ship could theoretically go as fast as you needed if you have unlimited fuel and the governor removed but it would be your funeral. The ships speed governor is in place to give max speed at optimal fuel efficiency by fuel capacity. There is only one foot pedal in the ship. It controls the lateral movements of the ship sliding it left or right making the ship slide towards the bow or starboard without pitching the ships nose in any direction. The foot pedal also moved up and down sliding the ship up or down vertically without any pitch. By clicking two buttons near his thumb he could turn off lateral and vertical movements.
Carefully Irish clicked the vertical movement button and slowly lifted his foot to get more space from the deck of the hanger. The ship slowly rose. Irish was ready and he slowly pushed forward on the throttle igniting the mains and sending the ship forward slowly. Even going slow the ship slipped into the event horizon of the wormhole gate quickly since it was sitting only a few meters in front of the hanger bay. The wormhole warped everything around him. It felt like he was turned inside out for about three seconds and then he promptly through-up in his helmet. To die by suffocation sucks and what is worse is to die by suffocation by inhaling your own vomit.
That was how he died for the second time. Suffocation on vomit because he didn¡¯t know how to use his spacesuit properly. That was rather embarrassing. Luckily it was a tutorial and he didn¡¯t have to wait for a new ship to be built. One was already their when he spawned into another clone within his game-space. ¡®Maybe I should write down all the ways I¡¯ve died in this game. To look back on. Maybe do a montage or something. Suffocation by vomit would be hilarious if it didn¡¯t just happen to me.¡¯
Crossing his fingers Irish made his way back through the gate. This time he was just barely able to keep his clone goo-food from emptying into his helmet. Laya waited a whole minute giving Irish time to get his stomach and disorientation in order before saying, ¡®Welcome to the next phase of the tutorial. Here you can go through all the basics of the game. Learning how to interact with many basic systems will improve your gaming experience without being penalized for making mistakes or dying. On your ships basic sensor display you will see that their is a gravimetric reading with a station symbol. At the station their are several area¡¯s you can interact with. When you are ready call the station using your hull number and request permission to dock. The station will send you a flight corridor to a docking bay. Keep in mind whenever you approach to a distance of 5,000 kilometers of any space erected structure you must request flight instructions. It is recommended that you take your time interacting with things aboard the station including the people who inhabit the station. It will also help me to adjust your body¡¯s natural ability¡¯s and brain mapping applying to your avatar.¡¯
Irish decided to stay in space and practice piloting. He just whizzed around getting the feel of the ships movements. Through a little bit of trial and error he was able to figure out a lot more of the ships functions. With most functions still unknown. He did figure out how to turn off the auto stabilization. Allowing him to spin the ship out of control barely being able to turn the function back on before the g-force tore him apart, turning him to jelly.
The next deadly run in with g-forces was when he slammed the throttle all the way forward. He had passed out after doing that. ¡®Damn Sir Issac Newton...I Damn you to hell!¡¯ It had felt like a 500 pound Sumo wrestler jumped off a third story right onto his chest. Lucky he was still holding the throttle and the force of it moving forward so rapidly pulled the throttle back down almost instantly. He would have probably died if that didn¡¯t happen. Pure dumb luck is what that was. After playing around using the main thruster''s to change vectors quickly, he was finally satisfied and done piloting the little Peniace around for now. He loved it and probably could do it all day long but decided to take Laya¡¯s advice and go to the station. Looking at the game clock he had spent several hours dodging imagery asteroids and all victorious in make-believe dogfights. He was pretty sure that since the fuel gauge didn¡¯t go down, fuel was not a factor in the tutorial.
Irish hit the com-scanner button and wait for the ships computer core to track down the right broad-band laser frequency for the station. Checking the name of the station ¡°Bushka¡± an Indian word for newb or noob. ¡®Very original guys¡¯, ¡°Bushka Station this is EF-013, requesting flight corridor and docking instructions, Over.¡±
A few seconds later a snide voice came back over the coms, ¡°EF-013 this is Bushka control, your ship is unregistered. Follow docking instructions and flight corridor to hanger-bay 13-F. Keep your speed below 10 meters per second. A customs agent will meet you their. Do not deviate from the flight plan or you will be considered hostile, Out.¡±
Two blips appeared on the ships sensors and Laya explained, ¡®When a unregistered ship or unlicensed pilot is spotted most governments and people in general consider the ship and occupant to be hostile until verified. Bushka station has sent out fighters to ensure you dock and make sure your not a hostile entity like a pirate or enemy faction that could attack without notice. Upon landing they will inspect you and the ship. Most likely impounding the ship until their positive your ship is not stolen. Then they will require you to register the ship after you acquire a pilot licensees.¡¯
¡®You could have told me that before requesting to dock. I would have practiced piloting a bit more,¡¯ Irish thought to Laya. He fallowed the flight plan just as he was told even though he kind of wanted to know if and how long he could evade the two escorting fighters.
Following the flight corridor was pretty simple he just had to keep the ship within a 3D represented tunnel for the entire flight. Landing the ships was a tad bit more difficult than taking off. He had to switch from the belly mounted camera to the sensor 3D mapping system several times to ease the ship gently down squarely onto the designated landing pad within hanger bay 13-F. ¡®Whoops, almost forgot the landing gear. That would have been embarrassing.¡¯
Two guards in identical uniforms and a nondescript man in office attire carrying a data-pad greeted Irish as he climbed out of the cockpit. When he took off his helmet his ears popped from the deference in pressure from his suit to the stations pressure. The man in the office attire walked forward slightly and asked, ¡°You are the pilot for this Ultralight Peniace EF-013, Yes? May I get your name and thumb scan so that I can verify your pilot certification and citizenry?¡± Irish could tell it wasn¡¯t really a request so he complied when the mans guards tensed up waiting for him to comply.
¡°Lets see here, the data-base is not registering you at all. That is very odd. Why is that Mr....?¡± The man asked.
Irish quickly thought up a story that might sound credible, ¡°Irish Fey Sir, I was born on Icarus station out in the Oort-cloud. Our Mayor sent me in system to attain a new communication motherboard and proper programming for it. The last good programmer we had moved away several years ago. While I¡¯ve been off that stuffy station, I decided to stretch my legs and cruise around before going back.¡±
The man frowned as he typed into his data-pad, ¡°Sir, we don¡¯t have any information on a Icarus station in the Oort-cloud in our data base.¡±
Irish shrugged, ¡°Probably not surprising the isolationist bigots wouldn¡¯t want anyone to know where they are. Those people drive me nuts. I may never go back.¡±
¡°Hmm well, well for now don¡¯t try to leave the station until we figure out if your ship was stolen or not. I will come and find you when the check is complete,¡± The man said as he turned and left. The remaining guards motioned Irish to follow them through a scanning station.
He had only been in game for about 8 hours now and amazingly barely an hour pasted in the real. Checking the game start clock he had 2 days in-game to explore the station. It was going to be difficult to adjust to the time dilation of the game.
Well it felt like he had all the time in the world so he began exploring the station. Their wasn¡¯t many people aboard the station but the few he had interact with seemed like normal people to him. It was very difficult to comprehend that they are computer generated beings. They seemed to have a full range of emotions, factual expressions and idiosyncrasies that any real person would have. In-fact unless the game had a way of displaying NPC¡¯s from actual players Irish wasn¡¯t sure if he would be able to tell the differences.
Running around the station for almost 8 additional hours things began to became very clear about how the game was going to work and Irish loved it. Everything would work exactly like the real world just with allot better tech to make things simpler to accomplish. Well that is if you could figure out how to even operate the advanced tech and the L.A.I. was not very helpful in that regard. Laya had told him that once he had learned something through a manual or by hands on experience she would be able to help him recall it and even slightly help with putting the pieces of whatever puzzle he was working on together. For example, if he learned how to create a ship from start to finish. In which case he would first have to create a blueprint for it and refine that blueprint until the ship worked properly on a physics program within the gave. Once he had a working blueprint Laya would be able to show him if he had missed a step or helping him with the exact placement of a parts during construction. In game construction for even a simple device wasn¡¯t that simple. It was like real life down to every nut, bolt, rivet and wire. In some cases the L.A.I. system would help give an outline of what to do if you had learned the tech yourself previously. For instances, if he had a good knowledge of all the working components of a ship but didn¡¯t know exactly how to put them together to work as a whole in an exact way the L.A.I. system would assist if he had a workable knowledge base of how to do it himself. Even if you had the components but no knowledge of how they went together the L.A.I. system wouldn¡¯t give a damn about your plight.
In a medical section of the station Irish learned how to scan his body pulling up his biometrics. It was nothing like a stat system in a game. Again it was completely like real life, giving you the normal readings like temperature and pulse. However, it did include other information like brainwave activity, Synapses activity and other things like DNA structures. Irish had very little background in biology so he barely knew what he was looking at. The only thing that was a bit different than normal but still plausible to reality were the piko-bot injections you would get by leveling up, completing certain jobs, contracts or accomplishing missions. Every time someone would level they would receive a 25cc piko-bot injection to improve themselves. It could could help your in any number of ways from expanding your synapse count and memory recall to enhance muscle density or the nervous system response time. The piko-bots are smaller than Nano and Micro bots and do not last longer than a few minutes but they could still get quite a bit done. The reason for the piko-bots size is so that changes could be made permanent all the way down to the DNA level. Using Nano-bots and Micro-bots could have the same effect but it would only be temporary because they could not effect a change on a level small enough to become permanent.
Having your body upgraded through piko-bots would make you smarter, faster or stronger among other things but it only increase your potential. You would still need to workout or expand your mind through learning, getting your newly acquired synapses firing. From how Laya explained it, it would take a thousand cubic centimeter of injected piko-bots to actual feel a differences and that of course is if you train your body and mind constantly. The biometrics did not give a stat but you could figure out things like muscle density, synapse activity or new nerve expansion.
The game may not give your body any easily discerned stats but what Irish found out was that the equipment sure does have a better defined stat system. Yes, every little boys dream of power amour like Ironman will definitively make you stronger, faster and tougher depending of the quality of the gear and that includes how thick the armor is.
Weapons are different. If you get shot in the head you will die. That includes getting shot in vital area¡¯s. However, their are exceptions to that. Those exceptions are not so simple and also very dependent on real life luck. For example if you get shot in the brain-pan and have have high synapse function through piko-bot manipulation you can possible survive if it didn¡¯t destroy a vital portion of your brain. You defiantly won¡¯t be conscious and will still most likely die unless you have a suit that automatically administers Micro or Nano medical bots. On the other hand if you have very little or no Piko-bots manipulation and get shot a dozen times with none hitting any vitals you could still live quite awhile without medical attention if your don¡¯t bleed out first. Just like real life! The only way to insure you don¡¯t die from a weapon is to not get shot by one or seriously invest into some good power armor. Even than theirs always bigger caliber weapons that would still make armor seem like tinfoil wrap.
Irish felt lost in the science labs. He knew mush more about engineering and machining. Most of the stuff in the stations science lab went over his head. He did learn that it was just like everything else in the game. It was fully based of the physics of reality and you couldn¡¯t just make a potion magically by pulling up a list of ingredients by pressing a button or pressing a magical research button repeatedly and magically learn the secrets of the universe. You had to have a working knowledge factually based science and the laws they are governed by.
Computers and programs ran along the same lines in real life. If you don¡¯t know how to hack you most likely will get caught attempting it. You could probably by a hacking program though at-least that''s what Laya vaguely insinuated.
After a long day of running back and forth through the station Irish began to get hungry, thirty and tired, planning on remedying those it that order but first he had to find a bathroom.
After taking a gooey clone crap, Irish found a cafeteria. Laya told him food and water in the tutorial was free but in-game food and water would cost allot depending on availability. She also explained that sleeping in game would actually be better than in reality because of the time deference. He also didn¡¯t need to worry about getting proper rest, he could get refreshing RIM sleep in VR. Irish decided to give it a shot and passed out in a tutorial only free station apartment after more that 18 hours of play. Reality seemed to have a new meaning after a game like this. Not only was it just as real but the time dilation added a whole new equation into the mix. While only three hours have passed in reality he decided after a nice long sleep in the game he¡¯d log out and stretch his legs in real life.
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I just wanted to apologize to my readers for taking so long with the chapters. It¡¯s the first time that I have tried to set a writing quota for myself and failed. I could have pushed out crap on time but I found that their was no way I was not going to rewrite portions that made the flow of the chapter more interesting and coherent. To correct my previously stated writing quota. I will now say, I will try hard to give out a chapter a day but if I¡¯m not satisfied with it I may take a bit longer. Also I have been debating weather to use windows for my story telling but for now have decided against it. I may change my mind if information starts to get overwhelming.
As a side note, I not be putting thoughts of the mind in Italic any-longer. If their are problems identifying between speech, thoughts and speaking within the mind please let me know.
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Chapter 4
Irish was sitting crossed legged on the deck of the hanger bay inside his game-space He watched as the construction arms put the final pieces of his starting Ultralight Peniace together as the count down ticked down the final minutes to the start of the game. Laya explained once the game begins he will be randomly located to a inhabited area of space via the gate. Where upon he will immediately take part in pilot certification. The ship will already be registered to him so he would have to prove it was his. Laya suggest looking for a job as soon as he could. Laya gave him a heads up on what to expect the first thing once he entered the game. The countdown ended and the mechanical arms constructing the ship retracted into the floor, ceiling and walls.
Irish jumped up and head for his new ship. The first thing he did after entering the ship was to check the Hull Number, [DL-021]. He would need it for communications. Sealing the cockpit, the computer core began the system checks as it powered up. He decide to leave his helmet off going through the gate. Just encase he had another fatal bout of throwing up.
When system checks completed Irish ignites his mains and rocketed through the gate. Being warped inside-out still sucked and it still took a minute or so to get over the disorientation. He didn¡¯t throw-up, luckily. Resealing his helmet Irish looked down at his sensors and was surprised to see thousands of blips. A good quarter of them showed as Ultralight Peniace''s like his ship and more were appearing every few seconds. Suddenly a voice sounded in his ear, ¡°DL-021 this is flight cert 5B, I am sending you a flight plan. In order to become certified follow the flight plan precisely. Including docking. Over¡±
Irish clicked his coms, ¡°5B this DL-021, I copy that. Flight plan has been updated. Beginning flight plan now. Out.¡± The flight plan was far more complicated than the one in the tutorial. It was probably designed that way to make sure some people were at least competent in flying their ships. Just a few extra turns while varying speeds up and down was about it. This time as he went through the course he noticed his fuel levels decreasing from the start. Deciding to save as much fuel as possible Irish switched off the auto stabilizers and drift through the course as much as possible. He had spent enough time in the tutorial that the course was rather easy and boring, ¡®Laya, can I send a message to a contact from the ship?¡¯
Laya responded, ¡®If the contact is within range of laser communication range.¡¯
¡®Laya what is laser communication range?,¡¯ he asked L.A.I.
Laya stated, ¡®I do not have that information. I suggest that you attempt to call your contact on a 360 broadband. It probably means they are not in range if they do not answer. The other way is to ask the communication tower of the nearest station or planet to connect you to your contact. However, it may cost a fee.¡¯
Well that¡¯s something Irish almost forgot about, Laya had changed when he entered the game. No longer all knowing and unhelpful, now unknowing and unhelpful. He decided to wait and talk to his brother in the real world to find out where he was, instead of spending money on it. ¡®Speaking of that how much money did I start with and what kind of money does the game use?¡¯
Speaking to Laya again he asked mentally, ¡®Laya how much money do I have?¡¯
Lay responded almost as expected but surprisingly helpful, ¡®I do not know. You have not accessed your bank account since I have been installed. I do not even know your account information or have been granted excess to check. Once you have been to a bank and add my program to be able to excess your account, I will be able to track all of your transactions.¡¯
The coms clicked in his ear as he came within 5,000 kilometers of a station, ¡°DL-021 this Javat station control. Uploading new flight plan and docking instruction. You will dock at hanger bay 4-E. Please keep speed below 10 meters per second. Have nice day, Out.¡± He was brief but at least this controller was a bit more cordial than the one in the tutorial.
It was only the fourth time Irish had done a landing so it was still quite new to him but relatively simple. Before he could land though something was immediately apparent. Well the obvious was that the station had rotating rings around the central core where he¡¯d be docking. The less obvious was that this station was not at all pleasing on the eyes like the one from the tutorial. It looked like it was falling apart, it was falling apart, he just seen a piece fly off one of the rotating rings. It¡¯s running lights flickered on an off. Some patches of the station didn¡¯t even have running light at all. Up and down the massive kilometers long station has impact craters. Probably not from weapons either but from accidents. Some places structural integrity had crumpled sections from age or poor maintenance.
Irish was expecting gravity when he set the ship down on his landing pad but had to inch closer till the powerful magnets in the landing gear locked the ship in place. Releasing his harness and leaving the cockpit reminded him that their was important part during the tutorial he had neglected. He had never moved around in zero-g before. He hadn¡¯t thought about it before during the tutorial because their was always gravity unless he was flying his ship; even in the hanger bay. Now not so much
He had started to drift into the open hanger and had no way to mover around. He was helpless because he still did not know how to operate his suit fully. He had drifted helplessly until an irritated hanger crew-chief had stopped his work to recover Irish. Dragging him through zero-g towards the exit of the hanger he said, ¡°I should of just leave out their to drift a few hours. Space is not for the inexperienced, boy.¡± Irish would have thanked the gruff man that ignored him, returning to work. ¡®well I guess this game won¡¯t be all rainbows and lollipops.¡¯
Carefully he pulled himself through the customs check point. After gliding through the scanners a middle aged woman strapped in-front of a console began asking scripted questions, ¡°Irish Fey owner of Ultralight DL-021? Age 26? It doesn¡¯t say here how long you plan on staying? Someone must have missed that when you first arrived. Looks like you have already rented an apartment 86-G. Remember your docking fee is covered by your room rental, don¡¯t let some station crew swindle you for more. Your were probably already told that their is an Air tax on non-residents staying on Javat station. Before you are allowed to leave you will have to have all debts that occurred on Javat payed. Your Class-G pilot licenses have been approved and attached to your records. Congratulations.¡± Irish barely had time to answer any of the rocket fired questions the woman threw at at him. The lady was very informative though.
He stopped when he entered the corridor leading away from the hanger. He needed a plan to prioritize what he needed to do. First things first, ¡®Laya can you excess the station basic information and mapping from here?¡¯
¡®Yes, do want me to display the information?¡¯ she asked.
¡®I just want you to display the map Icon. Mark this hanger where my ship is with an appropriate icon in green, also mark my apartment with an Icon in green. Next mark all banking business¡¯s, and information area¡¯s in blue. Mark all with appropriate icons,¡¯ Irish dictated to Laya his L.A.I. When he opened the map Icon different Icons started to populate it with the color index he gave to Laya.
His decided his main goal was to get a job as soon as possible. The first thing he need to do was check on a proper bank account. By looking at the Icon he noticed one that said ¡°Transition Banking¡± when he concentrated on it , it had no other information. All the others seemed to be actual game company¡¯s. Common sense dictated that Transition Banking was where his moneys was if he had any.
The map with the arrow leading the way was a simple navigational aid to use. Finding his way to the habitat ring was easy with it. Finally, Irish was back in gravity. It may only be a game but walking or gliding through the corridors on Javat seemed depressing. The station is rusted and worn or just down right broken. Lights flickered on and off, the air had a nasty, sweaty, rusty tang to it. The people he had passed seemed run down; just barely striving through their lives. Irish wondered why this station and its people are so dreary and downtrodden?
It didn¡¯t take him long to find the Transition Bank and his guess was right.The Transition bank was a one time loan starting bank. Supposedly it offered everyone who turned 16 years old or needed a loan for the first time, they are the ones who offer a loan of 1,500 mcc (Material Conversion Credits). They also gave you an account ring that you wore on a finger. It automatically updated your account and records at each new place you went. The ring is a simple gold looking band that was quickly fit to his right pointing finger. The banker assured him it wasn¡¯t gold.
The thing that concerned him was being in debt by 1,500mcc plus 5% annually after the first year ended. Irish abhorred debt and did not like having a loan. He believed that if you wanted something your needed to save for it or make it your self. However, some times loans are a good thing but only sparingly and after a good plan is put in place that has redundancy¡¯s.
The next stop was a real bank. The transition bank was only for a initial loan. He couldn¡¯t move money around or buy and sell things through it. Irish¡¯s Bank escapade ensued.
Never, trust a bank on its word, look at the fine print, talk to its managers, check their stock portfolios and get to know the bank that will hold your lively hood in their trust. All told it was a grueling 16 hours of game time before Irish decided on the bank to use. The one he chose was a small Bank called ¡°Star Trust Bank¡±. It may be small but it was growing rapidly due to very smart investments. The first thing that had caught his attention was the the amount of loans they gave out. They gave very few because of high standards to evaluate people they give loans to. This was a good thing because the bank wasn¡¯t just handing out loans in mass. Yes, it may be hard getting a loan when he needed one but needing one was unlikely for Cyrus anyways. Besides by the time he might decide on getting one he planed to have a high credit score. Yes, the game did have credit ratings. You can¡¯t get away from economics even in a game. Irish really liked how they seemed to go out of their way to make sure you had everything you need. Star Trust Bank may not have the cheapest fee¡¯s but the were modest. An all around good, solid bank.
The unique features of the bank is what made up the icing on the cake. The bank had an attached lawyer firm with an army of lawyers. They didn¡¯t help just the bank collect their fee¡¯s. Star Trust Bank offered the lawyers up for use to protect their patrons from others for a commission of course. As your credit rating rises with the bank so do the commission fee¡¯s. Your credit ratings with the bank could go up by just using the lawyers. The bank also ran insurances for their patrons and a vault for more valuable items.
Cyrus nodded to the accountant. He had opened an account and was ready to leave , ¡°Thank you for your help. I got one more thing on my list done. It been along day and I still need to find a job.¡± Star Trust Bank is in a little pocket of the station that had probably once been a storage room located on a habitats arm connecting the ring to the central hub. Nobody would even find it if they were not looking for it. Unlike its outward appearance the inside was nicely painted giving of a calming environment. They had several plants lining the walls and the air quality was excellent. He could even smell sweat and rust like the rest of the station.
Irish was just about to turn and walk out when the accountant stopped him, ¡°Wait Mr. Fey, maybe Star Trust can help you find a job. According to your skill sets you could get a job with one of the company we cater to. We like keeping our patrons employed because honestly the more money you make the more money we do. We have a data base of company¡¯s and small businesses that we have researched and deemed legitimate. Some of them have accounts with us or have done business with us. According to your records you have an apprentice degree¡¯s in both engineering and machining. You also have your Class-G pilot licenses. Oh, it also says here you have military experience. Its still a bit on the lower end of the spectrum but very decent. Your will be able to find a well paying job with our contacts. Most of them will improve your experience in the eye¡¯s of other company''s if you do well. I will link the one¡¯s that you are qualified for. When you decide on one please give us a call before you sign any contract and for a small fee we can get you the best possible rates and conditions with your new job.¡± ¡®What? Did my real life degree¡¯s transfer over to the game in some way? It seems like even my military career did?¡¯
Now Irish really, really liked his new bank. He felt immensely relieved when he left and that usually never happens to anyone after visiting their bank. Still he wasn¡¯t going to throw all of his eggs in one basket. He lined up a route to his room so he could begin his search for information on the way, maybe explore a bit too. He was already running on fumes from 6 hours of detours to explore and gather information at terminals. Like most of Irish''s workaholic life, being tired was not an option. He still had things to do.
His apartment was a small little thing with a single sized bed, a desk and a small bathroom crammed into a closet sized space. The room itself wasn¡¯t much bigger than a closet.
¡®Thank God.¡¯ he thought as he saw a few items on the bed and desk. One was his data pad lay across a metallic desk. It looked the worse for ware but it was functional. It would allow him and Laya excess to things that''s Laya couldn¡¯t do without excess to a terminal while paying a usage fee. Now the data pad could give them constant excess to everything while connected to the stations mainframe.
He found several basic manuals loaded onto his data-pad. Two for the 06 Spacesuit and two for his Ultralight Peniace. Each had a operations manual and a basic maintenance guide. He also had a basic guide to the data-pad. For now he was going to put off his reading list and find a job. He had figured that other real players would be snatching up whatever they could quickly because no doubt most of them were thinking the same thing. Trying to get the best available before others could.
After a couple more hours of researching jobs Irish was even more impressed with Star Trust Banking. The job information around the station he randomly collected were for the most part localized jobs or jobs that payed really shitty wages. Most of those jobs didn¡¯t have any real requirements and payed on average about 2mcc an hour or about 15mcc a day. The ones Star Trust Bank had recommend payed an average of 10mcc and hour or 75mcc a day. Some where percentage based jobs, where others are set amount contract jobs. Irish started to feel bad for other people that did not research a proper bank. Star Trust was turning out to be a God send.
Irish didn''t go after the best paying job he was qualified for. Yes, he did need the mcc but he also wanted the experiences of using this games physic¡¯s engine to improve his engineering skills. He also wanted to have an adventure. It is a game after all. The more he discovered about it the more he was interested in things that were not just directly involving Engineering.
His top pick, is a job to fill out a crew spot aboard a mercenary ship that worked solely for Tangent Mining Corp. Tangent Mining Corp had a fairly large mining operation in the inner system. It was a Merc Captain named James Harlow who was offering a crewman slot aboard his Sloop a medium sized armed civilian ship named Ravager. Ravager¡¯s crew is tasked with a mission out near the rim of the Solar System. Not many details about the mission were available. The only thing it said was it very likely to be dangerous. The pay was very good at 100mcc a day and the bonus were said to be better for the completion of the mission, which it did not display. That was the only shady part about the job, not know what exactly was going on. The job wanted his engineering, machining, piloting and military skills, cooking, cleaning on what seemed to be an adventure into deep space. Well relatively speaking from mans point of view.
Irish decided to spend the money to contact this Captain Harlow. He would be charged 0.50mcc per minute. Irish set his data-pad on the desk upright in front of him and made the call. Calls were not instantaneous unless you were with in a certain distance from each other. All Irish was doing was leaving a video message for Captain Harlow. Basically just telling him he was interested in the job. Attaching his personal records so the Captain knew he was qualified. He stated that he had a Ultralight Peniace for travel if he needed to meet up with them.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
It had been a long day and it was finally time to get some rest. He was hungry but didn¡¯t care. He told Laya to wake him if a message came in.
It didn¡¯t seem long at all. The disorientation of waking up to an alarm clock in your head is no joking matter. Especially when your waking up in an unfamiliar place. Once Irish was awake Laya stopped the alarm, ¡®you have a new video message from a Kaiden Fey.¡¯ Cyrus and Coal had decide to use the same last names in the game. It was his little brother who sent him a vid-message.
Irish sat up tiredly moving himself from the bed to the cramped desk, ¡°Lights on.¡± The lights in the small room came on making him squint for a few seconds till his eye¡¯s adjusted.
Kaiden Fey his brother Coal was smiling ear to ear saying, ¡°Hey bro, I like the name. Anyways got keep this short. I was thinking about just telling you in the real but you stayed in the game so I decided to spend a few mcc to send you a message. I¡¯m at a space station orbiting Earth. Man does the Earth looked messed up. I know you wanted to play together but it would take me almost two weeks to get out their to Jupiter. I have already taken a Job with the NATO Alliance. Get this I¡¯m gonna be a fighter pilot on a light cruiser at first. I have to go through their Officers training on board though. If I do good they might transfer me over to piloting a Corvette. Oh yeah, be careful around Jupiter the Mongol block is contesting ownership of some of the moons out in Jupiter''s area. The Alliance is spinning up for War if the Mongols don¡¯t cool their jets. Love you bro gotta go. Talk to you in the real.¡± It wasn¡¯t the call he was expecting but one he needed. Seems like he was falling behind his brother. He didn¡¯t even know where he was and his brother did. Well he didn¡¯t actively look either.
Irish pulled up the map of the solar system. ¡®Laya mark our position on the map.¡¯ A blue dot showed up near Jupiter. The map was amazing it was a real time representation of the Sol System. Zooming in on the green dot Laya added for him, he narrowed his search down to Javat station. It was practically in the middle of no where. It was on the highest orbital path possible within Jupiter gravitational pull. Nothing was around it at all. ¡®I wonder what the purpose of this station is?¡¯
Irish took the time now to look through his things that were in the room. Their wasn¡¯t much. One change of under-armor cloths that fit like a glove and were made specifically for wearing under a space suit. The only other thing was a small gortex backpack with a couple water bottles in it.
Irish was sitting in a cheap restaurant eating and reading his 06 Spacesuit manual when he got a message back from Captain Harlow. The 40 to 50 year old with graying dark hair and shaggy beard of the same color was quick to the point, ¡°Mr. Fey I am Captain Harlow leader of the Ravagers, your records show that you could be a good addition to our crew with your skill. You seem to be a very versatile man and I like that. I was only looking for another gun gunslinger but your a lot more than that. I am always looking to improve my crew as much as possible and I¡¯ll be willing to pay you more if you prove yourself on the first cruise. I attached the details of your job contract. Once we smooth out the contract I¡¯ll give you the meet up location since you have your own transportation. Looking forward to meeting you.¡± The message ended.
Irish pulled up the job contract and was was overwhelmed. It was 42 pages long. It was way worse than in reality. ¡®Laya please put a call into my bank please?¡¯ A real person answered, not an automated system. The first person to answer handed me over to an account manager, ¡°Yes how can I help you. I was told you had a job contract you wanted Star Trust legal department to take a look at?¡±
Irish nodded at the man through his data-pad, ¡°Yes, please yes. The job contract is 42 pages long. I¡¯ll just uploaded to you¡±
The man chuckled, ¡°Ah yes, I see your problem. You¡¯ll be working under the umbrella of a large Mining cooperation. They just like to cover their legal bases. Many of their sub-company¡¯s actually use our legal firm. Now what would you like us to do? First option, is we look over the contract for you and make sure everything is kosher. Second option, we can negotiate the contract on your behalf to get you the best deal possible. You are new to Star Trust but still a valued customer. If you had a bit better rating with us the first option would be free. Although it¡¯s still only a small fee of 100mcc. Now the second option is a bit more spendey but since the company we will be nigaoting with are a long time patron of ours the price will only be 1000mcc. Now I know it seems like allot but we can get you probably double that with a signing bonus. Which legal service do you wish to use?¡±
Irish cringed at the prices but so far Star Trust has been very helpful, ¡°What the hell. I¡¯ll go with the full service option please.¡±
The man smiled, ¡°You won¡¯t regret it I promise. Don¡¯t worry about the fee right now. That will come directly out of the signing bonus. If we can¡¯t even get you a singing bonus we may need to hire some better lawyers so the service. Since your new to Star Trust we do not know your preferences yet. Please give me a little information about what you want and expect from this job and it will help the lawyers negotiation for you?¡±
Irish thought a few moments. He didn¡¯t really want much beside adventure and playing around building stuff, ¡°Well I don¡¯t really want much besides improving myself and learning anything and everything I can. I¡¯ll let you guys decide what you can get from them. Oh, their is one thing. I will be meeting up with them and I really don¡¯t have the funds be spending on fuel and maintenance on my ship, its just an Ultralight Peniace.¡±
The man nodded, ¡°Very well, that will make their jobs easy. Okay then, I will send this information off to a firm we have located on Ganymead. As soon as everything''s been worked out I¡¯ll give you a call. Also I see you don¡¯t have insurance on your ship. Would you like to acquire some since you may be traveling soon?¡±
Why not it did need to be done, ¡°Might as well. Please load me up with full coverage.¡±
¡°Very well Mr. Fey. Thank you for trusting us with such matters. Have a nice day Sir.¡± Irish flipped his screen back to reading his manuals while eating.
Staying in the little restaurant it took him almost till dinner hours to almost complete reading through the operations manual for the 06 Spacesuit. Their was a whole lot for what appeared to be a simplistic suit. He still had a few sections left to read through and that''s not mentioning the basic maintenance manual. It was time to go practice his knowledge of how to use it. After a quick search via Laya he found a quick two day job that payed 20mcc a day to for welding repairs on the outer hull of the station. It would be good practice and experience while making some mcc.
The job would start in the morning so for the mien-time he wanted to log out. The clone body still existed while someone was not in-game so it was always good to leave game when the avatar was in a safe and secure place. Irish headed for apartment cabin before log-out.
Irish headed straight for his home-space. He did need to setup up the NPC preferences that would take over his avatar when he wasn¡¯t in the game but all his avatar was doing right now was sleeping. L.A.I. system assigns a NPC program as close to possible as the real player to take over the players avatar when they are not in game. They were very basic. They could react almost identically to the play with most all their idiosyncrasy''s but they were limited in what they could do. They couldn¡¯t learn new things or kill other players unless attacked first. They wouldn¡¯t commit any crimes and such. Their main job would be to just fill in for the player while they couldn¡¯t be on. They would perform jobs and contracts; they would even fight if needed. However, the NPC controlled avatars would be performing all task at a 25% reduction in skills and knowledge. This system was put in place because Destiny couldn¡¯t be paused every time someone logged out and the time dilation was a big deal when people had real life stuff to do. If someone was logged out for more than 4 hours a whole day would have passed in-game.
***
Cyrus only need to check his messages, do some real life processed food relief, showering and a quick bight to eat. He had gotten a call from his sister Ria. She explained everything was going good at college. Ria had been busy and hadn¡¯t had time to enter the game yet but she was loving the home-space time dilation to do home work and get realy far ahead in studying. She said she got the message about the in-game last name of Fey and would also use it when she had a chance.
Before logging back in Cyrus went and checked on all the animals making sure they had food and water. He left a note for Coal on the kitchen counter saying, ¡°Coal make sure you eat something. You have school tomorrow morning so make sure you have your homework done. Leave it on the counter and I¡¯ll check it the next time I log out. You can sleep in the game, that''s fine but make sure your showered and have your chores done before you leave for scholl. Remember to set your preferences for your avatar NPC. Also change your in-game bank to Star Trust Banking. It¡¯s a really good bank. I¡¯ll be logging out before you head off because I got a contract in the shop to finish tomorrow.¡±
Cyrus logged back into home-space. He needed to have a look at what other people where encountering in-game. There was so much to do in-game he still hadn¡¯t had time for the in-game history. He had already learned that their was some conflict between Earth factions from what his brother said but other than that he didn¡¯t know much about the new reality he had just experienced. Scanning the forums from a few sites real quick, the first thing that was apparent was everyone was complaining how hard the game was. Leveling was even more difficult. The big surprise on the news sites where reports of a few people having been sold into indentured slavery or just captured and thrown in slavery. One was a woman, she had been sold as a sex slave. She claimed to be sexual assaulted and raped. It was true she was but the game had many warning systems about sexual situations and allowed log-out if in those situations; even advising the person to log out before any such situation could occur. The systems could even warn players of others players attempts at such things before-hand because of brain wave scans. Pretty much their was no way a player could get raped with out them wanting to. However, that didn¡¯t mean their NPC controlled avatar couldn¡¯t. Which allot of people were complaining about as well. You cannot change or delete your only avatar so if you commit a crime getting yourself locked up, put into slavery or even get captured by pirates. You just have to ride it out or comet suicide to respawn in a clone. No one has to live through those abuses though. With things like that you can just log out.
Almost all factions within the game have either full on slavery or indentured slavery. Debt will not be forgiven one way or another you have to pay it off; there no bankruptcy to file. You can¡¯t pay, look forward to slavery. It goes along with the games history. Earth and all the colonized planets in Sol system are over populated and resources don¡¯t come in quick enough to feed anyone who don¡¯t work for a living. Even debts of parents, grandparents or even great-grandparents are not forgiven and are passed down to their children as soon as they turn 16 years old and that could mean immediately indentured servitude. Some factions like the Mongol block or the Brovac Clans factions enslaves whoever they want including children. Even a newborns could be born into slavery.
Terran Bindings Corp the game designers also set out a market conversion for in game. Nobody, even news agency know why Terran Bindings Corp would exchange in-game money for real money but they were. What was more astounding was that the conversion rate of $5 dollars for $1mcc. They announced it only 5 real hours after the start of the game. They wouldn¡¯t even comment of why they were doing it. You could only do the exchange while in game with their in-game representatives. ¡®Holy shit... that''s fucking crazy. I wonder how their going to fund something like that?¡¯ Cyrus thought.
Cyrus was just about to log back into the game when a knocking came from the door. It was light and seemed hesitant. ¡®Wonder who''d be knocking. I doesn¡¯t sound like Coals knock. Maybe its Ria.¡¯ Cyrus got up and walked to the door saying, ¡°Just a moment, I¡¯m coming.¡±
Opening the door Cyrus was surprised. It was the girl who helped him and his brothers setup their home-spaces. He felt bad at the moment because he couldn¡¯t remember her name but no one could forget her angelic face or perfect form. Even right now she was wearing skin tight jeans and a purple long sleeve that clung beautifully to her curves. ¡°Huh, hello miss what can I do for you?¡± Cyrus asked.
¡°Hello Cyrus, I just wanted to come and check to see how things are going. I like your cabin setup. Its quite homey,¡± Ariel said trying to get a better look.
Cyrus was clueless about her trying to get him to invite her in, ¡°Yeah, I think so. Its modeled after my great-uncles hunting cabin in Wisconsin. Aah...ahh miss, did you have anything else to tell me. Well other than checking in; I was about to log back into the game.¡±
¡®He didn¡¯t already forget my name did he? What an...an adorable asshole. He¡¯s even trying to brush me off that arrogant, handsome, dickhead,¡¯ Ariel thought. She was both excited and turned on at the same time. ¡®What is wrong with me.¡¯ Guys usually fawned over her and even sometimes fought over her, to the point of being annoying. She hated that but now she wanted that from Cyrus. The only thing she was getting from Cyrus was a cursory scan and then being promptly brushed off. ¡°Huh... Oh, hhhm no. I was just checking on you. making sure you didn¡¯t have any questions or anything. Huh, I also wanted to say hi, if... If we came across each other in the game. Do you mind if I add you to my contact info.¡± ¡®Stupid...Stupid, stupid, he should be asking me for my info. What am I doing?¡¯ she admonished herself in her head.
Cyrus frowned, he didn¡¯t know that Terran Binding¡¯s employee played, that''s almost unfair. They probably know everything about the game. ¡®It wouldn¡¯t hurt to have someone like that as a friend. Next time I better remember her name. I¡¯ll have to look it up on the digital paper work.¡¯ Cyrus nodded, ¡°Yeah sure, that would be great. Its unlikely we¡¯d just cross paths. The Solar system is a huge place. I have already received several people requesting me to add them. One girl wouldn¡¯t leave me alone while I was eating. Anyways, just so I know its you, whats your in-game name.¡± It obvious Cyrus hasn¡¯t dated for along time. He¡¯d been to involved in work and had little experience with a woman other than his sister in the last 5 years.
Now she was angry. She has never been jealous before in her whole life. ¡®No one else is going to get him before I do. Stupid bitches.... Gosh what is wrong with me. I shouldn¡¯t have come.¡¯ Her normally milky white cheeks were rosy colored as she answered, ¡°OKAY, oh, sorry. Yes, sure. My name in game is Arry Itano.¡± she finished shyly in a barely audible whisper after yelling in the beginning.
Cyrus nodded, ¡°Okay, ill add you as well. My in-game name is Irish Fey. I got to go. Got a job contract. Be careful in game. Well you probably know about the whole slavery thing. Take care of your self.¡± Cyrus turned around and shut the door. Ariel didn¡¯t have time to remind him of her real name. She stood their in shock not knowing if she knock on the door or leave. She felt like she wanted to scream at the man, demanding he pay attention to her but she wouldn''t. That would be even more embarrassing. She had never had a problem with being shy around guys before but now when it came to dealing with Cyrus she could barely speak right.
Cyrus didn¡¯t even know Ariel stood at the door for about five minute in indecision. He just sat in his comfy desk chair and logged back into the game.
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Chapter 5
When he woke up in his apartment cabin in-game he was groggy because his in-game body was technically sleeping for a little over 12 hours. Good thing he logged in when he did. He had only an hour and ten minutes before he had to report for the zero-g welding job. Irish made it a practice to be at least 15 minutes early to any and all appointments. He still had to hurry walk through quite a few corridors before getting to the right zone of the station. The area he needed to link up with the crew-chief was on a whole other habitat ring.
In Irish¡¯s hurry he had forgotten completely about adding Arry Itano his Rep for the game. Arriving only 10 minutes early made him a bit irritated. The crew-chief quickly went over how to operate the zero-g welding equipment. It was pretty simple stuff. Not much different from a regular tig-welder just a bit heftier to protect it from vacuum. They weren''t suppose to do anything fancy, just get the holes patched. Each person had a section of the hull assigned to them. All of them were on the third habitat ring. It would be their job to walk or drift along the hull looking for air leaks, fluid leaks or things that might be exposed to vacuum that shouldn¡¯t; then they would seal them up. Simple as that.
It was a pretty fun job for the first four hours. It was also scary too but Irish got used to it after an hour or so. After four hours it started to get extremely repetitive. Find a hole, hook up welder to a nearby port, weld the hole shut, return to the port refill air, unhook air-hose and welder and then rinse and repeat over and over again. He varied how he moved around. Sometimes he would walk on the hull with his magnetic boots active and sometimes he would use his air thruster''s, watching his air supply very closely while doing that. The one really cool thing that came from it was he had leveled up once at around hour ten. ¡®Ding, mother fuckers!¡¯ he had to congratulate himself because no one was around to share in his enjoyment. He still had one more day of this crap. ¡®Damn. Ah-well it is money coming in. I did get a level doing it.¡¯ Laya had informed him right after he leveled up that a new video message was waiting for him on his data-pad. ¡®Wonder, if that will explain where to get my Piko-bot injection?¡¯
Ten and a half hours of work before reentering the station. The crew-chief was waiting for him upon his return, ¡°Mr. Fey, I¡¯d like to talk to you. I just wanted to say for myself that you worked hard out their. Those welds you did were beautifully done. Not only did you seal more holes out their, you also didn¡¯t stop welding until the full ten hours was finished. Most everyone else stopped working a half an hour before and started heading in. The bosses up in control asked me to give you a bonus of 50mcc because you did almost three times the work as the next guy. They also wanted to offer you a job helping in repairs on ships coming through and a pay raise of 60mcc a day. They say your an engineer as well and machinist?¡±
Cyruss smiled, ¡°Thank you chief. I would like to take the job but I¡¯m already contracted out. I¡¯m just waiting to receive the meet-up location and date.¡±
The chief waved Irish off, ¡°I see, figures good workers like your would be snatched up. Oh yeah, don¡¯t forget to stop by medical for your micro-bot shot to get rid of the rads you collected today. Anyway, you can work on ships till you leave the station if you want the job. I¡¯ll have the bosses work out an open contract for you. Hows that sound? ¡±
Irish nodded excitedly. He really did want to get his hands on the guts of a ship, ¡°Well in that case I would love to. Oh, can you tell them if it¡¯s more than a 10 page contract ill have to send it through lawyers to understand all that legalese. In the mean time I guess I need to brush up on ship maintenance. Is there anyway you can get that in the contract for me. I¡¯m going to need the operations and maintenance manuals on the most common ships coming through here. Ill read them in the off hours. Have a good evening Chief.¡± Irish could tell the chief wanted to tell him that those downloads were expensive. Cyrus turned and walked off before anything more could be said. He had already priced a few of manuals. On average they ran about 75mcc apiece for the smaller ships. The bigger the ship the bigger the manuals and the larger the cost.
He needed to finish the 06 spacesuit operation manual and begin its maintenance manual before anything else. Now it was a must to read through all of the Ultralight operations and maintenance manuals before the start of work tomorrow. Medical came first though. Well at-least he¡¯d be able to get rid a job that gave him radiation poison. He remembered from the initial contract saying they will expend micro-bots to get rid of the radiation they would collect during work. Still he didn¡¯t like the idea of being irradiated everyday. Good thing because he was already feeling a bit itchy. Maybe it was just his imagination but he swore he could feel it.
Irish headed for the assigned medical facility. On his way he pulled out the data-pad and read the message he got after leveling up. A middle aged man appeared with a snazzy business suite, ¡°Hello Mr. Fey. It wasn¡¯t easy tracking you down. I don¡¯t know if you remember but about 5 years ago during your time on Earth you signed up for our Terran improvement research project. You seemed very excited about it. I am just calling to let you know that human trails have been approved by the NATO Alliance. It took us a bit but we have tracked you down to Javat station. We sent the trial injection their. Medical facility 1-B has it waiting for you. The doctors their has been briefed on its use. Don¡¯t worry we have already been testing the Piko-bot injection for a year now and so far not one negative effect has been reported. Actually quite the opposite, everyone have been saying the injections are astounding. Your can check the NATO Alliance Medical Index if you don¡¯t believe me. Not just NATO either you can check with any of the five major factions. Even the Brovac Clans have nothing but good things to say about us. Anyways its up to you. Hope you enjoy.¡±
Okay now Irish had two medical facility¡¯s to visit. The first one was just a quick shot. The itchiness increased ten fold. He could feel all the ten of thousands of Micro-bots crawling around inside him. ¡®Damn this is annoying and I have to get another bot injection today. Maybe since Piko-bots are so small I won¡¯t feel them. I didn¡¯t feel them in the tutorial. These one feel like larva are crawling around in me.¡¯
Getting the Piko-bot injection was anticlimactic. First the doctor who was giving him the shot made him wait an hour till all the Micro-bots where decaying in his system. Their were hundreds of different programming sent along with the injection that could improve just about any part of his body or mind. Irish went all in with improving how quickly he could learn new things. It was called something like Mind Reflex programming. From the description it was exactly what he wanted.
For now he had Laya who could help him remember anything that he had already learned so he decided to be able to learn things allot faster was better than improved memory recall. The shot also help him with his perception reflexes which in turn will help him react faster to situations. The 25cc Piko-bot injection would take a hour or so to kick in. What the Laya of his game-space told him was, he would notice a big deference till he¡¯s had a thousand or so cubic centimeters of these injections. He didn¡¯t know if that was if they were spread out among the hundreds of possibility''s or if it was putting the in a single program. He¡¯d have to ask the next time he¡¯s in his game-space.
Irish found his way back to the cheap almost deserted restaurant that had a view of space. The stars slowing rotating as the habitat ring circled around the center hub. He had been back at reading and viewing his manuals for an hour when his vision started to go blurry for a second. When it cleared he felt slightly different. He could concentrate on other things while reading and still fully understand what he was reading. Not only that, now he he could read each page a little faster. ¡®Going to have to learn how to read that biometrics scanner properly sooner rather than later.¡¯
Irish found when he devoted all of his attention on reading it went even faster. He finished the last of his manuals in the remaining hours before deciding it was time for some sleep. He still had almost a full three days in-game before he had to log-out to see his brother off to school and get to work in the real. It was hard getting to sleep because he was excited about doing real work on actual space ships in the morning. It made him almost feel like a NASA Engineer.
He woke two hours earlier then he would need to be at work. Laya had woken him up because the ship maintenance job contract had come through at that time. That wasn¡¯t the only thing. 12 small ship operation and basic maintenance manuals arrived with the contract.¡®A fracking space ship for real, or almost for real. Mwahahaha.¡¯ It was surprising, he was expecting one or two sets, not six sets. Irish was beginning to like Javat station. They really needed someone to work repairs on ships if they were sending the expensive manuals in bulk to him.
Irish took the time to read over the short contract. It looked good to him. Thank God, it was only 8 pages long. With his new reading ability it only took a few minutes to read through it and sign it. It was an open contract so their was no penalties by having to quite and go do his other contract.
He made it to the right hanger bay to meet his new chief 15 minutes prior. So far the day was turning out pretty good. Irish explained that he had the most knowledge working on the Ultralights. With that the crew-chief sent him straight to work. The chief was a pretty good guy and hard worker to boot. He seemed to be around every time Irish was having a problem or was stumped about how to fix a problem on one of the Ultralights he was working on.
Irish was in his element and lost himself in his work. He loved it. The grease, the tools, planing how to fix a problem, even the sounds of the weightless environment as tools, torches and welders sung their tune of metal and silicate creation. he was almost half way through the workday when he got the message he had been waiting for. The message was from his bank concerning the Ravager/Tangent Ming Corp contract. He was excited about it but told Laya to remind him after work.
Three quarters through the day, about 7 hours in the crew-chief walked over to him. Right at that moment he dinged to level 3 before the chief could even say anything. Laya of course told him another message came in. The chief grinning stated, ¡°Mr. Fey your a hell of a worker. At first when tower said id be getting someone transferred from station hull repair, I had thought they were just sending me a welder with a little mechanic background. You have already exceeded the average repairs done in one day by allot.¡±
Irish shook his head, ¡°They were only Ultralights. Much easier from what the veteran crews are working on and you had to help me several times.¡±
¡°Na man, for a first days work and never having done this before kind of work, your better then some who have worked here a couple years. I haven¡¯t had to get on you once about any quality issues, going slow or slacking off. Your welds were beyond perfect and you grinding down both your welds and cuts making them look good. I also watched you triple check everything you repaired or replaced. You can work with me any time. The others have noticed your work to. They wouldn¡¯t mind you sticking around either. Tomorrow ill start you working on several different ships a little larger and up your pay by 5mcc.¡± Chief smiled and quickly turning to glide across the bay to yell at someone.
Once again at medical after he finished another 10 hour workday. He hoped the levels kept coming this fast. Happy with his progress, he really didn¡¯t understand what the forums were say about gaining levels were hard. Irish decide to go with they same Piko-bot program as last time, Mind Reflex in order to learn things quicker. He was slightly pissed that a biometric scan cost 10mcc which now equated to $50 dollars. ¡®stupid money grubbing doctors always trying to bleed their patients wallets.¡¯ Irish made the doctor go over the scan explaining every little detail of the information to him, since the bastard charge him that much for it. The short of it is that Irish had already had a 2% increase in how fast his synapses were firing. It also showed a 1% increase in reflexes to perception. The doctor theorized for him. Telling him once this last injection kicked into gear he would most likely have 3% and 1.5% in those area¡¯s. The short of it would be a 2;1 ratio increase and 25cc equaled 1% in the in the area he choose. It was like it would be the same for the other programs. He asked Laya about it she just responded with the usual. She needs more data to know but she agreed it was highly likely.
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Making his way to his favorite restaurant he sat down to look over his other message while eating some food. The message contained two video recordings and signed contract. It was already signed by Star Trust legal depart in his stead. Listening to the video from his bank first made Irish smile for what Star Trust lawyers have done for him. It was just an overview for the contract. They had gotten him a 5000mcc signing bonus minus 1000,cc for their fee they withdrew from it. He would additionally be payed 150mcc a day every day. The bank also negotiated an officers training position aboard the Ravager. The contract would last for 6 month in which time he would receive an undisclosed bonus. It was way more than he thought possible. 4000mcc equaled $20,000 dollars he had never in his life received an upfront signing bonus that large.
Irish instructed Laya after checking his account balance, ¡®Laya pay the 1,500mcc back to the Transition bank. From what I read as long as I payed back the loan before a year their isn¡¯t any fee¡¯s. If theirs any problems ill let Star Trust deal with them.¡¯
The second video was from Captain Harlow, ¡°Son I don¡¯t know how you got the contract you did from Tangent Ming Corp? Well it¡¯s irritating since I don¡¯t know what your capable of but Tangent Ming Corp pays the bills so ill give you a try in the position they recommend. Your record files state you should be capable so will give you the benefit from doubt for now. I will be taking you on as an Ensign and will see how you work out. You better work out way better than my expectations are for you to be worth how much you¡¯ll be getting paid. I¡¯m sending you a flight plan to meet up with us at the Idaho mining station. See you soon.¡±
Irish pulled up the flight plan. It was a flight plan that would take 2 days of hyper drive travel in his Ultralight Peniace. Yes, he had learned an Ultralight has a short range and slow hyper drive. Hyper drive is still slow than light but allot faster than 120m per/sec. It would be a very uncomfortable trip to say the least. Idaho mining station is in the asteroid field between Jupiter and Mars. He had to wait three and a half days to for optimal alignment between Javat and Jupiter¡¯s orbits to align reasonably to that of Idaho mining station. Thankfully Jupiter wasn¡¯t on the other side of the system or it would take allot longer. The orbits will be at that time only about at a 60 degree angle relative to the sun, along the systems plane so he wouldn¡¯t have to transverse half of the solar system. The flight plan was set up so that at 26 hours in he would be docking at a fuel depot a little over halfway. Fuel depots were set up all over the solar system. Captain Harlow already paid for fuel their and here at Javat. The fuel depot had an automated collection security system in place. If you didn¡¯t pay you would be destroyed by it. It wasn¡¯t a manned station, just a fill up stop for fuel and water. It did have a couple rooms to stay a few hours for rest and a shower almost like a truck stop in the real world.
3% to synapse speed don¡¯t sound like much but to Irish it seemed like a couple cobweb was lifted from his brain. Colors seemed more vibrant and he notice details he have never had before. The weird thing was that he caught himself thinking two different thoughts at once. Almost like his brain was splitting into sub-sections and he could clearly think multiple things at once.
Going through all his new manuals and the video¡¯s attached to them only took a part of the day. Thats 6 full sets. Giving him some time before he needed to rack out. Pulling up his contract information he found information of the ship Savage. The ship is a PC-Jumper made by Pillar Corp. It¡¯s a sloop sized vessel that has a crew size of 5 to 30 people. Its a 7,000 ton vessel and for Irish¡¯s purposes that meant a Class-E pilot license. What he wanted to do was get licensed for that ship so maybe they¡¯ll possibly let him pilot it.
In order to get the right pilot license he need to take the tests. First was finding the ships with the right tonnage to take the test in. Second, was finding the testing manuals. Third, was lining up the test between work and leaving the station. Plus pay all the fee¡¯s for everything.
It took him the rest of the day to track down the two ships he needed. One is a TE-Tbone a Runabout class miner made by Trident Engineering at a heavy 4,400 tons for its size. The other is a KCC-Longboat a Sloop Hauler made by Kay & Concord Corp that would only be 5,200 tons empty and barely covering the requirements for a Class-E pilot license. Both Captain had layovers for a couple of weeks and wouldn¡¯t mind allowing him to use their ships for a test. At a price of course. 100mcc for the TBone Runabout and 400mcc for the Longboat Sloop.
Only Class-C pilots and above are approved to give piloting tests and approve them below their class. Irish found one will to do both test in his time frame at reasonable price. Still 750mcc was allot of money, again it would be around $3,000 dollars real money. Not cheap and hard to part with. A person had to get your pilot licenses in each class going up the latter. People couldn¡¯t just jump all the way to a Class-A pilot license. Irish certainly wouldn¡¯t trust a Peniace pilot to get into a 100,000 ton ship to pilot it without any experience with large ships.
Don¡¯t worry Irish did not forget about the manual for each ship and the pilot test study guides. The ships being larger the manuals were more expensive. He already had the operations and maintenance manuals for the Tbone runabout because it was a very common ship and he got those manuals with the ship repair job. The Longboat Sloop manuals were 150mcc a piece for a total of 300mcc. The Class-F pilot test guide was only 50mcc. The Class-E pilot test guide was large at reflected it in its price of 200mcc for each with both 400mcc. Everything set up with quick contracts with the Captains and Class-C Pilot/Instructor he would be ready for the next few days.
Irish had to read the whole Class-F test guide before he went to sleep because tomorrow after work he would be taking his first test the Class-F certification. Unlike the newbie Class-G license, the other required a full knowledge based test on procedures and basic maintenance for ships of that class before you ever sat in the pilots chair.
***
Cyrus had to log out for a couple of minutes after he finished the test guide. Of course he log out from his locked apartment He had to rearrange his real life schedule just a bit so it would line up for him to complete the real life contract while he was traveling in space towards Idaho mining station. He also left another message for Coal after making sure Coal had complete his homework. He just apologized to him for not being able to play the game with him yet.
***
Irish was getting to the point of learning the basic technology used in the games ships. It was wholly underwhelming and got him thinking about why the fuck real life didn¡¯t have this shit. All the tech was basic tech from real life just integrated into each other in better way¡¯s. Yes, the tech would defiantly need a large industry to make them as wide spread in the real as it was in-game but all it was still doable. At least it looked that way from his perspective. These ships ran on either fusion reactors or Anti-matter reactor both proven and built in real life. The fusion reactor just didn¡¯t have a large industry yet and mainly ran off of Helium-3 vary rare on earth. However, their were other material that could be used as reaction mass in a fusion reactor. It may not be as good but it would still work. The same could be said for Anti-matter. It was just hard to make and Earth just had very few people actually making it on a small scale. Same thing with all the other systems. They were just no industry built up for any of it. It occupied Irish¡¯s mind the whole day even into his Class-F testing. As an engineer it was mind boggling now that he had a better grip on the game tech or at least those tech involved in the ships. Why weren''t we flying around the Solar system already in the real?
Completing the Class-F written and piloting portion of the test while also consumed with real life tech was easy now with how his brain quickly worked and compartmentalized different things at the same time. When he finished the test he had gained another level. He wasn¡¯t real sure how experience of levels were gained. He had no experience bar to look at. He assumed that by working hard and accomplishing certain things was the way to go. The full days work plus earning a new class of Licenses is probably what leveled him. It gave him a total of 4% to mind reflexes and 2% towards perception reflexes. He decided that once he reached 5% and 2.5% in those areas he would spread them out on other things as well. He Still wanted to keep putting at least 15cc into Mind Reflex. In theory it should give him at least a 0.5% and 0.25% in Mind reflex and Perception Reflex.
The last thing on the agenda was another test tomorrow for his Class-E pilot license, after work of course. First, he need to study for it. The day after he would have one last day of work. He would spend the rest of that time making sure he had food, fuel, water and proper maintenance done on his Ultralight Peniace. A new set of cloths would also come in handy. He was tired of always walking around in his spacesuit not to mention he had to constantly strip down to the nude for sleep while his under armor was being cleaned.
Three days of hard work and the jump to level 5 was very satisfying. Their was only one small thing he was concerned about. In the real he was a recluse out of necessity so his family was provided for. When he looked around while walking the corridor of the station he saw people laughing together or sitting in deep conversation while having a meal. He still couldn¡¯t easily tell if people were real or computer generated. It didn¡¯t really matter. He missed the companionship and camaraderie they had, like his own time in the service. For now it was an unnecessary distraction because he needed to double check his departure list before leaving.
Zero hour was approaching when many celestial body¡¯s would align their orbits to give him an optimal vector for his lonely trip. There better times along Jupiter''s long rotation around the sun that would cut the trip to under a day but he would have to wait over a year for that. So the best way for the trip to proceed was to wait for the stations orbit around Jupiter to align his vector for the Tangent Mining station. One thing he made sure he had done was sit on the toilet right before heading towards his little ship. When he had fully learned how to use his suite, lets just say he wasn¡¯t looking forward to all of its functions. The waist disposable system was a very evasive system and he planed on going the two full day without have to take a shit so he would be violated by the damn suit.
As he took off from the station his solitary life showed again when nobody showed up to send him off.
*********
This chapter was originally part of chapter four. It had become to much to sift through everything and make sure it all ran together smoothly so I had chopped it up into two chapters. To make sure I didn¡¯t make any large errors in the planing and plot development.
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Chapter 6
Tom Gerald and Susan Dimietrie were sitting in a briefing room waiting for their guests to arrive. The guests were told they would be meeting in a random research facility but that wasn¡¯t the case. In actuality they are at the site that holds the Alien Probe Destiny. Time was short theses days and they couldn¡¯t relocate just yet. Since Destiny Online went active they haven¡¯t had time for anything, even sleep. They both had dark bags under their eye¡¯s and stress lines creased their faces. The stubborn Probe Destiny was the cause of their current miseries. Macky Dewelt wasn¡¯t with them because he had his own problems overseeing Terran Binding Corp the public face for Destiny Online.
A guard that was stationed right outside of the door came in announcing, ¡°Sir, ma¡¯am, your guests have arrived. Do you want them to come in now?¡± Neither one of them really wanted to see their complaining guest. It wasn¡¯t really their fault if Destiny wanted to be stubborn. They could technically tell there three guest about the Probe Destiny because these three had gotten the clearance to know but secrets are hard to divulge after keeping them for so long. Tom nodded his consent to the guard.
Two men and a woman walked in escorted by guards. One a male Caucasian and a male and female of Asian decent. Susan sent the escorting guards away because they did not have even a fraction of the clearance needed to overhear things spoken in that room. One of the men dressed in full militarily dress uniform of an admiral was about to speak when Tom held up his hand saying, ¡°Say nothing yet. First the room has to scan all of us. Then it will lock down the room is such a way nothing will escape it, not even vibrations. We will have two hours of air.¡±
Everyone waited until a small light on the wall turned from red to green. Susan stood and walked towards the three newcomers, ¡°Minister Janggok, Admiral Pontiff and Doctor Kazan we welcome you to this research center. We know its been a long trip for most of you. Please have a seat and we can begin going over recent events concerning you three.¡±
They All sat around a large table and Admiral James Pontiff a U.S. Navy Admiral spoke first, ¡°You two know why were here. Can you explain what the hell happened at the launch of the game.¡±
Korean Minister of Health and Welfare, Moon Janggok asked, ¡°Yes, why is our team the only ones here to get this briefing? We had more than a hundred teams that were locked out of our control of the game?¡± Doctor Mitsuko Kazan a calibrated Japanese scientist of terraforming science and even top of her field in physics just sat quietly listening to the conversation as it progressed.
Tom held up his hand, ¡°Please, hold your questions tell I give you some background information into whats going on. You have just been given the highest security clearances on planet. Your lives now will be forever monitored.¡±
Tom began going down the list by telling them about the Probe Destiny. How it was the main designer of the game and still in ultimate control of the game. Project Destiny Online programmers had built the frame work of Destiny Online and built in hard coded controls for positions within the game. The theory was that they couldn¡¯t force Destiny''s to anything or risk getting locked out of all its information and technology. They had the idea of putting people in high political, military and scientific minds into the governing body''s of the same positions within the game. It should of worked because it was hard coded into the main construct of the game and the positions were still their through all the trials but once the game started all those positions were locked out. Destiny had turned those positions over to NPC¡¯s until real people worked up the latter''s of power and discovery to claim them. Now the game was truly out of their control.
The only way they had left was to buy in-game currency that they could no longer make appear with some digital codes. Destiny had taken that ability away from them as well. The backing governments now had to buy the in game currency mcc¡¯s with real money from players within the game. With this money they had hand to pick one team, Minister Janggok,
Admiral Pontiff and Doctor Kazan to support and setup up a power base in game. In order to begin tearing apart and researching the tech within the game and apply it to real life. The game was already showing marvels of technology that will help Project Hope sustain human life. It was not apparent to the public yet that all in-game tech could be converted to real life.
***
Ariel Miller was pissed beyond belief and it was all over a stupid man. A stupid inconsiderate man. Cyrus Drugain had pushed her buttons in mores ways than one since she had met him but this last insult was even worse than him forgetting her name. She was already frustrated because she had waited four days for Cyrus AKA Irish Fey to send her an contact invite in game. Her thinking was that he should be the one to ask for the in-game friends request. Little did she know Irish had forgotten about her again. Frustrated and embarrassed she finally sent Irish Fey a friend request but it has been two day since she sent it and he still has not accepted it. Making her more angry than she¡¯s ever been in her life. ¡®That arrogant asshole, what give him the right to do this to me?¡¯
***
Cyrus looked up at the new clock on the wall of his real life work shop. It was an in-game timer he designed to help him keep track of the time dilation while he was in the real world. He had made one in the house and his workshop for obvious reasons. Once he had gotten on his way in-game towards the Idaho mining station he had set his avatar NPC system to deal with the journey. He had set it up to where his avatar would stop and the fuel at depot for 24 hours making the full journey a little over 67 hours long in-game to reach the Tangent Mining station.
It allowed him a little over 11 hours to work on a Hydrogen generator and cooling system to produce liquid Hydrogen. Making liquid Hydrogen was akin to producing explosives so Cyrus had to make sure the contract had the right licenses attached and verifying them through the FBI. The contractee is legit, a rocket hobbyist who had applied and received all the right licenses.
The generator was simply made it just need to pull the gaseous form of Hydrogen from water through electrolysis. More complicated was building a cooling system to change Hydrogen''s gas form into liquid. The gas need to be cooled down to -268.93 calvin for it to become liquid.
The storage cylinder for the final product was the most difficult to get right. The cylinder had to protect from outside condition to keep the the liquid state of the Hydrogen and the inside of the cylinder had to be protected from the liquid hydrogen so cracks would not open in the cylinder. If either was done poorly rapid expansion of the liquid to gas could cause an explosive situation. The whole system besides the storage cylinder only took six hours to build and triple check its functions. However, the storage cylinder took three hours alone to build to licensed specification and since Cyrus prided himself on his work he tested and checked the cylinder over a dozen times before creating the whole system for pick up. He made sure when dealing with highly flammable or explosive material to make sure everything was as safe as possible. This job would net him over $37,000 dollars after materials and taxes.
Cyrus still had two hours before he needed to be back in game. First thing on the agenda was to call his trusted delivery service to deliver the final product to the contractee. Then he defiantly need a shower.
After a nice hot shower Cyrus sat down at the kitchen counter and eat a good afternoon meal of a large roast beef french dipped sandwich. Coal still wasn¡¯t home from football practice and wouldn¡¯t be until almost 8pm so Cyrus made extra fixings for his brother. Leaving a note saying, ¡°I left you some dinner I know you¡¯ll be worn out after practice. I also went around and fed all the animals. Remind me that we have to grind and reshaw a couple horses, their hooves are overgrowing their shoes. That''s Dancer and Jackpot if I remembered right. Get your home work and studying done before you login to the game. I don¡¯t care if you do it in home-space. Love you bro....Cyrus.¡±
***
The first thing Irish noticed when he logged back into the game was the grimy feel of sweat laced under-armor cloths beneath his spacesuit. ¡®Man I am so glad I didn¡¯t have to sit through that whole journey like this.¡¯ He asked Laya aloud before he remembered all he had to do was think at her, ¡°Laya are we still on course to rendezvous with Idaho mining station? Also how much more time do we have?¡± Irish wanted quick answers even though he could pull that information up on the ship displays.
¡®We are still on the planed course and only three hours out. I would also like to remind you that the next time you have a chance please upgrade my programming. It can be slightly expanded as your brain has now developed enough synapse speed to run some more of my routines,¡¯ Laya stated in her unemotional voice. Irish knew she was talking about him stopping by his game-space and the LAI orb that resided their. She just didn¡¯t say so because to her that place wasn¡¯t suppose to exist.
Irish responded in his head, ¡®Will do honey.¡¯
Laya responded, ¡®Are you referring to me as honey as a jest?¡¯
Irish waved his hands in front of him, ¡®Forget it Laya. Anything else happen in the last 64 hours beside what was planned?¡¯
¡®Yes, you have two new messages. One is a contact request by an Arry Itano. The other is also a contact request by a Zena Fey with a video message attached. They both came in during our stay at the fuel depot. Do you not remember this,¡¯ Laya responded.
Zena Fey was probably his sister Ria¡¯s in-game name but the other name Arry Itano sounded familiar but he could not place his finger on it. He decided to accept the latter''s request as well. ¡®Laya accept both contact requests,¡¯ Irish told Laya.
Irish pulled up the video message from Zena Fey, ¡°Hey big brother. I just got into the game. It amazing, I haven¡¯t ever seen anything like it. The setup was a bit creepy and scary though. I¡¯ve already talked to little bro ¡°Kaiden¡± live on video chat. He just arrived on Mars for some kind of training when I spawned near a station in Mars orbit and that''s why me and Coal, I mean Kaiden can talk live. I failed the stupid flight test and Kaiden laughed his ass off at me. Kick his but when you see him. Its not like I got to do the tutorial like the two of you. Anyways, that doesn¡¯t matter right now because this messages is costing $5 real dollars of real life money at 1mcc a minute. Kaiden told me all about the slavery thing and I remember reading it in the disclaimers so don¡¯t worry ill be careful. Okay, I''m reaching the minute mark I gotta go, ill call in the real in a couple of days. Ill also try to visit you in homes-pace. Later big bro.¡±
Cyrus reminded himself he needed to setup a family get together for the three of them when Ria had some time off college.
Irish ran several system checks on his ship while waiting to arrive at Idaho mining station owned by Tangent Mining corp. The Hyper travel he was looking at, looked and felt just as normal as regular main thruster travel and 1g excel. The only difference are the two rings that were extended out around the ship. Their is no visual evidence that they are doing anything at all, at least in this visual spectrum. He knew full well that those extended rings were apart of the Hyper-drive also know as the Alcubierre Warp Drive. The Hyper-drive warped space around the ship allowing it to travel almost as fast as light depending how much power was exerted on the space warp. Most people hear the word Warp and assume it means Faster than Light Travel but that is not the case. Hence the word Hyper-drive. It just fits better and not to be confused with a FTL Drive or wormhole travel, neither of which is currently in the game. Terran''s are currently still stuck below the speed of light in the game. However, that doesn¡¯t mean Hyper drive ships haven¡¯t been sent off to other stars at the slower than light Hyper-drive speeds.
Irish was surprised to hear from Idaho Mining Station over 50,000k out from the station, ¡°DL-021 this is Idaho station control, please verify yourself, over.¡±
Irish was a bit confused by the request. As far as he knew that wasn¡¯t normal procedure, ¡°Idaho control this is DL-021, I am Irish Fey under contract by Captain Harlow and Tangent Mining Corps, over.¡±
¡°DL-021 Idaho control, welcome to Idaho station Mr. Fey. Sorry about bothering you but we had a raider attack a couple weeks back so were being extra careful. Continue your approach we¡¯ll send you your flight plan at the normal approach standard of 5,000k, out.¡±
Irish got his first look at the Idaho station about a kilometer out. It was allot smaller than Javat station. The only parts of the station he could see were the com arrays and sensors sticking out of the hallowed out asteroid. His flight plan directed him to a huge hole in the top of the asteroid relative to the systems plane at that moment because the whole asteroid was rotating on two axis¡¯s to create opposing poles to generate gravity on the station within.
Irish was amazed at the size of the hanger bay he set down in. This time he had gravity to pull his ship down into place but traveling through the tunnel to it was nerve racking because of the rotation of the asteroid and the sudden influences of gravity added in. He was relieved when the outer bay doors shut and all he had to do was taxi to his designated pad.
The bay was so large it held 8 Mining runabouts, 4 hauler Sloops and multiple fighters and Peniace''s. Irish immediately noticed the 7,000 ton armed PC-Jumper Sloop. Their was no doubt about it being the Ravanger. It was 40 meters long and has a beam of 15 meters of armored hull plating. From his landing pad he could only see the Ravengers 5x starboard rail guns protruding menacingly off the armored hull. 2 rail guns are attached both nose and aft on the dorsal half and the same on the belly half with the 5th rail-gun directly center mid-beam on the starboard side. Everything slightly slants towards the nose at an angle allowing all 10 rail guns of the ship to come to bare nose on. He couldn¡¯t tell from where he was but the rail-guns looked to be at the least 50mm or more.
Cyrus jumped down from the cockpit stretching his cramped limbs as a hanger bay crew-chief and two guards walked up to him to verify who he was with a thumb print, retinal scan and DNA analyzer. That done they welcomed him to the station and told him to make sure he went through the customs checkpoint. Pulling out his data-pad he sent a quick text message to Captain Harlow stating he was on Idaho station and just entered through customs. A quick reply came back telling him to meet up with Commander Bosick at the Tazers Cantina. Irish asked Laya, ¡®Laya connect with the station and mark Tazers Cantina on the station map.¡¯ Cyrus snatched his space-bag from the storage compartment on his ship and slung it over his shoulder.
Once they cleared the customs and moved into the station proper Laya put up the directions to Tazers Cantina on his visual HUD. Fallowing the arrow pointing the way.
Once Laya had a communications node and little did Irish know, that a pretty little Japanese girl by the name of Ariel Miller aka Arry Itano had lost all of her animosity towards Irish; the second he accepted her contact request. That just now went trough because he had been outside solar-wide com range. She didn¡¯t know that Irish had forgotten her in-game name as well.
Tazers cantina was nothing like the movies like Star Wars. Well at least not the uppity music. Country Rock was playing as people smoked, drank and fondled slave girls who walked around handing out drinks to drunk asteroid miners and station crew. A haze of smoke enveloped most of the Cantina. Still in his now reeking spacesuit Irish made his way up to the center where slaver girls were striping down on the bar top. Almost leaning between bare legs, Irish yelled to the bartender. ¡°Scotch on the rocks. Also do you know where a Commander Bosick is sitting. Captain Harlow sent me to find him.¡± The bartender nodded and held up one finger telling Irish to wait a second. While he grabbed a slave girl by the arm whispering in her ear then pointing to me.
The slave girl only had on a g-string bare tits sparkled with glitter. She was very good looking and young at that. Probably only 18 years old if that. The bartender handed her a glass half filled with scotch and ice and she made her way over to Irish breast swaying slightly as she walked over. She stood on tiptoe pressing her breast into is arm, speaking into his ear, ¡°Follow me, I¡¯ll take you to Abraham Bosick.¡± Irish blushed crimson. He hadn¡¯t been that close to a naked girl in years.
Irish followed her naked ass to a circular cubical where a man with long sandy colored hair in his 30 plus sat with another half naked slave sitting in his lap. The slave that escort Irish to the table pointed at the man and handed him his drink. She leaned into again saying, ¡°Abraham Bosick, ill come by in a bit to see if you need anything.¡± She turned and went about her business.
Irish set his drink down on table table, sitting across from Abraham Bosick, he slid his data-pad across the table to Commander Bosick with the message from Captain Harlow telling him to find the man sitting in front of him. It was too loud to yell across the table. Abraham, finally looked up at Irish than down at the data-pad. After a few moments he pulled his own data-pad, one that was allot newer and looked up his own messages. Nodding back to Irish and sliding Irish¡¯s data-pad back to him he pointed at his scotch and mimed tilting it up to his mouth. Irish got the hint and gulped down his scotch. Quickly, pulling up the cantina¡¯s menu and paying for the drink. 2mcc was a fucking rip off. It was scotch..., on a mining station though and not to bad at that.
Commander Bosick pushed the slave girl off his lap and stood up leading Irish out the cantina main doors. Out side Abraham greeted Irish, ¡°Nice to finally meet you. The Captain said our new Ensign would be arriving any day now. Now we can kick this rust bucket and go earn some money soon. Your the last to arrive, the other two new sailors arrived almost a week ago. Names Abraham Bosick I¡¯m the XO of the Ravengers.¡± The man extended his hand out to Irish.
Irish had to stop his hand in mid salute to shake hands with Abraham Bosick. Irish greeted the man, ¡°Irish Fey, I¡¯m glad I finally got here. The trip here was less than fun in my Ultralight.¡±
¡°Ah, no saluting off duty. I do like to see that you still have your military baring though. We run like a military organization but that''s only when were on shift. We have a small 30 man crew now and most of us are all friends but in order to keep things running smoothly in dangerous situations we still need a military baring. As long as its off duty don''t worry about military baring just don¡¯t let any of the crew cross a line with you. You will still be an officer. Follow me and ill take you to see the Captain. He¡¯s busy with last minute details of our trip or he probably would of come down to great a new officer,¡± Abraham said as he began to walk.
Irish followed saying, ¡°Eh, sorry about disturbing your off time their, Sir.¡±
¡°No problem Irish. Call me Abraham off duty, Mr. Bosick or Commander Bosick on duty. Ill do the same with you and the rest of the crew will as well. Keep in mind that once your enter the ship on duty rules apply. The exception is in private quarters or the galley or going to and from those area¡¯s. Those are considered off duty area¡¯s unless you or they are in full uniform,¡± Abraham explained as they were walking back to the massive hanger bay.
Irish nodded keeping that in mind. They walked up to a private hatch that connected straight into the Ravanger from the corridor. ¡°I¡¯m going to bring you to engineering first to meet our chief engineer. He¡¯s ranked Lieutenant Commander behind me. We need to let him know so he can decided whether to load your Ultralight. We still got the clamps in the ships hanger bay to secure another 5 small craft. Oh and welcome to the Ravenger. Were both still in civvies so its off duty protocol,¡± Abraham welcomed him to his new home.
The inside of the ship was fairly decent. The painted corridors had very little paint peeling. Everything looked to have been cleaned recently. As they made their way towards the aft of the ship and reactor compartments. Their was only two decks aboard not counting the belly compartment that held all the storage areas.
Irish walked into a tightly compacted engineering section to the sounds of something metal being pounded by a hammer, ¡°Fuck, you son of a puta....(continuous cursing in Spanish ensued)¡± two boots were shifting out of a compartment led into a heat venting duct to the bow heat exchanger. The quickly spoken Spanish never stopping for a second as more pounding assaulted their ears.
Abraham kicked the feet of the man sticking out of the duct. The Spanish cursing and insistent pounding stopped and the feet started shimmying out. A short gray haired Mexican with a handle-bar mustache appeared. ¡°Abraham what do you want, cant you seeing I''m busy. Oh, who do you have their?¡± The Mexican asked.
Abraham gestured to Irish, ¡°Chief this here is our new Ensign Irish Fey. Irish this is Chief Engineer Sammy Rodgers.¡±
Irish held out his hand, ¡°Chief its good to meet you. Do you prefer Sam or Sammy off duty.¡±
Chief laughed, ¡°Neither, just call me Chief. I¡¯ve been called that for over 20 years now. Almost forgot my real name till Abraham just brought it up. What can I do for the two of you.¡±
¡°Just checking with you to see if its fine to bring his Ultralight on board. I didn¡¯t want to go over your planed weight for the ship,¡± Abraham asked.
¡°Na, the weights fine. You can tell Bosun Heller he can load it. Now if you boys will excuse me I got some pounding to do,¡± Chief turned to begin work again.
Irish couldn¡¯t resits and asked, ¡°Hey Chief whats the problem with the bow heat exchanger duct?¡±
Chief turned with a confused look. Abraham answered before the Chief could ask, ¡°Irish he is also an engineer. He¡¯ll be spending most of his time on the bridge but me and Skipper were going to send him down for you to show him a few things.¡± Chief nodded looking Irish up and down.
Chief answered Irish¡¯s last question, ¡°A couple weeks ago we had a run in with some Mongol raiders try to raid this station. The Mongol Block government of course denied it but anyways the skipper pushed the ship to long and hard in stealth mode. It warped part of the duct right into the path of tracks for the heat exchanger to open up and push into space for cooling.¡±
Irish looked at the duct hatched and asked, ¡°Can have look Chief. Well if we have time Abraham?¡±
Abraham shrugged his consent. Chiefs eyebrow rose and he finally nodded to go ahead. Irish detached his helmet from his side and squirmed into the duct. The duct was barely big enough to fit his large frame, unlike the smaller Chief. Once he pushed himself far enough inside to see the actual stack of heat exchanger''s he saw the problem the Chief mentioned. He also seen where the Chief was pounding at the warped ducting that was keeping the whole stack from pushing upwards. Irish came up with a quick idea and ran the angles through his data-pad. The angles were good enough so Irish popped his head out and asked the Chief for a hydraulic jack no longer than a foot. At first he didn¡¯t want Irish to mess with anything but after Irish promised not to break anything, Chief acquiesced.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Irish¡¯s plan was to use the housing bracket on the Heat exchanger stack to brace the jack. At the right angles and after using the jack on three pieces of warped ducting, reforming them back to their original form albeit dented the track for the Heat exchanger stack was clear and the duct wasn¡¯t so warped anymore.
Irish wiggled back out of the duct. ¡°Should be fixed Chief,¡± Irish said handing him the small jack.
The Chief set the jack down and crawled into the duct. A minute later he shimmied back out saying, ¡°Well ill be a puta''s uncle. You fixed it! I thought I was going to have to cut out that whole section of the ducting and replace it. Good job hermano(kid). You saved me a couple days work. The Skipper will be happy to. He didn¡¯t want to leave to the rim of the systems without both heat exchanger working.¡±
¡°Damn now skippers gonna wanna leave dock sooner. No more shore leave!¡± Abraham said while frowning.
Irish shrugged off the comment, ¡°Didn¡¯t know.¡±
Abraham shook his head, ¡°No big deal, we¡¯ll keep that to us officers. The rest of the crew don¡¯t need to know. Besides most everyone¡¯s spent most of their pay because we¡¯ve been at dock for to long so its not a big deal. Lets head up to the bridge, I already messaged Bosun(Boatswain) Heller to load up your ship while you were working. We¡¯ll stop by your cabin on the way to see the Skipper.¡±
Chief held them up for a second, ¡°Hold up let me put these tools away and ill go with you two.¡±
Irish saw a couple of the crew on the way to his cabin which right near the bridge. They didn¡¯t stop to say hello to anyone. Irish was surprised when they made it to his cabin. It was twice as large as his room on Javat station. It was still small but a large improvement. The bathroom was the biggest improvement of all. It had a little room to walk around in. He didn¡¯t have to step over the toilet to get to the shower or have to stay halfway in the other room to use the sink.
¡°Its not much but better than most accommodations aboard a ship this size. The crew has to share rooms this size with four people and share a communal bathroom. Drop your bag and we¡¯ll head for the bridge,¡± Abraham said as hes turned and walked out. Irish tossed his bag on the bed. With a longing glance at the bathroom where the shower resides he turned and followed the two other officers to the bridge right down the corridor.
The bridge wasn¡¯t overly large nor small. It was a circular room with the Captain chair sitting in the middle. Each of the other five stations faced out with towards the circular walls.The pilots station facing forward towards the nose of the ship. Each station was a self contained unit consisting of chair and console including the Captain station in the center. All the station stood about two feet off the floor held up by a single pillar. Irish asked what the purpose of that was.
Abraham answered, ¡°The floors, ceiling and walls all become a perfect picture of space using optics and sensors. This gives us a perfect 3D view all around the ship including the space her belly¡¯s facing. That the purpose of all the stations being on pedalstools. The projectors for turning a bridge into a 3D halo tank is pretty spendey and the expensive lenses for them burn out pretty fast. This way works just as well. Come on this way Skipper office.
The door to the Captains Office was flush with the walls like everything else on the bridge and Irish could barely tell it was even their. He thought that if he didn¡¯t have his higher Perception reflexes he probably wouldn¡¯t have noticed it at all. Abraham knocked once and waited for him to tell them to enter. A voice come from and unseen intercom near the door telling them to enter. Behind a metallic desk on the left side of the room the same older man Irish recognized from the video messages with darker hair and beard with gray running through out sat their looking up at the three of them who just entered.
No body spoke for a few second so Irish stepped up in front of the desk going to attention then holding a salute saying,
¡°Ensign Fey reporting as ordered, Sir.¡± Captain saluted him allowing Irish to drop his salute.
Captain Harlow gave the command, ¡°Relax Ensign Fey. Sorry so formal when you just got here. It is good to keep a semblance of military baring on a merc ship or things could quickly get out of hand. I must say I wasn¡¯t expecting all of my Officers. Sit down and relax, would you all, your cramping my neck looking up at you. What brings you here Chief?¡± He asked as the three of them sat down.
¡°Ask Ensign Fey their Skipper!¡± Chief gestured towards Irish.
Captain Harlow raised an eyebrow at Irish. Irish spoke up, ¡°Well I think, Engineering would like to report the bow Heat exchanger should be running after a couple tests once we pull out of dock, Sir.¡± Irish left out the part where he had done it.
Captain Harlow gave Chief a questioning look. Chief slapped Irish on the back saying, ¡°With a little inventive work Ensign Fey here fixed the Heat exchanger in about 5 minute of being on board. Never would have thought of doing what he did that''s why I told you I would most likely have to replace the ducting around it. This Harmano just saved us about 4000mcc and two day¡¯s lay over, Skipper.¡±
Captain Harlow looked back at Irish, ¡°Well Mr. Fey looks like your already earning that large paycheck of yours and looks like you¡¯ve already earned most of that hefty signing bonus. I am really thinking about switching banks because of that stunt your bank pulled. Okay, well we¡¯ll keep the Ensigns name away from the reason why were pulling out earlier than what the crews been told. You three go get showered and changed and start rounding up the crew. We¡¯ll leave in about four hours. Mr. Fey you have a L.A.I. correct? Use it to find your way down to shop B-5 I have already given your LAI permission to connect to the ships computer core. Ill have the Bosun down their to print you out a new uniform and get you a side arm issued.¡±
Abraham asked, ¡°Skipper with your permission we¡¯ll let Ensign Fey here get settled into his room. Ill handle getting the crew aboard while Chief starts spinning the old girls reactors up?¡±
Captain Harlow nodded, ¡°That''s fine you and Ensign be on the bridge in four hours. Alright, dismissed.¡±
Irish made his way down to B-5. When he got their a HUGE African guy was waiting for him with in the room. The mans muscular right arm snapped up into a salute. Irish didn¡¯t wait to return the salute of a man that could probably beat him to death with one blow. Irish said, ¡°Relax Bosun. I¡¯m not even in uniform yet.¡±
The mans serious face split open into a hearty smile, ¡°Good to meet Ensign Fey. Eh... At least your not a high and mighty type. Well the skipper called down saying you¡¯d be here to pick up a uniform and side arm. Now I don¡¯t have to tell you but I will. You, me and the other two officers are the only ones that will have a side arm at all times. The reason is simple. On long cruises the crew sometimes get irritated with their merc crew mates and with some liquor we get a bloody mess. We only hand them out to everyone when needed. Keep your sidearm on a lanyard at all times just in case someone gets a hair-brained idea to try and take it from you.¡± He motioned Irish to stand by the clothing printer so he could be scanned.
After a few seconds the printer began printing his new uniforms. ¡°Now onto a few rules. It¡¯s the officers and my duty as well as the section chiefs to keep order on this old spitfire. You see a crew member doing something wrong feel free to bust his or her head open. Doc can fix just about anything. If you can¡¯t bust their head open on your own call me. Okay a few things you should know right off the bat. First we have a mixed crew and no slaves that means if you see one of our crew member of the fairer persuasion being harassed, or sexually assaulted bust the offenders heads open and throw them in the brig or ask me to come do it. If your see someone getting rapped just go ahead and shoot prick who done it. Ill even clean up the mess for you. Drinking is allowed off duty only. Everyone can get insta-sober pills from supply. The skipper is so against drinking on duty just like any other Captain out their, the penalty for drinking or drug use on duty is punished by spacing without suit. Drugs are a harder matter to deal with. Its a small ship so it not too bad but ill give you a list of whats allowed later. Point is Captain Harlow pretty lenient on what drugs can be used aboard as long as someone can insta-sober from them in an emergency. If their not on the approved list; again its punishable by spacing. Most of that you won¡¯t have to worry about. We got a good hard working crew and beside the two other new crewmen I think you won¡¯t have any problems. Oh, look your uniforms are done. Hears your rank Ensign and sidearm. It a 7mm auto Rail-pistol. You only get shatter shot while aboard. If need you can always get other rounds. Its simple and the skipper wouldn¡¯t bring no one aboard that couldn¡¯t handle a gun right?¡±
Irish just nodded at all the information taking the equipment, ¡°Yeah, Ill be fine. Never fired this model but I can look up its operations. Is their a place to practice aboard?¡±
Bosun slapped his hand down on Irish¡¯s shoulder saying, ¡°This wouldn¡¯t be much of a merc crew if we didn¡¯t have a firing range. Its right next to the forward armory. Use it as much as you want. Theirs a sign-up sheet. Officers and myself get priority because of our hours and rank does have its privileges. Once we get underway ill talk to Chief about getting you some combat armor made, we already got your scans. Skipper says we ship out in about three and half hours.¡±
Irish breathed a sigh of relief when he stepped under the hot steaming water of his shower. It felt so good he stayed in the shower for 15 minutes. He didn¡¯t have to worry about rationing water. He had read the ships manuals before even leaving Javat. The Ravanger had a full water reprocessor system that can support 45 people.
After the shower Irish sat down reading over all the crews names and positions including their full records. He had excess to them because he was an Officer. One caught his attention. The record file didn¡¯t say right out that this person was a player but he could tell by the minimum record history along with the ownership of a Ultralight Peniace. He gave Laya a note to remind him to take time to introduce him self to Haley Scarlet. ¡®The first names normal but the last name is a defiant give away. She¡¯s a player.¡¯
Next was reading through his pistol manuals. He should have enough time with how fast his mind was operating lately. The last time he logged out his brain felt like it was made of molasses. When he logged back in it felt like some deity had put his brain back together to its proper configuration.
The ship uniform was full black form fitting body suit, he had to adjust his junk several times to making his tool set less bulging even though their was a harder plastic-like material that ran between his leg and up his pine. The harder material also covered elbows and knee¡¯s. ¡®I can¡¯t wait to see a woman in one of these.¡¯ The uniform were made so you could still put on a spacesuit helmet and be sealed away from vacuum. Through out the ship their were back up air hose to hook into your helmet.
Side arm on his right side and helmet on his left Irish made his way to the bridge with a half an hour to spare. Commander Bosick was sitting in the captains station. When he noticed Irish come onto the bridge he smiled, ¡°Ensign Fey, welcome. The Captain will be out in a few.¡± Irish salute as he approached and the Commander returned it.
Pointing to a station he said, ¡°That''s tactical, you can take that station and go through the menu''s till the Captain gets here. Then you can switch to coms station and relieve Spacer Recruit Scarlet. She is another new crew member who just came aboard several days ago.¡±
The woman sitting at the coms station looked back at the mention of her station. She didn¡¯t look happy about giving up her station but went along with it. She didn¡¯t look like she realized Ensign Fey was another player. Irish wasn¡¯t about to let on he was a player in the middle of the bridge.
Captain Harlow came out of his office a few minutes later. The sensors operator noticed him first shouting out, ¡°Captain on the bridge!¡± Everyone stood to attention and saluted.
The Captain told everyone to continue their work. Even though at that time no one had anything to do. Captain Harlow took his seat and Commander Bosick took the tactical station from Irish. Irish was just about to take Miss Scarlet¡¯s spot when the Captain said, ¡°No Ensign Fey, You¡¯ll be commanding and piloting from the Pilots station. You have command Ensign Fey, get my ship under way.¡±
Commander Bosick protested, ¡°Skipper, Ensign Fey doesn¡¯t have his Class-E license to pilot this ship, let alone assuming command. No offense given Ensign Fey. This is highly illegal and at are next inspection you could be....¡±
Captain Harlow cut the Commander off, ¡°I¡¯m doing nothing illegal Commander. Ensign Fey has his Class-E pilots license and has the full rights to command a ship of this size.¡± The Captain typed a text to the Commander not wanting to scold the man in front of the bridge crew, [Commander, I have sent you a memo four hours ago detailing the changes to Ensign Fey records. If you don¡¯t start reading what I send you, ill stop informing you altogether and start ordering you around like a puppet. We¡¯ll discuss this later.]
Irish walked up to the pilots chair, ¡°Mr. Coseck, I relieve you.¡± Mr. Coseck responded, ¡°I stand relieved.¡± He stood and headed towards the bridge lounge right across the corridor from the bridge. Irish had Laya inform him of names until he started to memorize them himself.
Irish sat down and used a little joystick to swivel his station towards the Captain, ¡°Sir, I assume command?¡± Irish asked the Captain as a question. He responded, ¡°You have command Ensign Fey, I stand relieved.¡± Unlike Mr. Coseck, Captain Harlow stayed in the Captain chair.
Irish turned his station back to its forward position then asked, ¡°Miss Scarlet, prepare ship for undocking, announce green deck when all section report in green.¡±
Irish watched on his own console as Miss Scarlet console began lighting up with green check lights changing from red to amber to green signifying good to go. The only one that would only go to amber was the Chief Engineers light. Irish would have to call him personally to get the final go-ahead. Miss Scarlet finally announced, ¡°Ensign, the deck is green.¡±
Irish com''ed Engineering, ¡°Chief, This is Ensign Fey commanding. I got Ready Deck up here. Is the ship ready to shove off?¡±
The Chief responded, ¡°Ah, first day and your already in the big chair. Don¡¯t break my ship. Everything looks good down here. Don¡¯t forget to test the Heat exchanger''s before we set course out of here. Engineering reports ready.¡±
Normaly Irish would need to tell the pilot but since he was also the pilot he announced allowed, ¡°Unmorring all umbilical''s... Sealing all hatches. Miss Scarlet, com station control and request departure and flight plan. Send it to my station.¡±
Miss Scarlet immediately started talking to the Station Control. A few seconds later a data-packet popped onto his screen. He opened and set the flight plan as current, Miss Scarlet announced, ¡°Control has given permission to depart without a taxi tug.¡± Usually larger ships need a tug ship to taxi them when entering or exiting a hanger bay. Ravanger was right at the border line of needing one. Most larger ship usual just dock on the outside of a station using docking arms and sealed gangways.
Irish began announcing commands he would use if he were in the Captains seat. ¡°Mr. Riley, passive sensors till were out of the station. Then you can go active at 10% output. Miss Scarlet announce ship-wide ship is underway,¡± Irish told the sensors operator. It was standard operating procedure to use low powered sensors near stations and other friendly ships because some ships had powerful enough sensors to burn out other electronics. ¡°Course change, Horizontal shift up, drifting ship laterally starboard.¡± Irish waited till the ship was in the right position before announcing, ¡°Pitching, Rotating ship 35 degree¡¯s starboard.¡± Irish did all his movement slow but fluid, angling the Ravenger towards the inner airlock of the hanger-bay. The ship slid smoothly into inner airlock. He could of moved the ship into the airlock laterally but he didn¡¯t want to scare the Captain or Commander on his first day.
As they waited for the inner airlock to cycle and reseal Captain Harlow asked a vague question, ¡°Ensign Fey is that the only way you could have done that?¡±
Irish shook his head, ¡°No Sir, theirs allot I could have done different. If your talking about rotating the ship instead of latterly moving the ship to the air lock, then yes I could have done that. I decided not in favor of not spooking my Captain and Commander on the first day. I could have also relied more on the bridge crew experience to do their jobs properly without me voicing every command but since this is the first time working with this bridge crew I need to get to know them and be sure they know their jobs and procedures.¡±
Captain Harlow and Commander Bosick both nodded and smiled. The Captain said, ¡°Okay Ensign Fey. Ill leave this to you. Go ahead and finish going through station controls flight plan then pull up course plot A-1 and get us heading towards our destination. Call me to the bridge before extending the Hyperdrive rings. I must always be present for this procedure unless im dead. Commander Bosick stay here just as an observer, it looks like our Ensign here as things under control.¡± Irish and Commander Bosick both responded with, ¡°Aye.¡±
Once the outer hanger-bay air lock cycled open it was pretty easy getting the ship out into open space and following station controls flight plan. It wasn¡¯t long before he needed to begin course plot A-1. Just when he was about to request it from tactical it already appeared on his console. Looking back at a Commander Bosick who smiled and nodded at him.
It was an hour total to move the ship from the hanger-bay airlock to where they needed to start spinning up the Hyperdrive. Irish clicked his coms to the Captains office, ¡°Captain to the Bridge...Captain to the Bridge.¡± He said repeating it only once. Procedure said three times but he didn¡¯t want to be annoying. He could always com the Captain again if needed. The Captain walked out and sat at his station. Nobody stood and saluted because it wasn¡¯t necessary when in the middle of operations. Mr. Riley who¡¯s Sensors station that faced the Captains office, announced his arrival.
¡°Proceed Ensign Fey,¡± Was all he said.
Irish continued the Hyperdrive operations, ¡°Mr Riley switch to full active along our heading. Check for any obstruction or micro meteor showers along our path. Miss Scarlet give a ship wide announcement to the crew we are beginning Hyperdrive operation and to secure themselves. Bring the ship to amber alert. Get me a green deck for Hyperdrive activation.¡±
Yellow lights started flashing on the bridge. Irish looked at the sensors as well and it looked good. Mr. Riley informed him as such as well. He also seen the Captain checking as well along with Commander Bosick. One of the most dangerous things to do is trying to warp space with damaged Hyperdrive rings. Therefor the space around the ship is checked to make sure nothing hits or disrupts the warp rings before or while they begin warping the space around the ship. It could tare the ship apart it something like that happens. When the field is fully active the warp fields warp just about everything out of their way. Only large objects could effect the warp field when its active and their were hundreds of redundancy to kill the warp field if something large nears the fields bring them out of warp.
Scarlet gave him the Okay on a green deck and Irish called the Chief back, ¡°Chief, Is the Hyperdrive rings fully operational and ready to be extended.¡± Chief replied to the affirmative and said he call up if he noticed anything going wrong.
Irish announced, ¡°Bringing ship to 1g excel on a ecliptic roll. Course clear. Extending Hyperdrive rings, Now.¡± The reason for bring the ship to 1g excel in an elliptical roll is so the ship has gravity pressing down towards the belly of the ship. An elliptic roll looked almost like a stripper swinging around a pole. In this case it would be the ships belly pointing out of the spiral maneuver circling an imaginary pole.
Once the roll was complete and generating 1g and the rings extended Irish announced, ¡°Initiating Hyper drive.¡± The ship slowly began to creep forward for hours under warp fields until it was moving almost as fast as light along their course to the rim of the solar system.
*********************************
My readers, I will not spoil anything for you but I have a little news I need to impart. I have had an epiphany that has changed part of the plot in my story. I think it was soooooo good that I had to rewrite all of Chapter 7, that was almost already finished. Not only that I had to go through and change things in the outline of two full volumes of chapter outlines, almost 30 chapters of outline, plot twists and characters. That''s how awesome I think this new addition will make this novel. Just give me a couple extra days of patience and I should have Chapter 7 out their for you. I hope you will enjoy the change. It should be apparent once you read chapter 7. I don''t really want to change my outline to often because it could effect the flow of all the plots I have planned but its safe to say that I think this will improve the story and needed to be dropped into your imagination.
P.S. I will start asking most of my reviewers for some advise on certain things for changes so please if your haven''t reviewed and rated my work, do so. The bigger the pool of criticism the better as a novelist I can become. Please whether you hate, love or only care a bit about my writing please rate and review my work. I do want to get better and maybe one day be good enough to let my poor ass make a bit of money off of my imagination.
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Fans need lovin
03/21/2015
My bad guys, I got caught up in a game. Blame Star Citizen(https://robertsspaceindustries.com) for being so addictive even in pre-alpha. I broke down and bought a Constellation Taurus package (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/ships/rsi-constellation/Constellation-Taurus) along with a Hornet F7C(https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/ships/anvil-hornet/F7C-Hornet). This game is the best I''ve ever seen and damn addictive even in Pre-alpha. I''ve never seen or played a game this fucking cool. Since I was taking time away from Destiny to play around with the game, I am using Irish Fey in Star Citizen in honor of missing chapters of Destiny Online. See I was thinking of you guys. Any ways if any of you don''t want to check out this game its your loss but if you do go ahead and add me(Irish Fey), I''d love to play with you guys eventually.
I''ll get around to putting the finishing touches to chapter 9 in the next couple of days. Sorry about the delay.
Play Star Citizen, you won''t regret this FPS/MMORPG, I promise. I''ve add a few links below for anyone who wants to check it out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbZLbb0_RBI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJJ9TcGxhNY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSNjPXMMqCE
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03-18-2015
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.Just to give everyone a quick update. I will try to have Chapter 9 wrapped up by 03-19-2015 for you, that''s tomorrow.
******
03-13-2015
To all those who enjoy and have been waiting for my next chapter. Mwahahahah, this is not a new chapter. Some real life shit had been going on. It''s not really shit but good news. Getting a new job with better pay is awesome! Anyways, I got chapter 7 done. I just need to finish editing. Heads up though, around the 1st of this month I''ll be working on moving towards the beautiful Oregon coast so please stay with me during all this inconvenient crap. Hopefully i''ll have the next chapter out for you tomorrow and chapter 8 and 9 before the move.
******
05-20-2015
I''m back sort of.
******
06-16-2015
Just putting the finishing touches on a supper long Chapter 10(About 10k to 12k word count). It should be out in a few day''s. I do apologize to my readers for the inconsistency''s this past couple of months. Between moving , starting a new job and just plain old writers block; it has been a crap shoot for motivation to actually write. I would rather not write if I don''t have the imagination and time to put thoughts to words. The whole thing is already planned through the third light novella(Char, Status, Politics, Relationships, Places, Races, Factions, Tech, Ranks, Arc''s and maps [station''s, ships and space]) but I still need to have the concentration, imagination and serenity to write the details from the amalgamation of info I have for this world. Thanks again guys for reading.
Chapter 7
---Warning, Adult Content---
Irish was getting his exercise earlier in the morning than normally would. ¡®lovin the bed Olympics.¡¯ The lights were still off and a lithe form lay under him on her belly moaning as Irish thrust into her from behind. They both were already sweaty from the exertion and the room was musty with the sent of sex. Irish felt Haley Scarlet under him begin to shutter giving him permission not to hold back anymore and thrust harder keeping her in climax. She was already spent but Irish was not so he held her in place as she tried to escape thrusting her head into a pillow until he spent himself in her.
Irish rolled off of Scarlet and she continued to gasp in-time with her shuttering. After a few more seconds she recovered, scooting over and placing her head on his chest. Still slightly out of breath she asked, ¡°Do you want to go for round two?¡±
Irish smiled in the dark while shaking his head, ¡°Not that it wouldn¡¯t be fun but I need to see Chief before I head to the bridge for my shift.¡±
It had been more than two month of Hyperdrive travel and Irish had performed his job exceeding Captain Harlow''s standards and had been promoted to Junior Lieutenant giving him command of third shift. During that time he had also gained 7 more levels making him level 12 due constantly working and learning. He was no where near a medical facility so he couldn¡¯t get his Piko-bot injections. For now the levels meant absolutely nothing. One thing that was now obvious is once he hit level ten it over a week to get to level 11. The same went for level 12. It seemed gaining a level was almost ten times harder after level 10 no matter how hard he worked. During that time he was able to download a few more of Laya his LAI¡¯s routines into his noggin. The benefits took awhile to even notice. It was hard to even see that Laya had a better reaction time in correcting him on errors. Stopping him barely before he messed something up, like missing a small part while constructing something. Irish assumed the new routines of the LAI were related to his expanded mind reflex and perception reflex because of the routines it triggered in Laya allowing her to perceive mistakes sooner. He still didn¡¯t see any other way it was benefiting him yet and it took Irish awhile just to figure that out.
Scarlet¡¯s sandy blonde hair was tickling his neck, he brushed it away as she swung her leg over his and tightened her grip on his arm, ¡°Why can¡¯t I have the same shift as yours?¡±
Irish replied, ¡°You know why. Your the one that proposed it. You didn¡¯t want the Captain and Commander thinking I¡¯m favoring you. Your idea not mine but I agree, there''s no reason for anyone aboard to know are activity¡¯s.¡±
Scarlet huffed, ¡°Still it would be nice to see you more than a few hours everyday. Mr. important officer.¡± Teasingly she kissed on his chest.
Irish pinched her bare bottom hard till she released her vice grip on him and before she could get another hold on him he leapt out of the bed towards his shower. Miss Scarlet had 1st shift with Captain Harlow and she just arrived in his quarters a few hours ago to wake Irish to a feisty romp. Irish had third shift but he still need to go see Chief first.
Irish ducked into the shower locking the bathroom door so Scarlet couldn¡¯t follow. He remembered back when he had told Scarlet that he was a player. She had been extremely pissed at first and avoided him as much as possible. She figured that she was the only player and thus would reap most of the rewards from being on the Ravenger. She also didn¡¯t like the fact that he had somehow conjouled his way into a officers position above her.
After a while she started asking for help with learning things on and off the bridge. One day about a month ago Irish was going over how to perform maintenance on her Ultralight. They were working real closely together when she kissed him out of the blue. One thing led to another and Irish ended up bending her over a crate and taking her right their in the empty hanger bay. It turned out she liked rough sex and their first time was just that. A grease covered pounding.
Their relationship had started quickly in an intense instance of lust and passion. It was rough and crude but Irish loved it.
Scarlet was already sleeping by the time Irish got out of the shower. He quietly got dressed and headed for engineering. He was going to help Chief put the final touches on his new XTR Raptor Battlesuite. At first it was only going to be a crew standard set of power armor but Irish worked out a deal with Chief to pay for better materials out of his own pocket. The cost was astounding but he gladly paid over 5500mcc. Over the last two month or 61 day he¡¯d brought his account back up to 9390mcc at 150mcc a day and now after the 5500mcc material cost it was only 3890mcc.
Irish saluted the Chief as he walked into engineering, ¡°Morning Chief, wasn¡¯t sure you¡¯d still be awake during my shift?¡±
Chief was sitting at a console typing away, adjusting and recalibrating the ships function to run optimally. ¡°Ah, Hermano you came by. I was just finishing up a few things here. We need to drop out of Hyperdrive before our final destination. I¡¯m getting some vibrations in the forward warp ring.¡±
Vibrations in a warp ring usually meant it had some kind of damage, ¡°I take it their within exceptable levels or the redundancy''s would have kicked us out of Hyperdrive? I don¡¯t really want to wake the Skipper yet but its your call Chief.¡±
Chief waved it off, ¡°Na, it fine for now. Its the reason I haven¡¯t racked out yet. The vibrations are so minuscule that I won¡¯t have us drop out of Hyperdrive till the Skippers up and maybe not even then. I¡¯ll talk to him about. Ah, but I do know why your here. Let go over to the parts shop and get the final pieces put into your X4 Battlesuite.¡±
Irish was excited he practically skipped along behind Chief as he fallowed him to the parts shop. Irish had a really good feeling about finishing the complete schematics for the X4 Battlesuite. If he finished the schematics he could build a X4 Battlesuite any time he had the materials. He had from start helped Chief with every little detail of the Battlesuite. It meant he knew every system in the suite and how each piece of it worked.
It was the exact same for the Ultralight he was able to completely recreate a blue print schematic for it. He had worked on his and Scarlet''s Ultralight so often that he knew every part of it backwards and forwards and was finally able to make a complete blueprint. That also includes a complete working knowledge of how the Hyperdrive system worked and how to create one, why it worked and how to build them for larger ships if he wanted to. Now the blueprint and all subsequent blueprints for all parts of the Ultralight were now stored in his data-pad. The X4 Battlesuite was an even simpler concept than a whole ship, even if it was a small one like the Ultralight Peniace.
However, they still had two things to complete today. One the most important was its miniature fusion reactor. He had a full working knowledge of a fusion reactor for the Ultralight and the Ravenger, he could even build one for a larger ship. The problem is when creating something so powerful into something so small you run into other problems like fusion reaction containment. You need different materials and construction designs. It like making a whole different kind of reactor when building on a miniature scale but the outcome would be similar if only slight less powerful.
It was a long four hours till they had the last of the mini fusion reactor printed out from the parts replicator. Irish went over each piece meticulously checking each and every nook and cranny learning the exact need for every indent, wire or connection and recorded everything into his data-pad. Once they had the mini reactor assembled they hooked into a testing computer and containment box. Pushing a small fission rod into it and hooking up a line to supply Helium 3 reaction mass for test. It didn¡¯t take long for the mini fusion reactor to power up and start producing massive power for its size. All of the reactors readings were ran through the testing computer and Chief and Irish ran down a list to refine the reactors out-puts, intake levels and containment pentameters. All told over a hundred adjusted levels until the reactor was purring like a kitten, just how they wanted it. Hooking the reactor into the X4 Battlesuite was child''s play considering the work they just went through. Finally the mini fusion reactor schematics were completed on his data-pad.
Irish looked at the time. ¡®Damn I only have 15 minutes till my watch time.¡¯ He turned to Chief saying, ¡°Chief I got to run. I have to be on the bridge for my shift. I¡¯m sure you already updated Commander Bosick about the forward ring vibration? Let me know if anything happens with it and we¡¯ll emergency shut down whether the Captain is awake or not.¡±
Chief inquired to Irish¡¯s retreating back, ¡°Hey Hermano, do want me to finish this without you? It will only take a couple of hours.¡±
Irish turned shaking his head, ¡°I¡¯m excited for it to be done as well Chief but I¡¯d like to be here for all of it¡¯s construction. If your still awake after my shift we can finish it then.¡±
Chief waved Irish on, ¡°Okay, okay, I got it. Yes ill be awake because of that cono(damn) ring acting up.¡±
Irish had five minutes to spare when he finally reached the bridge. He saluted Commander Bosick and was saluted in return. Commander Bosick asked, ¡°Your usually 15 minutes early Lieutenant(Junior Lieutenants are still called Lieutenants even if that is not their rank, same goes for all Lieutenant grades)?¡±
Irish walked up to the Captains chair as Commander Bosick exited. Irish responded, ¡°I was down with Chief working on my Battlesuite. He told me about the vibrations in the forward Hyperdrive ring. Do you think we should wake the Skipper?¡±
Commander Bosick shook his head, ¡°Na, that¡¯s Chief¡¯s call. If he don¡¯t think its a big enough concern to wake the skipper to drop out of Hyperdrive then we gotta trust him.¡±
Irish nodded then went on record with standard procedures, ¡°Commander Bosick I relieve you from command.¡±
Commander Bosick responded, ¡°Lieutenant Fey I stand relieved. Have a good shift.¡±
The shift was extremely boring. After checking over the ships status Irish began looking over the schematic for the mini fusion reactor that he had just built with the Chief. Then he add that part to the X4 battlesuite blue print. All that was left to do would be securing the Carbon-nanotube-fiber and vacuum cooled composite titanium armor plaiting to the exoskeleton. It would be a quick job. Since the suite was of a completely new design it would need extensive testing. It wouldn¡¯t be the best on the market but far better than most if the testing went well. The whole design was based off of the XTR Raptor Battlesuite, one of the more powerful battlesuite ever created supposedly in this game. Chief used to repair the high ranking Officers suits when he served in the military. He didn¡¯t have the full designs because the full design were classified even to him at that time but he did have a pretty good working knowledge of them and looked froward to attempting to create a battlesuite even close to one of those monsters. The reason they called their suit an X4 was because it was their 4th attempt of perfecting the suite. It still wouldn¡¯t be even close to as powerful as the XTR Raptor battlesuite but the X4 should be at the top of the line compared with other civilian class battlesuites, even better than regular standard issue marine battlesuites.
By the time the Captain came on the bridge for his shift followed shortly by the 1st shift bridge crew Irish was anxious to get back down to his Battlesuite to finish it up. Not wanting the rest of the crew knowing about his and Scarlet''s relationship so they ignored each other when she came on the bridge. In Irish¡¯s hurry to get to his battlesuite he almost forgot to tell the Captain the status update of the ship.
Irish walked over to the Captain to inform him, ¡°Skipper the shift was quite for the most part. Chief found a vibration in the forward hyperdrive ring during second shift and we¡¯ve been monitoring it closely. He says its minor and nothing to worry about. He says he already sent you a detailed report.¡± Captain Harlow thanked Irish for the update and went through the standards of relinquishing of command for the oncoming shift. However, the Captain commanded from his office during his shift allowing Mr. Coseck to run things on the bridge. The Captain left his door open during his shift just in case something came up.
As Irish left Scarlet winked at him from her console at coms. It brought a smile to his face as he left. It had been to long since he had been in a relationship. Well to be honest they never agreed they were in a relationship. Irish liked being around her. She was fun in more ways than one and smart ass funny to boot. That was another thing Irish had never done to frequently was laugh. She brought that out of him by constantly making fun of his serious demeanor. It has lightened his heart a bit making him relax a little at a time. She was a really easy friend to talk and laugh with.
The Chief just as excited as Irish had already timed his arrival at the workshop at the same time as Irish. Fitting the last few pieces of armor to the X4 Battlesuite was easy but time consuming by making sure each piece was shaped properly. It took a couple extra hours to hook up the suites sensors that could retract into the armor.
Chief smiled as he activated the mini reactor on the suite. He asked, ¡°You ready Hermano. Go ahead get in and lets started powering this baby up.¡±
Irish stepped up to the suit and looked right at the armored headpiece while placing his hand on the chest piece. The armor was covered in a micro-optic paint that used the metallic mesh layered with carbonized circuitry into outer layer of the armor allowing the suite to camouflage itself to any environment. Therefore the suit could also read fingerprints and it did just that. It was part of the security system to get inside the suite. The other part was a scanning laser that scanned his body along with his retina¡¯s at the command to, ¡°Open.¡±
The suites Armor began to slide away from the front half of the suit including the heads face-plate. It all shifted out of the way. Than the exoskeleton began collapsing away, tucking its framework to the side. Giving Irish just enough room to squeeze his body into the suite. They had already tested the exoskeleton a dozen time to make sure their was no way Irish could get crushed by enclosing the suite around him. Irish gave the suite the command to close it would only fallow his voice-print. The suite could even tell if someone tried to recreate his voice with electronics. Someone would have to create a perfect biological replica of his throat, traquea and tongue and get the pitch of his voice right in order to trick the X4 Battlesuite.
The suite began to slowly close around Irish. It could close faster if Irish commanded it to but for safety reasons he allowed it to close slowly. It wasn¡¯t long before the pieces of the suits exoskeleton bean latching themselves onto his body. His body and the suite becoming one.
Irish began the start up sequence, having to wait first for the HUD to come up. This suit was unique for this game, at least as far as he or the Chief could tell. He was going to be connecting the suit directly into the LAI core in the base of his skull. Laya was of little help with this like usual but once Chief had helped Irish write a program that theoretically should work. They already tested the program on a test computer and Laya was able to hard connect to the computer and programs written within. The suite moved and reacted to his movements by pressure senors within the suit. Irish only had to barely move to make the suit move with him. The biggest problem with advanced battlesuites are not in the over-powered movements but with all the attached tech. The operator would usually use a variation of words, eye movements and head movements to activate everything which was hard to do in extreme situations and very error prone. Now though all of that has been removed and with Laya connected directly to the suit through Irish¡¯s brain, all he had to do was think and the suit would react to his thought.
Irish just thought that he wanted the suit to go through power up and test sequence. Holding his breath hoping the LAI connection would work. A second later his HUD started scrolling through the tests. On the outside of the suit Chief watched as the suites armor shift, its weapons cycled, sensors popped up and down through armor ports.
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Irish finally got system status on his HUD with little green box¡¯s proclaiming all system were functioning normally. He thought about external speakers and notified Chief, ¡°CHIEF SYSTEMS ALL CHECK OUT.¡± The external speakers blasted out. Chief jumped back and went slightly pale for a second. Irish¡¯s voice had boomed throughout the room so loud it almost made Chief deaf.
¡®Whoops, I better adjust the volume down.¡¯ Just with that thought a volume bar popped up and lowered than just as quickly disappeared, ¡®Thank you Laya.¡¯
Irish tried again and this time the volume was at normal speech levels, ¡°Sorry Chief, didn¡¯t check the external speakers volume.¡± Irish thought to Laya, ¡®Laya switch all settings of the suite to normal human standards. Once I get used to the Battlesuite we can increase the settings. That includes the strength and speed of the suite. Do you under stand what I am asking?¡¯ Laya replayed that she would.
¡°Alright Chief lets see how this thing moves. So far the LAI connection is working great,¡± Irish told Chief and Chief backed away from Irish and the suite.
Good thing to that Chief backed away because Irish¡¯s first step landed him flat on his armored face-plate. It was mainly do to Irish not being use to having to balance the suit and was exaggerating his movements. Chief picked up on it right away, ¡°Eh? Never been in a powersuite before and now your in a Ferrari of battlesuites. Just react normally. The suite will compensate for your normal movements. In time you¡¯ll learn how to manipulate your movements to get the full potential out of the suit. For now just move normally.¡±
Irish got back on his carbon layered titanium feet leaving a good sized gash in the floor where his armored elbow broke his fall. Trying again normally he was able to take a step. Fallowing Chief they made their way to the range where he could test the suites movements without crushing through thin walls. Irish only dented a couple corridor walls on the way. He would also need to test his weapons at the range. They were now in the right place for most of the testing. They would need allot more room to fully test its strength and movement speeds but for now they¡¯d be able to determine its operational parameters.
Slowly Irish had Laya increased the armors strength and agility that the suites servos and iMax hydraulics operated at. iMax hydraulics worked differently than normal hydraulics. The fluid was different and ran on pressures from the servo''s instead of expanding the fluid through electricity. This made the hydraulics both faster and impervious to EMP¡¯s of any kind. The servo''s worked almost the same way. Instead of being fed power through electricity from the mini fusion reactor the servo''s were fed pure fusion energy to spin. In short EMP¡¯s wouldn¡¯t effect the movement of the suit. The electronics of the suit were all encased in a thick coating of electrical impulse resistant fiber. So most EMP¡¯s weapons wouldn¡¯t effect the suit. Most won¡¯t not even a 50 kiloton nuclear detonation. However, their were some weapons out their that had direct pulse EMP that could kill the electronics in a suit but the were rare and required enormous amounts of energy. It would just be simpler to totally annihilate a battlesuite with destructive force.
Irish ran around the range at speeds reaching 45 kilometers an hour. The suite was capable of almost triple that but for the small confines of the space on the target range he didn¡¯t have enough room. Not to mention at about 40 km/hr he had to start bounding to increase speed and their was only about a half meter of clearance above his head.
After running through all the range of motions for the suit it was time to test the less destructive weapons of the suite and targeting system. The suites right arm has a mounted 15mm adjustable long barrel railgun. It fired a round about every 2 seconds, 30 rounds a minute. On the left arm was a short 7mm gatling tri barrel auto-railgun, firing a round about every 0.25 seconds at 240 rounds a minute. On his back was an armored rack for three small missile that could hold a payload of up to 5 tons explosion power (¡°The ton, kiloton and megaton of TNT have traditionally been used to rate the energy output, and hence destructive power of explosives.¡±) The warhead and missiles packages can be swapped out for several different purposes like surface to air, zero-g to zero-g, area effect or hard core penetration against armor. However, they were not going to check the missile system aboard ship.
Both railguns could use different rounds like armor penetration, explosion and scatter shot. The gatling would be used with mainly only armor penetration rounds because switching out rounds for it would just be a pain since it fired so fast. The 15mm long-barrel was a different story. It could easy be switched to dozens of different rounds including rocket assisted rounds that could travel perfectly straight up to 20km making an excellent sniper round. However, the suite targeting only allowed accurate long shots between 1km to 5km depending on the variables.
Irish spent the rest of the 8 hour of 1st shift testing out the suit and slightly refined the suites settings. An hour after the first shift ended Chief asked Irish, ¡°Hey, hermano mind if you stay in engineer for four hours to let me get some sleep. I don¡¯t trust anyone else with monitoring the vibrations in the forward hyperdrive ring?¡±
Irish spoke through the speakers, ¡°Yeah no problem Chief. Im actually well rested ill let you sleep until my shift on the bridge. Just give me an hour I want to show off my battlesuite to the crew.¡± Irish just wanted to show Scarlet.
Chief smiled shaky his head slightly, ¡°Your gonna give someone a heart attack roaming around the ship in that battlesuite.¡±
Their was only one person he wanted to show the suit to and that was Scarlet. He had to have Laya pull up what room she bunked in because he has never visited her their. She had always came to his room because they had privacy tin his room. He wanted to try and scare her with the suit. ¡®Mwahahahaha!¡¯
Irish stood in front of her crew quarter ready to leap in and scare the hell out of her and her roommates. He used his Officer override to open the door. When he opened the door he was confused several second. ¡®No. No. No. No. This is not happening.¡¯ Irish thought as he saw Scarlet bent over a crew member sucking his dick while another was fucking her from behind. It was rough looking as the guy with his cock in her mouth held her hair slamming her head down forcing his cock down her throat. They guy fucking her from behind had a hard grip on her hips and trusting hard and relentlessly into her. They all turned and looked at the intrusion. Her eye¡¯s were shocked when Irish looked into them. Irish misread the situation. ¡®The fucking bastards are raping her.¡¯
Irish in full battlesuite armor rushed forward backhanding the guy fuck her from behind. Irish heard bones crunch as he sent the man flying hard into the nearest bunk denting its hard metallic frame. In a blink of an eye he had the other guys skull in his powered battle gauntleted right hand and was about to squeeze when Scarlet through herself on his armored arm. She was screaming something, Irish was to amped up to here at first. As he faintly heard her his heart tried to escape through his throat and out of his mouth. She was yelling, ¡°IRISH, IRISH FUCKING STOP! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? GOD DAMN IT, PUT HIM DOWN!¡±
Irish released the man and stepped back staring at Scarlet. ¡®This isn¡¯t happening. What the fuck?¡¯ Irish realizing what was happening and stepped back again. Scarlet stepped forward trying to explain, ¡°Irish its...it....¡±
Irish interrupted her as she took another step forward, ¡°Don¡¯t come near me you FUCKING WHORE!¡±
Stepping out into the corridor Irish took a deep breath then had Laya call up the Bosun, ¡°Bosun this is Lieutenant Fey send the Doc down to the forward starboard crew quarters. We got one person possibly seriously injured. I will meet you in the brig. Out.¡±
Scarlet stepped out into the corridor and before she could say anything he said, ¡°Doc¡¯s on his way.¡± Irish took off towards the brig in a flash leaving Scarlet nothing but recycled air in his place.
When at the brig Irish peeled himself out of the battlesuite and sat on a bench thinking. He was way beyond pissed but he didn¡¯t know why. They had only been fucking around about a month. He didn¡¯t Love her but she had became a really good friend with several nice side benefits. It was the hurt of betrayal that really got to him. ¡®Fuck, why the fuck did she do that to me?¡¯ Irish hadn¡¯t had any kind of relationship for a long time and maybe that was why he felt so hurt by what she did. They weren''t in a relationship at least not one they talked about but still seeing her fucked by to guys in front of him? It was just to much. Not to mention they were fucking NPC¡¯s. It felt like a hammer smashing their friendship into little bitty pieces.
It didn¡¯t take long for the Bosun to arrive . Only took him about 20 minutes to figure out what happened before arriving at the brig. He walked in right up to Irish looking down on him, ¡°So you fucked up Chief Williams pretty bad. They say you came bashing them up in your battlesuite because you have some sort of deranged crush on Spacer Scarlet. Care to explain?¡± Bosun Heller point to the Battlesuite.
Irish shook his head, ¡°Chief can download the suites video. The reason for what I did is a bit more complicated. Me and Scarlet have been messing around with each other the past couple weeks. When I walked into her crew quarters just now she was....was being roughly fucked by the two crewmen. It was rough and we had a thing going so I assumed she was being raped. I reacted quickly before I could see or understand what was really going on.¡±
The Bosun sat next to Irish, ¡°That''s not what Miss Scarlet¡¯s saying. She says she didn¡¯t know why you acted the way you did. She¡¯s saying that you have been hitting on her since you have been aboard. She¡¯s also saying that she asked you repeatedly to stay away from her.¡±
Irish signed. [b]¡®Now what the hell is this he¡¯s talking about? Would she really say that.¡¯[/b] Irish¡¯s blood bean to boil again, ¡°Bosun, you should know me better than that. Anyways, im to confused right now to care. Besides it¡¯s my word against hers anyways, since I just about killed two crewmen for having fun with that fucking whore. Just lock me up like your suppose to do for now. I¡¯m to exhausted to download video from my skull to show you the full story, unless your insisting on it now?¡±
Bosun Heller stood slapping Irish on his shoulder, ¡°Not to worry Mr. Fey, I believe you. Ill pop you into a cell until the Skipper see¡¯s what he wants to do with you. For now get some rest. The Skipper will come down and see you, most likely at first shift.¡±
Irish began to unstrap his pistol to hand it to the Bosun. Bosun shook his head, ¡°No need Mr. Fey I trust you.¡±
Irish finished unstrapping it, ¡°Bosun, don¡¯t make me write you up for not following procedure. Here take it, I don¡¯t want you getting on the Captains or Commanders bad side over this shit. Ill have Laya start compiling all of mine and Scarlet¡¯s interactions.¡±
Irish was mentally exhausted and laid back on the tiny bunk in the cell the Bosun just locked him into. He quickly fell asleep. That day had been royally fucked up.
******
After the debacle with Irish and talking with the Bosun Scarlet¡¯s was worried. She had messed up everything. She should not have went off mission and begin getting involved with Irish. She looked over at Chief Adam¡¯s the guy who she was sucking off when Irish arrived. It wasn¡¯t his fault she was caught but she sent an evil, disgusted frown his way before she exited the crew quarters. She was even more disgusted with herself as she walked down the corridor. She just didn¡¯t have any choice in the matter. ''I''m so sorry you had to see that Irish.''
She turned and headed to Commander Bosick''s quarters. She needed to see if she could fix this situation. She didn¡¯t even hesitate at the door. She entered his private code and entered. She asked Felix her LAI who is named after Felix Dzerzhinsky the first head of the soviet secret police, ¡®Felix com Commander Bosick.¡¯ Commander Bosick didn¡¯t pick up so she left a quick message, ¡°Your quarters, Now.¡± was all she left.
It took 30 minutes for him to show up. When he did he didn¡¯t look happy. ¡°What the hell Scarlet you were suppose to get Irish on our side. Not have him almost kill Chief Williams. We need Williams, he¡¯s the only one that can deal with engineering without the Chief. After all we won¡¯t be able to trust Chief not to sabotage the ship. That mans so god-damn stubborn.¡±
¡°SHUT THE FUCK UP ABRAHAM, we are going to have to take this ship at the start of 1st shift. Irish has a LAI just like I do, he¡¯ll be able to prove I was lying to the Bosun. It will then spur the Captain into looking into all my interaction with the crew. He won¡¯t know exactly what all I¡¯ve been talking about or why I was fucking half the crew but he¡¯s not dumb. He¡¯ll know somethings not right and he¡¯ll set precautions. By the way Irish was never gonna help us, he¡¯s too prideful to betray his comrades. ''He''s too good for betrayal.'' Unlike you who did it for some extra credits and a quick fuck,¡± she said with a disgusted face while looking over Commander Bosick.
Abraham Bosick lifted his hand to strike Scarlet but she had already drawn a make-shift knife and held it to his throat before he could even blink saying, ¡°Now, now Abraham. I still need you. You can¡¯t get out of this now.¡±
Commander Bosick lowered his arm, ¡°What are we going to do than?¡±
¡°Same as we planned. Just sooner than we thought. We¡¯ll have Chief Williams cause the computer to make that forward ring really look like its vibrating during 1st shift. The Captain will call yellow alert making everyone strap in. Everyone besides our guys will think its real. Chief Adam¡¯s has five others and will secure the Armory. I and a couple on the bridge will get rid of the Captain. Your job Mr. Bosick will be to secure engineering with Chief Williams and his lackeys. The signal to start will be when we drop out of Hyperdrive,¡± She turned and began to leave.
Commander Bosick asked before she left, ¡°What about Irish. He¡¯s a good man he doesn¡¯t need to be hurt.¡±
Scarlet spun back around in an instant, ¡°DON¡¯T FUCKING WORRY ABOUT IRISH, hes in the brig for now and from what I heard he even gave up his pistol when the Bosun was going to let him keep it because it was against procedure. That¡¯s one less person with a pistol ready to shoot you. Let me worry about Irish and you worry about your own shit.¡± Scarlet turned around and stormed out after checking to see no one was in the corridor.
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Chapter 8
This Chapter is a bit short but I already have Chapter 9 almost finished.
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Irish didn¡¯t know what woke him up until he heard Laya¡¯s voice in his head, ¡®You have an emergency message.¡¯ Irish rubbed the sleep and confusion of not waking up in his quarters out of his eye¡¯s. Yellow lights were flashing over head proclaiming a yellow alert. ¡®Chief must of had the Captain drop us out of Hyperdrive.¡¯ Irish told Laya, ¡®Laya please display the message.¡¯ Laya replied speaking to his mind, ¡®I can¡¯t relay information you haven''t seen.¡¯ Irish was still mentally exhausted so he forgot Laya had limits, unlike the Laya of his Battle-space.
Since Irish didn¡¯t have his data-pad he used the cells internal interface that was in-place for entertainment of the inmate of the cell. Typing in his link codes so Laya could excess it remotely. ¡®Laya display the message.¡¯
The message displayed on the cells terminal. It was text only from the Chief from a unknown terminus, ¡®Hermano, if you can get your ass out of that brig. Theirs a mutiny going on. We need some help, here. Im safe for now but not for long. The Skippers dead. Commander Bosick is apart of the mutiny.¡¯
Irish sat straight up in the bunk. ¡®What the FUCK. Worse day ever.¡¯ He looked over at the bars in his cell. ¡®Nope not getting through those.¡¯ Then he spotted his Battlesuite. ¡®God damn brilliant, I left the suite open.¡¯ If he would have closed up and secured the suite the security lockout would have engaged.
¡®Laya can you still remote excess the X4 Battlesuite from here?¡¯ Irish asked with his mind. She responded, ¡®Yes, I can. Not many of the functions will operate unless it¡¯s connected to the your brain port.¡¯
Irish smiled saying allowed, ¡°NOW I¡¯M GOING TO BE ABLE TO RELEIVE SOME STRESS. By destroy some bastard mutineers.¡± Speaking in his mind to Laya he said, ¡®Laya all I need you to do is move the suite over here and bend these bars back so I can get out. Even with minimum operations you should be able to do that. Can¡¯t you?¡¯
Laya paused a moment and the battlesuite still being opened, slowly started to moved over to the bars as Laya said, ¡®Yes, I can do that.¡¯ It half minute for the suite to move over to the bars showing how limited Laya was with remote excess or controlling the suite herself. With a screech the suit bent the cell bars back. It was extremely slow compared to how fast the suite could move but it was quick enough.
Irish squeezed through the bars and squirmed his way into the Battlesuite. The suite was never fully shut down into secure mode so he didn¡¯t have to wait for it to power up. He immediately thought of talking to Chief but the com network was down. ¡®Laya whats going on with the coms?¡¯
She replayed, ¡®Coms are locked out for certain crew by the orders of Commander Bosick according to the ships computer.¡¯
Frustrated Irish asked, ¡®Well how the hell did the Chief send me a message than?¡¯
¡®After seeing the text routing properties I can say with that Chief Engineer Rodgers sent the message on a private sub-channel using the power conduits to pulse the message,¡¯ She said only making him more frustrated.
¡®Laya, GOD DAMIT, connect me through that sub-channel,¡¯ Irish screamed inside his own head.
Laya calmly replied, ¡®I can only connect you through with text.¡¯
¡®Do so now, quickly¡¯ Irish waited a couple of seconds until Laya told him to speak. She would be translating his thoughts to text.
[¡®Chief are you still their? If so tell me your situation? What¡¯s going on and who do I trust? I¡¯m in my battlesuite and about to head to the armory for ammunition,¡¯] Irish thought and Laya translated it to text.
Text came back, [¡°Your in your battlesuite? The Bosun and a few others made it to the hanger-bay and are holding out their against the mutineers. They only have the Bosun¡¯s gun holding back the mutineers at the entrance door. They already have the side doors welded shut but can¡¯t reach the main door. The Bosun''s wounded but their holding out. Bones is their with them keeping the Bosun stable. No good on the armory. They already have locked that down. Get down to the hanger bay and get off the ship with the rest I¡¯m going to blow this baby. You don¡¯t have much time Commander Bosick and his flunky¡¯s are almost done cutting through the hatch to Engineering. Hurry theirs only 20 minutes till the reactors overheat. I locked out the ejection safety¡¯s.¡±]
Irish immediately start sprinting towards engineering at 45km hour ignoring Chief¡¯s instructions. He didn¡¯t slow around corners he just smashed into them using the walls to help him quickly change direction like a ping-pong-ball. The sound of him smashing along the corridors must have alerted Commander Bosick because him and 5 crewmen with him already had their armory issued autorails pointing down the corridor he was coming from. Two of them had simple light power armor, standard issue for the Ravengers crew. Irish hadn¡¯t yet seen the merc crew in combat before but he wasn¡¯t impressed so far. They were stupid enough to not switch from scatter shot when they seen him coming in a battlesuite. Their shots did nothing. It didn¡¯t even scratch the optical paint that much. Irish was still bounding at 45km as he slammed into the group pulping the three without armor just by his speed alone. Irish and the group became tangled into a mass of limbs, flesh and blood. The two in the Light power armor Irish tore apart in seconds. The strength and speed of his Battlesuite made ripping apart the lighter armor feel like ripping tinfoil. One of them was now missing a head and the other Irish hit so hard on his breastplate that it caved in on the man mutilating most of his internal organ around the punching blow.
Irish was hit hard from the back by multiple impacts fallowed by small explosion detonations. Turning he saw Commander Bosick standing their sending his rifle through reloading. He must of had only a few explosion rounds and no doubt trying to load armor piercing rounds. The problem he didn¡¯t understand was he had only a 10mm railgun rifle. His suite can handle armor piercing rounds up to a single 20mm in the same area and multiple 15mm round into the same area. 10mm armor piercing will just gouge the crap out of his armor.
Irish rushed forward before the commander could reload and smashed him in the face plate of his power armor. It sent the Commander sprawling a couple of meters onto his back. All the Commander could think was, ¡®Damn that FUCKING WHORE, she said not to worry about Irish.¡¯ Commander Bosick¡¯s power suit must have been a more top of the line model because his helmet was only slightly dented. Irish wasn¡¯t waiting around though and he went straight for the kill while the Commander was still dazed from the first hit. Irish quickly brought his foot down hard on the Commander chest. Irish reached down and with all the strength of the suite set at one third power, he twisted the Commanders helmeted head right off of the power suites frame and his torso. Muscle tissue hung from the severed head as blood dripped to the floor, he tossed it away like trash, down the corridor.
Irish messaged Chief, [¡®Chief I¡¯m outside engineering come on out or let me in.¡¯]
A message came back, [¡°How do I know its you Hermano?¡±]
Irish thought about that for a second, [¡®We used carbon stenciling in the exoskeleton of my armor so that even if a piece fractures it will still hold together. Most suits don¡¯t use carbon stenciling because it¡¯s far more difficult and expensive to repair so most, not even the military''s use it.¡¯]
The Engineering hatch opened and Chief walked out saying, ¡°Come on we have to get off this ship.¡±
Irish shook his armored head, ¡°No I got this suit and now I can use their ammo. We can probably take back the ship.¡± As long as rail gun ammo was the same size or small than the caliber of his mounted railguns the magnetic rails would still fire them. He could even use other metallic items as long as they were the right size and balanced enough for an equalized shot along the rails.
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The Chief pointed towards the engine room, ¡°No, no ones getting this ship now. I was planing on going down with the ship. I locked out the controls on the reactor and then I smashed every single console and port in engineering. It would take us two hours minimum to reverse what I¡¯ve done. Destroying allot easier then fixing. Come on grab some ammo and lets head to the hanger-bay to help the others. You go on ahead and clear a path for me. We can¡¯t lose the hanger-bay.¡± Chief bent over and picked up three rifles slinging them over his shoulder then picking up a fourth while stuffing his utilities with ammo.
Irish went over to the Commanders body and collected his ammo loading his 15mm ammo container on his right upper arm. He picked up the remaining rifle latching onto a magnetized spot on his back when he turned it on the magnet by thinking so. He then looked over at Chief real quick, ¡°Chief you ready? I want you following as close as possible.¡±
Chief nodded and Irish took off from 0 to 45 kph within a couple of seconds making the floor screech loudly as he charged towards the hanger-bay.
Eight crewmen were trying to force their way into the bay as single shot rang out towards the group trying to get in. They auto fired into the bay trying to take down whoever held Bosun¡¯s pistol. This time they didn¡¯t hear Irish coming because of the rate of fire they sent into the hanger. Irish still wanted to relieve some stress of a fucked up day. He decided to save ammo and charged the group. Non of this group had power armor so Irish set about ruthlessly slaughtering them. However, one of them set off a frag grenade while Irish smashed into him. The man must have been in the motion of throwing it into the hanger before Irish smashed into him. The explosion lifted Irish off the ground battlesuite and all and slammed him into the wall. The suite ended up being fine but the impact on the wall dazed Irish slightly. The shock-gel padding couldn¡¯t compensate for everything. By the time he got up Chief was already running around the corner of the corridor. He walked up to Irish who was still getting to his knees and shaking out the cobwebs in his head. Chief asked looking around at and trying to avoid the gore, ¡°You alright Hermano?¡±
Irish finally stood up amongest the ribbons of flesh, bones and brains coating the floors, walls and ceiling of the entrance into the hanger, ¡°Yeah Im alright Chief. I think we did a good job on this battlesuite. You go ahead and help the guys in the bay. I¡¯ll guard this door. Send someone to come collect these weapons.¡± Chief yelled into the hanger-bay telling them he was coming in so no one would shoot him.
Irish had his sensors already turned to full as he began picking up rifles, grenades and ammo, along with anything else that was still undamaged from the carnage and placing them inside the hanger-bay doors. When Spacer 3rd Class Brighton came to the door. She began picking up weapons and slinging them over her shoulder. Irish asked her before she could leave, ¡°Miss Brighton how many people do we have left in their?¡±
Miss Brighton responded, ¡°Sir, altogether including you and Chief we have nine people.¡±
Irish instructed her, ¡°Okay, tell Chief to get the two combat shuttles prepared. Have everyone that can still function normally scour the hanger bay clean of everything useful and pack it into the two shuttles. If it doesn¡¯t fit inside strap it to the outside. Send two people back here to guard this door.¡±
Miss Brighton questioned Irish, ¡°Sir, the combat shuttle don¡¯t have Hyperdrive, Shouldn¡¯t we try and fit everyone into the other ships.¡±
Irish snapped at her, ¡°DON¡¯T QUESTION MY ORDERS! Go tell the others what I said including Chief. Were to far out on the rim of the solar system, months away from anything by even hyperdrive. No one would last a week in the Peniace''s and the fighters. Just do as I say and if Chief has a problem with it tell him to come to me. Now stop wasting time and go.¡± She responded to the affirmative saluting then running off back into the bay. The weapons on her back clacking together as she hurried.
Irish knew with the help of Laya as a reminder, that their was food and water in the shuttles but only enough to last a week for nine people between the two of the shuttles. He had to make a run to the galley. When two crew came up to the door with weapons Irish didn¡¯t wait, ¡°guard the door, ill be back shortly.¡± Irish took off at a full one third powered sprint.
It took less than a minute to make it to the galley. He was only looking for crates of rations. He never had a reason to look before. It took another minute to find them. He looked at the timer Laya idiomatically set when Chief gave him the time till the reactors would go critical. He had just under 5 minutes. He hoped the Chief had the Hanger door open already. Irish picked up two large crates of rations and began making his way back.
By the time he got back the inner airlock was already opening. Chief was waving Irish over to one of the shuttle when he noticed 7 blips on his sensors appear down the corridor leading to hanger bay. He yelled to the Chief, ¡°Get both shuttle¡¯s in the airlock and start cycling them. I¡¯ll be right back.¡± Irish tossed the crates in the back of the shuttle Chief was in almost taking the Chief out in the process.
Making his way quickly to the corridor Irish sent 10 rounds down it towards the blips. He killed two and he almost froze when he saw that one of his round tore off Scarlet legs. Non of them were wearing power armor. He hadn¡¯t known she was apart of the mutiny. He was in a way hoping she was with the shuttle and in another way hoping she was already dead. The rest of the remaining mutineers scrambled back around ta corner.
Irish dashed for the inner bay doors that were cycling shut. Barely making it under the massive airlock bay door as it closed. He rushed into the same shuttle Chief was in. He still had the back ramp open, waiting for him. The ramp door quickly closed behind him as he rushed in trying to be careful not to damage anything with his battlesuite. Irish was still not used to the armor and had needlessly exerted himself while using the armor, sweaty and out of breath, he huffed out,
¡°Chief can you emergency release the outer bay doors?¡±
Chief smiled nodding his head, ¡°Yeah, I can and would have already if we weren''t waiting for you. I was just cycling us through to give you time.¡± Chief pressed a button on his data-pad and the to shuttles shot out of the airlock into space from the explosion decompression of the airlock.
Irish asked, ¡°Chief how far do we need to be away from the ship before it goes boom?¡±
Chief reassured Irish, ¡°Don¡¯t worry hermano. We only need to be about 100km away and we got plenty of time.¡±
Irish walked into the cockpit had them pull up a course towards the station they were already headed to. Max burn, then drift for about three weeks was the plan. He told the pilot to bring us within 50m of the other shuttle when both shuttles changed course and to pass the word to the other shuttle.
Irish sat on a bench next to Chief, ¡°Were going to have to do an inventory check for both shuttles. We got most the food here so eventuality im going to have to go EVA to get them more rations over in the other shuttle. How will the life support hold up for three weeks?¡±
Chief patted Irish on an armored shoulder saying, ¡°Life support will be fine and looking at the rations you brought us we should be fine for a whole month. You won¡¯t have to go EVA either. Once the ships are drifting will have this one dock port hatch to port hatch with the other.¡±
Irish looked at the time. It was a minute and a half left till the Ravenger would blow. He was surprised when he received an ominous video message from Scarlet. Her face was in pain, allot of pain as she grunted out, ¡°Irish I forgive you for blowing off my leg.¡± She looked pale as she shivered, ¡°I never meant for you to see me like that. I didn¡¯t want to hurt you. I was just doing my job. You won¡¯t believe me when I tell you, your were the only one aboard that wasn¡¯t a job for me but you probably won¡¯t believe that... Please say something¡± The camera she was using fell away as she lost strength. Irish stayed silent not knowing what to say to that. Scarlet continued, ¡°T-this... game is not just a game. Its far more than that. It will effect everything. Y-your smart enough to f-figure that out soon... Enough. I do care.............¡± The timer ran out and the Ravenger blew up making his connection with Scarlet terminate.
She died aboard the Ravenger but Irish knew she would respawn in her battle-space. ¡®What the heck was she talking about?¡¯ Even though he shouldn¡¯t care, he wondered what else she was about to say. ¡®Maybe the whore was delirious. She was spouting a bunch of nonsense.¡¯
Irish was physically, mentally and emotionally drained. He needed to take a break from the game for a bit so he told the Chief, ¡°Chief, I need three day¡¯s to get my head screwed on tight. Just keep... keep the ships on course for that time. I still be here but I won¡¯t if you know what I mean. I¡¯ll be out of it. You¡¯ll be in Command until than. Ill help when need but I¡¯m shutting off my brain for now. I should be good to go in about three days.¡±
Even though Chief technically out ranked him, Chief wasn¡¯t a Command Officer. That left Irish in charge. He never did ask about what happened to the Skipper. Irish needed a break from the game so before Chief could ask him what he was talking about Irish logged out.
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Chapter 9
SORRY EVERYONE. I know it''s been awhile. Stuff happened and is still happening. I''m trying to get back into it though. I do love writing. It may be a bit slower getting chapters out to you but hang in there. They will come. I HAVE NOT DROPPED THIS AND DO NOT PLAN TO.
This Chapter helps set up plots mostly for Volume 2... Again sorry, it is needed. Also until I get fully into it again I am only going to do a quick spell check and a once over. Yes, it is a shitty author who doesn''t take a bit of pride in his writing but alas I do not really have the time to even write. I have had my Hiatus but I''m still not fully back.
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Chapter 9
Revmira Zolotov (Scarlet) was dreading the up coming visit from Rems the head of the CRD(Counter Research and Development) an off branch of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). She only knew him by Rems, it was unlikely his real name.
She had failed to acquire her target ship a PC-Jumper made by the in-game company Pillar Corp. The same type of ship as Ravenger. She wasn¡¯t the only operative trying to highjack ships. Russia wanted these ships for there tech and the PC-Jumper was one of the better ships out their. Ravenger was even more unique, having a ton of military grade enhancements.
Revmira had already sent her two sisters, brother and mother to a single room up stairs. She didn¡¯t want Rems to even think about them. She sat in a chair nearest to the door and facing the couch. She was was nervous and her hands were shaking, she knew her failure would be punished, she just hoped it did not involve her family. She clenched her hands together to trying to force the trembling to stop. Showing weakness would only bring more trouble. ¡®I should of killed Irish from the start. He would of re-spawned. Now because of my stupidity my family could be endanger.¡¯
The door bell didn¡¯t ring, she had already made sure the door was unlocked. Rems a short fellow with short cropped dark hair and round wire-frame glasses walked into her house in a dark expensive suite with a burgundy colored tie...Always a burgundy colored tie. Revmira redoubled her efforts to not show weakness as Rems was followed into her living room by four hulking Federal Counterintelligence Service (FSK) agents. She could tell who they were because she had worked with one of the vicious bastards before.
Rems sat quietly down on the couch in front of her as the FSK agents took up positions around the room, covering all the entrances and exit of the living room. The evil bastard FSK agent she worked with before stood right next to Rems.
Rems adjusted himself on the couch, crossing his legs and folding his hand in his lap. He looked up at Revmira and stated, ¡°Agent Scarlet, we have received your report. If it was anyone but you I would have just sent someone to kill you and your family. Its hard to believe this American named Irish Fey had caused you so much trouble. Sorry... Caused the CDR and the SVR problems. That PC-Jumper was the flag-ship of our R&D project and without it we will be quite far behind schedule. We gave this operation to you because you have never failed us before. Tell me Scarlet why did you fail us?¡±
Revmira kept her face passive and used every technique she was trained to use, to help her voice stay steady as she answered; Her and her family¡¯s lives depended on her answer, ¡°Comrade Rems, I underestimated this Irish Fey person. I made a grave error in judgment. I should have dealt with him from the start. I apologize Comrade and look forward to correcting my error.¡±
Rems leaned back into the couch thinking. From the report and video¡¯s Agent Scarlet had sent in he knew she was hiding something. He scratched at his chin for a moment then responded, ¡°Huh? Very well.¡± He gestured to FSK agent next to him. The FSK agent walked forward griping Revmira left hand and swiftly grabbed her two middle fingers and bent them backwards.
Revmira kept her face and emotions locked inside, baring the pain of her fingers breaking. She didn¡¯t even look down at them, she just kept her gaze locked on Agent Rems.
Rems stood as the FSK agent backhanded her and stepping back besides Rems. Rems threatened, ¡°My dear Scarlet. I forgive you this one time. Next time it will be your family who will suffer your mistakes. You don¡¯t want to see your sisters and mother given to a Spetsnaz unit for some nightly fun? Do you?¡±
Revmira¡¯s passive face broke as her eye¡¯s dart to glance at the stair that led to her family. Rems smiled at her broken facade as Revmira answered, ¡°I...I will not fail again comrade Rems.¡±
Rems headed for the door, the FSK agents surrounding him. Not glancing back he said, ¡°Your next mission will be hand delivered before your able to leave your battle-space in-game. Don¡¯t fuck this up, Scarlet.¡±
When the door closed behind Rems Revmira¡¯s facade totally broke. She slouched back in her chair pulling her knee¡¯s to her chest and began sobbing into them. ¡®I need to get my family out of Russia,¡¯ she hopelessly thought.''
*****
>>>Project Hope¡¯s; Multi-National Counter Intelligence Agency(PG-MNCIA) agency subdivision; CIA, Langley.<<<
Mr. Gerald and Admiral Pontiff were waiting for a briefing in Langley Headquarters. It was deemed a level 1 emergence of foreign activity and could not be rescheduled. Both of of them had been awake for over 32 hours.
Admiral Pontiff was astounded when they reached CIA headquarters in Langley and realizing that the CIA didn¡¯t even know of this section of their headquarters was renovated to Project Hope.
It took a little while before Macky Dwelt stepped in followed by a demure man in office workers attire. The man would not speak or be named, he was just a spook made to look like a common analyst, their to make sure Macky Dwelt supposed head of Terran Bindings Corp. gave all relevant information.
Mr. Gerald greeted his friend Macky as he came in. It was Admiral Pontiff¡¯s first time meeting Macky Dwelt face to face. He of course knew Macky¡¯s role as one of the three heads of Project Hope.
Macky had every one sit and began his briefing, ¡°Mr. Gerald and Admiral Pontiff, nice to see both of you. Right now we are not as secure as if we would be at Project Hope so we will make this brief and vague. As of now Project Hope needs to operate under UDEF-19ZU. Destiny Online routeing verifies that several non entity¡¯s of our Multi-National alliance under Project Hope have realized the viability of Destiny Onlines Technology. We foresaw this coming and in a way even want this to happen. However, several counter intelligence agency¡¯s from our participating partners are warning that the main force of tech from the game is weapons. We have already found out about 113 civilian ship hijackings withing the game. All were armed civilian ships. Routing information puts most of these players in Russia and a few from China. Their have been two attempted hijackings of military ships within the game most likely perpetrated by Russian agents. Thankfully they utterly failed.¡±
Macky shifted his papers and selecting another, ¡°We have reports from agents within China that they are trying to shift resources around so they can begin buying in-game currency like we are. However, we still have about two to six month grace period. Are agents do believe they will start to attempt to buy in-game tech about a month out from now. We have already been doing this which is already skyrocketing the prices for in-game tech so it may push China¡¯s tech grab back by a few months.¡±
Macky again shifted to another piece of paper, ¡°Here is the major concern right now. As of the start of the game the LIA of the Probe Destiny will not allow us to export blueprints and schematics from the game unless it is done personally by the person who has created the schematics. We¡¯ve tried several work around and we have not yet found a viable way to do it. However, in-game we can buy building rights from the player who hold the schematic but we can only learn from it in game. In that way it is very time consuming to recreate the tech in reality. That brings us to another option, we have to convince these players in-game to download their schematics and hand them over in reality.¡±
Mr. Gerald then spoke up, ¡°We are approaching a topic that we should be careful of discussing here. However Dr. Harkin has already for predicted this. So it is time to implement the patent program Safe Harbor, Macky?¡±
Macky nodded, ¡°That was the main reason why I called this meeting.¡±
Admiral Pontiff asked, ¡°What is Program Safe Harbor?¡±
Mr.Gerald answered, ¡°We can¡¯t discusses the details here but it is a program that once its in place will allow us to contact the players in-game that hold these schematics, then meet up with them in reality. The problem will be that as soon as we take an interest in some of the players they could become endangered in reality. We all know what this tech is worth and their are foreign agents all over the world that would blackmail, torture and kill to get their hands on this stuff. Program Safe Harbor will give some of these leading players a safety net along with reality shares in compensation for their in-game tech schematics. Susan will be the only one who knows of and deals with these players in-game and reality. No leaks will happen if we keep only one person dealing with this. Imagine what would happen to some of these players if foreign powers got their hands on these players.¡±
Macky grimaced at the thought. The job was already becoming to stressful without thinking about all the cloak and dagger stuff. He was stressed to the max running Terran Bindings Corp, he had already lost a significant amount of weight. The under cover spook dressed like an analyst brought Macky back to his job by tapping on another file.
Macky leaned forward pulling the file to him and looking at Admiral Pontiff, ¡°The next order of business and the reason you are hear Admiral is because of the in-game positions. It is however to late to get you at the top tier of the in-game military position because the original frame work was delete by Destiny. Now your going to have to work your way through the ranks in-game with a few dozen real players ahead of you. This is very bad for us because it gives us very little power within the game with civilians grabbing at that military power. We do have some good news for you though. Several in-game agents have compiled data on the top players going the military route. Two of them are lets say more than likely to fail before coming Captains of a military vassal. Another were still checking on but we might have a problem on that front. That person may or may not be a Russian agent. However, a Player named Kaiden Fey let slip who he really was while talking to some in-game friends. His real name is Coal Drugain a 16 year old from Oregon in the U.S. Right now he is the top player going the military route in-game. He has top marks in the NATO Alliance, NOCS(Naval Officer Command School). He is even far above all of the NPC¡¯s. That may not seem difficult but NPC¡¯s in-game can and are more intelligent than most players. To get scores like this Coal Drugain is no mistake, this boy would have to be highly intelligent. Not to mention the NOCS school in this game is more difficult than any training schools we have in place in reality. Let¡¯s not have any delusions here they are truly learning to fly around very real military space vassals and command them in very real reality based combat.¡±
Macky leaned over and passed the folder to Admiral Pontiff and continued with even better news, ¡°We have done a full background of this Coal Drugain. It turns out his older brother Captain Cyrus Drugain was a two time Silver Star with V device(Valor) restraint in the Poland campaign against the Russian incursion. Army Ranger for 5 years earning combat promotion extremely fast and during the offensive in Baltinava, Latvia to push the Russians out of Europe he received the second Silver Star and the Purple Heart. He was discharged after that offensive due to the injuries he received. Cyrus Drugain later went onto finishing his degree in Engineering while taking care of his brother Coal and sister Ria. Parents haven¡¯t been in the picture since Cyrus was 17 years old. Bank records show all his pay during the conflict went to an account in his younger sister. Ria Drugain¡¯s name. Intel analyst have combed through this family¡¯s back ground. As far as they can tell this family has never been compromised by a foreign power. We have yet to figure out what Cyrus and Ria are up to in the game but right now Admiral; Coal Drugain is on the fast track of having major military power within the game. We want you to create a team to support this young man. Since this NOCS school is so difficult the president of the United States has authorized us to give him a equivalent commission in the newly created NA-Star Force (NATO Alliance Star Force). The new branch of service is already being organized.¡±
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Admiral Pontiff scoffed, ¡°Just because a cadet achieves outstanding score in training school does not mean he is ready for the burden of Command.¡±
Mr. Gerald responded, ¡°That will be decided by you Admiral. However, looking back through the history of this family, it is obvious this family of Drugain''s have a habit of proving themselves more capable of handling command than most. Two Drugain Generals, One Full-Bird kernel, four Majors, three Captains and dozens of Lieutenants since America¡¯s independence from Great Britain. That include 2 Medal of Honor winners and a a half dozen silver stars, two of which were earned by this boys older brother. We understand Admiral Pontiff that you were suppose to have the Admiralty of in-game NATO Alliance but that had fallen through and we can¡¯t have your pride in the way of helping this new young officer. He has to succeed before this other possible Russian agent does. Right now Admiral Pontiff, Coal Drugain will be your top priority. ¡±
*****
Cyrus had gotten quite a bit accomplished in 12 hours of not being in the game. He was even able to accomplish two high paying contracts. One was a simple install of a rotating optics system of a real life Ultralight plane netting an easy couple of grand. The other was just upgrading a Jeep Rubicon for a little bit more rugged redneck fun. With all the extras he threw onto the already beefy Rubicon he was able to fairly charge close to seven grand.
He even had time to sit and eat with Coal. The main topic of course was Destiny Online. Coal was excited to tell Cyrus that about how hard this NOCS(NATO Alliance Office Command School) and that he would soon be getting first pick of assignments on a ship for the hands on experience of his training because he was top of the class.
Cyrus was however not as forth coming with what just happened to him in the game. It was still painful and embarrassing to tell his brother he had slightly fallen for another crazy chick. ¡®Why... Why do I always go for the wild crazy ones?¡¯ Cyrus thought to himself. ¡®Why oh why, can¡¯t I just find me a good girl for once?''
Irish quickly changed the subject, ¡°So bro, how is spring football training treating you. I heard the new head coach is a hard ass?¡±
Coal laughed with a seriously grim face, ¡°Ha, hard ass doesn¡¯t even cover the realm of what is the head coach. If his play-off record didn¡¯t show how good a coach he was, I would have quite already. The freshman head coach had been put through the ringer so many times already by the head coach, he put in his resignation to the athletic director.¡±
Wow, Cyrus knew this new head coach was suppose to be tough but it almost seems like overkill. Cyrus comforted his brothers obvious moral killer, ¡°Don¡¯t worry, he¡¯s still on a probationary period. If you boys don¡¯t kick ass at the football camp scrimmage they district school board will most likely boot him. Not to mention the boosters will be in an uproar.¡±
¡°I¡¯m almost wishing we don¡¯t do that good during the summer camps,¡± Coal huffed out.
¡°Hey, don¡¯t be like that. A Drugain always does his best and if you see your teammates slacking you kick them in the ass. Your varsity now, you better act like it and don¡¯t you dare drag our family name through the dirt,¡± Cyrus didn¡¯t mean to be that harsh but for Coals previous statement he had to be chastised. No one slanders the name of Drugain in words or action, that includes even a Drugain.
Coal held up his hands in supplication, ¡°I know, I know bro, I would never throw a game. I was just venting.¡±
Cyrus nodded and smiled at his brother ruffling his red hair. Getting up he began collecting the dinner dishes while missing his sister Ria. She almost always did the dish and cooked for the two boy¡¯s. Her food was far superior to the dribbleings that they could make. Even though, neither of them were horrible at cooking, they just were like a candle compared to the sun that is Ria¡¯s cooking.
While Cyrus began doing the dishes Coal tried sneaking away. Irish saw him in his peripheral vision, ¡°So I take it Coal, that your grades aren¡¯t what they should be if your trying to sneak away before showing them to me?¡±
¡®Dammit, he has eye¡¯s in the back of his head. Oh-well, he would of tracked me down anyways,¡¯ Coal thought as he froze in place with a guilty look on his face.
Cyrus shook his head in disappointment. Not turning from doing the dishes he sternly told Coal, ¡°Leave the grade sheet on the bar counter and go study. Your band from playing the game for tonight. And NO, before you ask you can¡¯t use the capsule for studying. Don¡¯t worry further punishment will be reward depending on how far your grades slipped.¡±
Coal knew not to argue with his brother. It would only get him in deeper shit. With slumped shoulder Coal made his way up stairs to his room.
Cyrus was grimacing and trying to hide it from his brother he set the dishes down and made his way to a bar stool. His leg was throbbing in harsh pain and he didn''t want Coal to see him like that. That was why he sent him off without a lecture about his grades.
After a couple off minutes of sitting he made his way to the downstairs bathroom. Reaching under the sink he garbed a prescription bottle of pain killers he had taped under the sink. He knew Coal or Ria would never do drugs but he decided not to tempt fate so he hid his doctor proscribed pain killers. Hell, Cyrus didn¡¯t even like taking heavy narcotic painkillers because it dulled his mind. Right now though his legs was throbbing so bad he decided to take one. Limping and cringing his way back to the kitchen to finish the dishes.
It took awhile for the pain killer to kick which was sweet relief, he was not so fond of the foggy feeling the drug caused. Cyrus sat at the bar counter and read his brothers report card. It was all A¡¯s give or take a plus(+) or minus(-) until Adv. Writing with a horrible B(-). Cyrus couldn¡¯t remember the last time Coal or Ria had a low B grade let alone a B-. Cyrus had to calm down, it was no use getting worked up when his mind was under the influence of a drug. He set aside the report card, deciding to look at more objectively the next day. Even though, he was already planning a few extra chores for Coal. ¡®Who said life was fair, drugs or no drugs, life was definitively not fair,¡¯ Cyrus thought as he headed for his capsule in the basement.
*****
It had been almost been three full 24 hour days in-game that Cyrus had allowed his Avatar¡¯s NPC take over. He just hoped that the NPC was able to not make him look like an idiot while he was away. It shouldn¡¯t have been hard. The two combat shuttles should be in a drift heading towards the original target space station because it was the closet thing to them. It was also there only chance at survival. They couldn¡¯t make it to any other station before, life support, food and water ran out. Not to mention the game would be extremely boring at this given time. They still had over two weeks of travel to get there. He still needed to log in and check on things. He was still technically the leader of the other eight survivors.
Of course, Irish had to go through his Home-space first before entering the game. The first thing he saw when he became aware in the game was the shuttles ceiling. His Avatar NPC was strapped in just staring at the ceiling. Irish quickly unstrapped himself and quickly became aware that the shuttle was in zero-g. Irish could of sworn the combat shuttle¡¯s were equipped with a gravity generator. The fogginess of the pain killer he had taken in the real didn¡¯t seem to be effecting him in the game but he was still Confused why their wasn¡¯t any gravity. He queried Laya just encase but Laya informed him that his assumptions where correct.
That absence of gravity meant one of two things. One, something bad happened to the shuttle. Two, Chief took the gravity offline. In either case he still needed to talk to the Chief. Irish moved forward in the shuttle trying to spot Chief. The shuttle wasn¡¯t large and only had two compartments, the passenger bay and the cockpit. The door separating them was open. Irish could tell Chief wasn¡¯t aboard this shuttle. He moved to the port hatch connecting the two combat shuttle and moved across to the other shuttle. The other shuttle was inverted in comparison to the other one so Irish had to reorient himself in order to gather his barrings. It made him slightly noxious do to Space adaptation syndrome(SAS/ Space Sickness) but reorienting himself allowed his vestibular system to calm down almost immediately.
He found the Chief strapped into a passenger harness sleeping. A pretty loud droning sound of snoring was emitting from the Chief, expressive for such a little guy. Irish didn¡¯t want to wake him so he located the next highest ranking man aboard or more so Irish was found by the Bosun.
¡°Hey Lieutenant, its good to see you up and about finally. You have kinda been like a zombie the last few days,¡± Bosun Heller practically yelled while coming up to him.
To Irish the Bosun looked completely healed, ¡°Yeah, sorry about that. It¡¯s been awhile since I¡¯ve had to kill people. Its hard to get used to again.¡± Cyrus was truly a little freaked out by how real death was in this game. Also since he had the chance to get to know some of the NPC who were just as real as real people, it was just as hard as to pull the trigger. Digital or real killing another human would effect any rational person. Therefore he told the Bosun a perfectly plausible half-lie.
Irish discussed the goings on for the last couple days he was absent from the game. He found out that Chief turned off the gravity generators to save power for when they near the station. It was likely from the start of this operation from Tangent Ming Corp. That the station had a pirate faction or just as bad a squatter clan there. Chief wanted to save as much fuel as possible to deal with that scenario and the Bosun was in complete agreement. It also made perfect sense to Irish.
Almost three weeks of monotonous drifting through space didn¡¯t end just because Irish showed up. Irish quickly made three shift with three people per shift. Two of which would stay in the cockpits and monitor passive sensors while the other one would roam around the two shuttle making sure everything stayed Cordelia and that included maintaining a log sheet and the handing out of rations. They only had one month worth of rations. That gave them a week of spare rations but they still didn¡¯t know what they would find at the old station.
The 12 hour shifts allowed Irish to log-out more often for 4 hours between his shifts. However, he decided that he wasn¡¯t going to do that all the time. He planned on using something of that time to work up a blueprint for a ship designed solely by him. A blueprint could only turn into a schematic once a blueprint design was tested. His goal in the future was to build his own ship. Still their was a lot of learning to sift through before he properly draw up a working blueprint. That meant he had to brush up on some mathematics, everything from energy algorithms to thrust ratio¡¯s using almost unimaginable fuel sources, ''Quite a headache!''