《Star Hawk Rises》 CHAPTER 1: The Dormitory! I thought I heard a bang. It caused me to stir for a few seconds, but my mind did not register it as real. However, it was not loud enough to rouse me properly from my slumber, and I soon drifted back to sleep. Only to hear another, louder bang. My eyes slid open slightly, and I glanced out the window. It was still night, which caused me to let out a groan, only to have another bang on my door respond to it. I let out a sigh as I realised the person was not going away. I slowly sat up and placed my feet on the wooden floor. I couldn''t help rubbing my eyes as I let out a sigh of annoyance. I hated being woken like this, especially when it was still dark outside. I slowly stretched and raised my arms over my head so I could hear the popping sounds from my back, before I stood and shuffled over to my dorm room door. For a few seconds, I glared at the door and considered turning around to go back to bed. Unfortunately, the banging got louder, more insistent. I pulled the door open quickly and snapped at the person on the other side while glaring in annoyance. ¡°What!¡± It took me a few more seconds to register who it was through my bleary eyes before I added in a slightly calmer tone, ¡°Do you want, Alison?¡± Alison didn''t respond. Instead, she rushed into my room and quickly closed the door behind herself before she placed her ear against it. ¡°What do you think you are doing! Get out of my room," I hissed at her. ¡°Will you shut up before you get us caught!¡± she hissed back. ¡°Caught by whom? What is going on?¡± I asked. ¡°Marvin has gone crazy! He had a gun and was down in the lobby shooting people!¡± When Alison turned to glare at me, I could see the fear in her eyes. I felt that fear run up my spine as I stumbled back from her, and my eyes grew wide. I felt my back bump into the wall and let out a squeak. Suddenly, I heard a pop followed by three more. My eyes stared fearfully into Alison''s as I thought, ¡®He was on our floor!¡¯ I jumped to my feet and dashed to the window. I quickly pushed it up before I stuck my head out and saw the four-story drop to the ground. Another series of pops sounded closer, which convinced me to go out onto the ledge. Something caused me to glance at my bedside table, where my phone and keys sat. I quickly grabbed them and stuffed them into my hoodie¡¯s pocket before I climbed outside. I felt Alison''s long blonde hair fly past my head as she ran to the window sill.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. ¡°What are you doing?¡± she whispered frantically. ¡°What does it look like I''m doing?!¡± I snapped back in a whispering tone. I glanced at the drain pipe on the side of the building and began to shimmy across to it. A second later, I heard Alison climb out onto the ledge and turned my head. She closed the window behind her and slowly followed me. When I heard the terrifying gunshots come closer, I decided not to comment. Instead, I hastened my progress to the drain pipe. As I reached it, I gripped onto it and tried to figure out how I was going to safely climb down. In the end, I decided to just grip the pipe and pull against it as I walked down the wall. As I held the pipe tightly, I noticed it had been cemented to the wall. This made it very sturdy. I quickly headed down. As I passed the third floor, I got curious and asked, ¡°Why were you banging on my door specifically? Wouldn''t anyone''s door have been good enough to hide in?¡± ¡°It was the first one next to the staircase. My original plan was to escape from the roof by climbing down the fire escape, but the door to the roof was locked! Brainless fools! Don''t they realise locking an emergency exit is at least a fire hazard!¡± I was about to agree with her that whoever locked the roof access was a true eejit, but I glanced at the window on my right and saw a body pressed against the glass. Her eyes were vacant and there was a blood filled hole in her head. I closed my eyes, and tried my best to not throw up as I continued my descent. The fear that gripped me encouraged me to increase my pace. In my haste, I slid down the drainpipe until I felt the cold grass on my feet. I looked back up as I took a few steps away. Luckily, I had stepped away because Alison nearly dropped on top of me as she fell, hitting the ground and rolling a bit before scrambling for the bushes on my right. It was then that I heard the pop sound of a silenced gun and felt the dirt next to my foot leap into the air. I dove the opposite way from Alison to some more bushes. I glanced back, noticing a blood spray on the wall, and quickly shifted my eyes over to Alison, who was ripping her shirt while trying to apply pressure to her left shoulder. I nearly wet myself when the dirt next to my face leapt into the air, accompanied by that terrifying popping sound. Quickly I shuffled over to the base of the shrub I was hiding under and tried to use it as a pitiful shield. Hoping and praying to anyone who would listen to not let this insane guy shoot me. While I was sprayed with dirt and shrubbery. After a while the shooting had stopped, but it took me a few seconds to realise that and a few more seconds after to slowly open my eyes. Seeing the bush and dirt in front of me, I assumed I possibly might still be alive. After checking myself over and coming to the conclusion that I had somehow miraculously been missed by all those bullets, I turned, looking at Alison to see how she was doing. ¡°Are you alive over there?¡± I whispered as I lent out from under the bush to see if the guy was still in the window. He was not. ¡°I better be or heaven was seriously oversold¡± Alison whispered back. I grinned softly at the joke, but quickly scrambled to my feet and rushed over to help her up. She was babying her left arm. We both quickly decided to head across the grass away from the building. We were reaching the curb row of cars as I patted down my oversized hoodie in hopes my keys were still in It. I nearly shouted in glee when I found them but managed to stifle it at the last second. I nearly died of a heart attack the next one when I heard the pop then ting of a bullet hitting a car right next to me, causing me and Alison to drop to the ground between the two cars. CHAPTER 2: THE PARKING LOT. I slowly raised my head above the cars to spot him leisurely strolling across the grass towards the parking lot. Dropping back down, I looked at Alison. ¡°My car is in the 2nd row and near the exit. Yes, I know it''s a lucky parking spot, that''s why I haven''t moved it in a week.¡± I saw Alison''s knowing look and we both inched towards the end of the car. ¡°Okay get across this lane then we can get in your car and make a run for it¡± ¡°Oh, sorry, I consider this the curb row not first¡± ¡°We have to cross two lanes? Shit! That really sucks.¡± As I was preparing to run across the lane to the next set of parked cars, the pop sound made me freeze up, but I did not hear the ting of the bullet hitting any of the vehicles. I quickly snapped around to Alison only to see that she was fine and holding a shrugging pose for me to see. I was about to rise over the car to see what was happening when I heard two more pops and a man¡¯s voice. ¡°Holy shit, you shot me! What are you doing, Joshua? We are on the same side¡± ¡°You took too long Marvin, big Dom isn''t happy, and worst of all you let three escape!¡± ¡°I did not, only two escaped and I got them pinned down in the parking lot, one is injured and both will be dead soon!¡± ¡°Check your mission page, Marvin, you missed someone else who probably has already escaped the area. Now they are going to be initiated into the system and become a rival for big Dom, this is not good.¡± ¡°I still have time to track them down and end them before they receive the system, besides, what right do you have to interfere with my initiation mission!¡± ¡°Do you even know who they are? Don''t answer, it doesn''t matter. Big Dom has sent me a new mission to clean up this mess.¡±This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. I grabbed Alison''s hand, deciding now was our chance to put some distance between ourselves and these two crazy cultists. I quickly ran across the lane to the next row of cars in hopes I could lose them long enough to get to my car. Moving between the cars, I slowly headed away from my car, knowing it would take us longer to get to it, but maybe I could draw them away from our escape route. I slowly raised my head, looking over the cars again, as I heard a few more pops. The two men were circling each other as they tried to shoot the other. One of them had a hatchet in their left hand. I have no idea where he got that from, and at this point I didn''t really care. I dropped back down and turned to Alison. ¡°Where is your car?¡± ¡°Oh, I don''t have one, I ride my bicycle around campus because it helps the environment.¡± ¡°Of course you do,¡± I muttered to myself as I turned to get ready to run across the last lane. Tempted to take one more look before running, I closed my eyes and breathed out slowly before snapping them open and freezing just as I was about to launch myself forwards. I had heard the pop and ting, but luckily that ting sound was a long way away from us and had another pop that resulted in a scream of pain. ¡°Ha! I got you, Joshua, now I''m going to introduce you to my hatchet!¡± ¡°Your death notice is signed, Marvin! Big Dom gave it the green light half an hour ago, and you have already been kicked out of the clan, besides you got me in the leg, I can still limp away and be fully healed in a few weeks, but you have nowhere to run to!¡± ¡°So what? You expect me to just lie down and let you kill me?¡± A few more pops a second later encouraged me to race across the lane. Kneeling down beside a green Camaro after I got to the second row. I placed my head against the car. ¡®This insane mess was taking a fast turn from mass murder to cultist crazy/organised crime, or maybe a mix of both.¡¯ I thought. Alison bumped me as she looked pointedly at me as if encouraging me to hurry up. I shook my head and moved around to behind the car so I could run down the line to my car. ¡±Hey, why are we at this end of the parking lot when your car is meant to be by the entrance? You are not thinking of drawing those crazy murderers with guns this way, are you?¡± ¡°Uh, I was thinking of doing that, but they are so focused on each other that it would have been fine to just leave.¡± ¡°Can we get to your car now, please? I don''t want to be here anymore, And where the hell are the cops? Surely someone called them, shouldn''t they be here by now?¡± I gave her a worried look before raising my head over the top of the car and began to sneak towards mine. But as my head came over the roof of the car, something pulled at the top of my head. A burning heat radiated from the spot, causing me to let out a yelp of pain and drop to the ground. Groaning, I slowly got back up and started moving down the line of cars again. I could feel the adrenaline and fear racing through my body and all I could think of was getting to my car. I had to get to my car, I had to get to safety. Something warm and wet slowly ran down the left side of my face, but I ignored it and kept going, using the cars for support. My walking turned to a mad sluggish dash and the popping sounds increased in frequency and ting sounds soon joined them. It wasn''t until I was leaning against my own garnet red Camaro That I realised I might be having a panic attack. Alison had also been trying to talk to me and get me to calm down, and I thought I could hear sirens. I slowly dropped to the ground, sitting next to my car and leaning my head against it. I looked at Alison, who had suddenly stood up and was waving her right arm back and forth as she screamed for help. I could feel my shirt sticking to me now, and my consciousness was starting to fade. I knew I was struggling to stay awake. ¡®I really hope my car didn''t get hit. Dad would lose his mind if it got damaged. After all the money, he spent making sure my baby got to America from Scotland for me.¡¯ I thought as I slowly began to tilt to the side. I could see a couple paramedics running towards me as my eyes closed. CHAPTER 3: THE INITIATION. The first thing I noticed when I regained consciousness was an annoying beeping sound. It took me a few more seconds to finally crack open my eyes. The second thing I noticed was a blue window screen hovering about a foot from my face. Before my eyes could focus enough on what it said, I noticed the third thing. Two women were standing with their hands behind their backs on each side of the room''s exit, wearing a Giorgio Armani Pure Silk Cr¨ºpe Tuxedo. I groaned at the sight of them as I turned my head to the other side of what was quickly becoming obvious to be a hospital room. I spotted a grey-haired gentleman wearing a suit just as expensive looking, slouched in a seat in the corner asleep. A man stepped forward out of the shadows, placing a hand on his shoulder and shook him awake. ¡°My Lord, the young miss is awake,¡± he said before stepping back into the shadow. ¡°Get the doctor!¡± he responded instantly before straightening in his chair and getting to his feet. The two women by the door vanished instantly, just to come back a few seconds later, standing at their posts as if they had never left. My vision had cleared enough that I could see properly again, and I could now recognise my father standing by the machines reading their info. My eyes shifted back to the blue window screen, reading it. Welcome! You have been initiated into the Galactic system! The system is currently evaluating the initiation event. Please wait seventy-two hours for the evaluation to be completed. After I finished reading it, the window vanished and was replaced with a new one a few seconds later. My eyes glanced over to my father who had started rubbing his chin as he watched the monitors, I could see him glancing at the door every few seconds. I smiled and directed my eyes back to the blue window. Evaluation of the initiation event: complete There are three ways to be initiated, first. Survive a warrior''s initiation mission. Second. Be invited in by a clan leader. And last. Survive being fatally injured by someone already initiated. You have managed to complete all three. You have earned two titles, one perk and four class options. Title: Survivors Guiding Light. Rescue someone in a warrior''s initiation mission during your initiation event. Reward: the ability to give quests to the noble and common people. Title: Clan Scion. Become or be born the son or daughter of a clan leader. Reward: Noble Class Options. You have one Medium Perk point. You have four class options. Knight: the noble class of the warrior, focuses on melee with sword and shield, as well as leading warriors in battle. Artisan: the noble class of the crafter, focuses on a broad range of crafting abilities and managing crafters. Sage: the noble class of the mage, focuses on more than one element of magic and leading mages in battle and supporting roles.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Void Pilot: the high noble class of the pilot, focuses on piloting ships of all classes in space and the command of its crew. Please choose your class. The blue screen hung in the air after I finished reading it. Frowning slightly, I read through it again. I was about to make a decision when the door opened and a man in a white coat entered the room. Looking at the two women before turning to my father. ¡°Lord, you requested my presence?¡± ¡°Yes. Light sage, my daughter is awake, run a diagnostic on her now.¡± The man bowed slightly before turning to me and raising his right hand. A soft white glow appeared around his hand for a few seconds before it vanished back into his skin, and he then lowered his hand and turned back to my father. ¡°The diagnostic is complete. The young miss has been recovering for four weeks and the diagnosis indicates she will require another week before full recovery. The head wound is fully healed, but the bruising on the brain is taking its time. The system has not completed the initiation yet, the chosen class is still pending. Two titles have been equipped. Of course, there is the expected clan scion title, but your daughter has also received the rare title, survivor''s guiding light,¡± He paused to look at me for a few seconds before continuing. ¡°Considering how much your young miss loves her car, I would not be surprised if she was being offered a pilot''s class.¡± My father turned away from the monitors to look at the light sage, a small smile appearing on his face as he nodded his head. ¡°Ha! Survivors guiding light, that is great news indeed.¡± he then turned to look at me and smiled happier, before continuing. ¡°Okay, now we have gotten the b.s. out of the way, let me ask the important question¡­ how are you feeling, my princess? Anything uncomfortable? Causing you to worry?¡± ¡°My car?¡± I croaked, feeling my throat rough and a little dry, causing me to cough. I saw the slight smile before it vanished just as quickly. ¡°I made sure it was airlifted with you when you were brought home to Inverness. Your car is in perfect working order, undamaged and back home, it is being looked after and was cleaned.¡± The light sage moved to my bedside table and poured a glass of water before sliding a straw into the glass and offering it to me as my father spoke. I nodded in appreciation after drinking slowly. ¡°My daughter. Let us now talk about your initiation. I intended for this to happen a few more years from now once you had come home. But here we are. Now, with your scion title, you will only be offered noble classes thanks to my position as a clan leader in the galactic system. That would mean you are offered three classes, but the good doctor here said you might have a fourth, the pilot?¡± I nodded my head and slowly responded ¡°Yes, knight, artisan, sage and void pilot¡± I saw the shock on everyone in the room''s faces before it was quickly hidden. My father used his fist to cough into it as he looked around the room to the other four people before turning back to me. ¡°Well, uh, my dearest daughter, you don''t want the knight, the young guard on the left side of the door is a knight they are best used for guard duty and leading troops into combat like¡­oh, like a squad leader for those American seal teams. The sage like the young guard on the right is not a good choice for you either as they tend to be supporting roles. For instance, moving in those squads as medics or working in private hospitals like this one as doctors and nurses. If you don''t get a light affinity, then you might get hard work in mines or landscaping for the earth element. Air traffic or maybe weather prediction for the air element. The fire element tends to work as firefighters or crematorium workers. Those of the water element tend to get sent to aqua resources or if they are low in the clan they could be sent to make rain in clan research labs or clan greenhouses. Basically, depending on what affinity you have for each element, you could end up working in any role that would request those spells to help the clan.¡± He paused looking me over before continuing a little hesitantly. ¡°I do not think you will enjoy the artisan class, as it sends you across the world looking for resources only to bring them home to combine them into new things and build something for the clan or to sell to make money for the clan. That leaves the Void pilot. However, I am hesitant to suggest it as nothing is known about this class. It has not been offered before, but since it is a pilot class, I can hazard a guess that it has something to do with flying or driving. However, having said all this at the end of the day, your class choice is your own to decide as you will have to live with it, so my dear daughter, scion of the Mackenzie clan, which class will you pick?¡± CHAPTER 4: THE EXPLANATION. I shifted my eyes back to the blue screen and made my decision. And with a thought the class was selected, and a second later the blue screen vanished. A smile on my face after having picked something exciting, only for that smile to slide right off my face and one of horror to slip onto it. When I saw the light sage silently bleeding from the neck, a look of shock on his face as his mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. My father was staring at the monitors. The two guards stood passively by the door watching on like nothing in the world bothered them and the creepy man standing behind the light sage. He wiped a bloody dagger on the light sage''s shoulder a few times before letting go of him and allowing the corpse to fall to the floor. ¡°Worry not about the good doctor, he was from a common class clan, and he heard way more than he should have. If he was left alive his clan would have banded together with a few others to attack our clan and kidnap you, then there would have been a civil war on who got to keep you. Better for everyone if this single man vanishes.¡± my father said without turning away from the monitors. The creepy guy stepped away as the sage guard stepped forward a few steps, raising her hands in front of her. A spark of fire jumped from the left to the right hand, but halfway back to the left it split into two sparks and shot towards the corpse. By the time the sparks had reached the corpse, it had risen to hip height. The two sparks quickly started circling the body, burning wider and wider until it turned into a ball of fire. When it vanished, there was nothing left of the body, not even ash. The sage guard stepped back into position, lowering her arms. ¡°My lord, all evidence has been disposed of. The magic signature will linger for up to forty-eight hours.¡± My dad nodded his head before turning to face me. ¡°Alright, Kenna, it''s time to give you the details of what happened while you were in your coma. The young Miss Alison was shot in the shoulder. It was nothing serious and has been healed by an American light sage. The same light sage that happened to be working as a paramedic on the ambulance that responded to the mass shooting at your dormitory. He recognised the symbol on your necklace that I gave to you for your sixteenth birthday. He took immediate action without any hesitation. That part is from what young Miss Alison told us and the American light sages report. He used his healing magic to save you, even though his partner was a mortal. That mortal has since been initiated and brought into the American Light Sages clan. In thanks, our clan has offered the American light sage one favour to be used in any form he desires even if it is handed over to his common clan to use, as long as it doesn''t go against our noble clan or our clans¡¯ interests.¡± He paused to watch me for a second, making sure I was still listening before continuing. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°When you were declared stable, you were held in an American hospital. For fourteen hours. In which time you slipped into a coma and preparations immediately began to bring you home to Scotland. The family that was hosting you during your university years has been well compensated. After seventy-two hours in the coma your car, yourself, young miss Alison and that stain of a warrior who thought it would be a good idea to hunt in a noble clan¡¯s temporary territory. Along with five knight squadrons. Was loaded onto one of our clans'' cargo planes and flown home to Scotland. Your friend, young Miss Alison, is currently being housed in a secure mansion with seven-foot walls and roaming knight squads. She is continuing her studies via online lessons with the university. We of course are ensuring her safety and happiness, including chefs and cleaning staff. Whatever she wants is a call away.¡± He paused, watching my face. I knew he was looking for any sign about whether he should toss Alison out or if he should welcome her in based on how close I was to her. When I didn''t respond he continued, but I could hear the tone in his voice, still looking to find my verdict on Alison''s¡¯ circumstances. ¡°As for that stain, he is being detained in a clan-enforced jail under the same mansion. Yes, we can use our clan points on buildings and vehicles to bring them into the system. The only reason he is alive is that you, as the scion of the clan and victim of his assault, have not commented on his death or punishment yet. He is currently under the watchful eye of three knight squads, one watching via monitors. The second is roaming the jail block to keep eyes on everything and making sure no one tries to interfere, the last one is standing in key positions, with eyes on the prisoner at all times.¡± He paused, looking at me before letting out his breath. ¡°Alright, last bit, think of the word status, and then I will explain to you what you are seeing.¡± I couldn''t help it, not that I had tried to stop it, the word status ran through my head so fast I didn''t realise it, but the blue window popped up in front of me just as fast¡­ STATUS. Name: Kenna Rowan Mackenzie
  1. Clan: Mackenzie
Clan rank: P. Baron-Tak Galactic Credits: 0 Class: Void Pilot Titles: Survivors guiding light. Scion of clan Mackenzie. ¡°Bet you couldn''t help yourself from thinking about it before I finished talking, huh?¡± he chuckled and then continued. ¡°It is your basic gaming system. Name, clan, the class you chose and of course your active title or in the rare case titles. The last one is pretty obvious. Galactic credits are acquired by completing missions assigned by the system, trade or sales. These missions also earn clan points for our clan. You will notice that the clan has an N. in front of it, this is to designate that the clan is a noble clan to yourself and anyone using identity on you. If you were not part of a Noble clan, then you would see a C. to indicate a Common clan. Lastly, there are rumours that there is an R. out there somewhere to indicate a Royal Clan that rules over all clans of a planet. But I have never seen one, and I do have the identify ability. As for the P. In our clan rank, it indicates we are a planet Baron-Tak as opposed to something else that the system has not made us aware of yet, my guess is solar system or something similar. With that said, we have one last thing to talk about before I have to leave you to recover.¡± He let out a long sigh as he watched me for a few seconds. ¡°How we are going to deal with the American common clan that offended us.¡± CHAPTER 5: HELL HATH NO FURY! ¡°What are you going to do about them, Dad? The two guys that argued were called Marvin and Joshua, why did you only grab one? Oh, and one, I think it was Joshua, who said Big Dom gave the mission that caused so many deaths." I said in a rush. My dads head snapped to face the creepy guy who frowned, then pulled a tablet out of his jacket and started tapping away on it. After a few minutes, he finally spoke. ¡°My Lord, Joshua was found dead on the scene by local law enforcement, with a hatchet in his skull. Marvin was arrested by the police and then transferred to our custody when we prepared for departure. This big Dom according to police reports is the cousin of Joshua, his full name is Dominic Lopez. A gang member from a Small-time gang. The police are not concerned about him yet.¡± ¡°Gang member? Not leader?¡± I asked curiously. ¡°That is correct, My young miss, his father Robert Lopez is the gang''s leader.¡± My father scoffed and looked annoyed. ¡°One of you two go buy a cargo plane for my daughter, her car will need it from now on and more currently for her return trip to America.¡± he turned to me before continuing. ¡°Kenna, as a scion of our clan, it now falls to you to seek justice for a member of our noble clan being attacked on foreign soil. You will go to the noble clan in charge of the American territory in Washington, D.C. and find out who rules New York and demand answers to why they allowed one of their common clans to attack a noble in their territory!¡± ¡°Forgive me for asking the obvious question, Dad, but why would they answer me? Or give a shit? Aren''t they a noble clan as well? Why would they even bother to see me when what feels like yesterday I was just a university student?¡± ¡°Ah, yes, I should tell you how the systems¡¯ high society works,¡± he said as he turned And walked over to the door before continuing. ¡°I am a Baron-Tak, I am closer than most think to reaching the rank of Viscount. This would mark our entire clan as a Viscount clan. America is what we would call an upstart territory. We sent members of our clan there years ago, but due to their betrayal, they had to build their territory from scratch. And today the highest-ranked clan in America is a baron. They are located in Washington, D.C. and rule over the many knight rank clans across America.¡± ¡°Dad, you''re not making any sense, that doesn''t even explain anything!¡± He sighed heavily as he withdrew his hand from the doorknob. ¡°Alright, I''ll try again. The system has been on this planet longer than the written word, including Sumerian. But for a clan to grow in power, they must possess land. The more land the clan owns, the higher their rank, it is why so many wars are fought over land. It is also why the English sent sailors out to find more land, like America. Settling there was meant to raise our clan to viscount or even a Viscount-Tak. But a greedy little... Yes, well you know American history, red coats and blue coats. The Civil War was about a lesser clan trying to become the dominant clan. Didn''t work, of course. On the bright side, we managed to get a good chunk of land in Australia, We are still expanding there, we will be a viscount clan and if we manage to sneak across Australia fast enough then Viscount-Tak is achievable. Oh, I can''t forget the land we have on the moon and Mars. But I digress.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. ¡°Dad, you keep adding Tak onto these ranks, what is that?¡± ¡°Tak is like a knight but for nobles or a rank between the ranks mortals know¡± ¡°What do you mean, mortals?¡± ¡°Oh? I didn''t tell you? The more powerful a clan is, the longer their lifespan is. I am already over a thousand years old with a lifespan in the hundred thousands, and because you are a member of this clan your lifespan is just as long, you haven''t even reached a hundred yet, a long time to have fun right?¡± He suddenly clicked his fingers and pointed at me like he had remembered something important. ¡°Perks, everyone who is initiated through a trial by fire, much like that warrior attacking you, gets a small perk. Perks are mysterious and powerful things. Four small perks can be combined to make a medium perk but don''t get excited; they are very hard to acquire¡­ For example, in the thousand years I have been alive, I have only managed to acquire the one small perk I received in my initiation and the one small perk I was rewarded from a very difficult mission. It took me five hundred years to expand my soul-bound land to its current size and have the city of Inverness built on top of that land before the mission was completed.¡± He gave me a knowing look before continuing. ¡°I bet you are wondering what you can spend your small perk on. Well, I spent my first small perk on the land that the mansion is on, keeping the soil fertile and water clean. It is how I made my money, employing families to work the land. Also, how I keep us all fed. The soil is enriched to grow crops faster than normal and encourages the food to be healthy for the body, even a mortal one, and improves the taste of any food grown on the land.¡± My father grinned at me as if waiting for me to get curious about his second perk, but as I opened my mouth to ask, he continued before I could. ¡°My second small perk went to the mansion. It was a hut back then, and through the power of soul binding which activates the soul system for the bound land, vehicle or object. With the hut, I gained the soul system and was able to over the years acquire the points to upgrade the land and the hut into what it is today. Besides that, I have seen a lot of interesting ones over my time, and I am looking forward to seeing what yours will grant you. Alright, rest now Kenna, it will take a week to get your plane sorted and you on your way. And with your new strength you can, with a little effort, wipe out that traitorous American clan¡­ ya know, if you feel like doing that.¡± He then turned and opened the door before he stepped out of the room, the other three followed him before the door closed, and I was alone. CHAPTER 6: THE EVICTION! I woke up with a start when I heard a door bang against the wall. A few seconds later, some shouting from the room next door started and was getting heated quickly. I let out a sigh and pulled the blanket off me before sliding off the bed and walking over to the window. The sun was shining, there wasn''t a cloud in sight, and I could see my baby parked in the parking lot. I could also see the blond sitting on the hood of my baby while some other woman took pictures with her phone, and I was not going to tolerate some stranger touching my baby without asking! I frowned in annoyance as I turned and walked over and into the bathroom so I could get changed without anyone walking in on me. Coming back out a few minutes later wearing my favourite black cargo jeans, a white shirt and a leather jacket with a Scottish flag patch on the left sleeve. I quickly walked over to the exit. I pulled open the door and stepped out into the hallway. The hallway was empty, not even a nurse at the nurse station. ¡°Weird¡­maybe it''s shift change or something¡± I mumbled to myself as I started walking down the hallway to the elevator. I walked past a few rooms, peeking in only to see them empty, causing me to frown after I passed the third empty room. ¡°The hell is going on here?¡± I could see a slight bit of dust on the surfaces of everything as I moved slowly, heading for the nurses'' desk, hoping I could find out what was going on there. As I approached the nurses'' desk, a woman appeared out of thin air like a hologram suddenly getting turned on. ¡°Welcome Void Pilot, I am Void Lieutenant Alencia Ferdinga. First, The void in our class gives us access to a sub-system of the galactic system. This is a system for the galactic military, anyone given access to this system is immediately recruited into the galactic military service. Secondly, congratulations and welcome Void Recruit Kenna Rowan Mackenzie. Soon you will exit this consultation session then you will be disconnected from the military system Link and returned to your body, once that is completed your status systems will receive a secure link code that will allow you to connect to the ship''s servers that I am currently on. This ship will be the military Ship you will serve your enlistment time on for the next four years, re-enlistment is not guaranteed. Alright, we are out of time. If you have any questions, please ask your drill instructor. Congratulations, recruit, you are going to boot camp!¡± The hologram woman vanished just as suddenly as she had appeared, leaving me dumbfounded and speechless. I opened and closed my mouth a few times, not managing to grasp what just happened. ¡®Was that a recording?¡¯ ran through my mind. At the same time, my eyes were drawn to the dust on the counter, unable to shake the feeling there was something wrong with it. I went to step away from the counter as everything went white and then black. When my vision came back, I was standing in the doorway of my room, having stopped mid-step. I could hear the noise of a hospital floor as people walked around it in front of me. A blue semi-transparent screen appeared in front of me. I glanced at it, ¡®link disconnected¡¯. I dismissed the screen and slowly started walking towards the elevator, expecting someone to stop me or talk to me about some system or something. But no one did, and I reached the elevator, pushing the down button. I turned around, watching the floor as I waited for the elevator to arrive. My eyes lingered on the clean counter of the nurses'' desk for a few seconds before shifting around the room. I was interrupted by the ding of the elevator arriving. I turned around and walked in, pushing the ground floor button, and waited.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. I stepped out of the elevator when it reached the ground floor and headed for the front door. I smiled when I got outside the hospital. Taking that first deep breath of fresh air that didn''t smell of bleach and chemicals made my smile grow a little wider as my eyes moved to see my baby on the sidewalk and no one near it. I walked over to it and reached for the handle, only to find it locked, causing me to frown. I moved my hands over my jacket to see if there were any keys in my pockets. Not finding anything, I let out a loud sigh as I turned back to the hospital entrance. Only to see the knight from a week ago coming out. She spotted me and smiled as she fished my keys out of her pocket and held them up for me to see. ¡°Did you just get evicted from your hospital room?¡± she asked as she rocked my keys back and forth so they clinked together. ¡°I evicted myself, and now I''m going home¡± I replied as I started walking around my car to the driver''s door. ¡°Not in the driver''s seat, you''re not, security drives. Her ladyship sits in the back.¡± I groaned as I switched directions to sit in the back, deciding not to comment. As I reached for the door handle, the car made a beep sound as it unlocked. I ignored that and opened the door, sliding into the back and closing the door behind me before slipping my seatbelt on and putting an annoyed face on. It felt really weird to be in the back seat of my own car. As the knight lady slid into the driver''s seat of my car, she glanced into the rearview mirror to look at me. ¡°Yes, I know it is weird to not be driving your own car, but your father has commanded it to be this way for your own protection. Now, before we head home, my name is Wilma Mackenzie, I am your cousin from a branch family of the Mackenzie clan. And I am assigned to your protection detail. Okay onto the important stuff, you need to know this for your own safety. The windows have been replaced with military-grade ballistic glass from our country''s military and then reinforced by the system. It could stop .50 calibre bullets before it was reinforced, so I am not sure what on this planet could penetrate it now, if anything. The tyres have been replaced with military-grade no flat tyres. As for the body of the car, it has also been replaced with military-grade ballistic steel and then reinforced by the system, making this car one of the most heavily armoured on the planet. Shall we get underway now, young Miss?¡± I just nodded my head as I slowly looked around at my car, trying to see if I could spot the differences, but I didn''t manage to spot any. Shifting my attention out of the window I watched the scenery roll past enjoying being back in my home country. It wasn''t long before we reached the gatehouse to my fathers'' estate. We were quickly waved through and started heading up the long winding road to the mansion when a blue semi-transparent window popped into existence in front of my face, blocking most of my vision. Recruit Kenna Mackenzie you have failed to arrive on time for your military recruitment appointment, forced up-link initiating in 5. 4. 3. I stopped reading after three and quickly turned to Wilma to scream for help or a way to make it stop, but before I could open my mouth, my vision went white then black. CHAPTER 7: THE RECRUITMENT! When my vision returned, I found myself standing in the doorway of an office building, with people in fatigues walking about or sitting behind desks. The desks created a sort of barrier between the fatigue-wearing people and those wearing civilian clothing like myself. I slowly walked forward, feeling confused. ¡°Recruit Mackenzie, in my office now!¡± I saw a man with his hair cut short, he was wearing fatigues with some sort of transparent plate over his breast pocket and shoulders. He stepped back into the room without waiting for my reply. I followed the man into the office, pausing in the doorway as I looked around the room quickly before entering and sitting down in the chair his hand had pointed to as I paused in the doorway. I saw the transparent plate over his breast pocket had a name scrolling from right to left. I glanced at it reading ¡®sutori¡¯ my eyes shifted to his shoulder seeing a symbol I didn''t recognise spinning slowly. ¡°Recruit Mackenzie, you are late, and I am a busy man that does not have time for your tardiness. However, it is not entirely your fault. I did review the footage from your subsystem, welcome. However, the recruit that performed the welcome forgot to inform you that you had 5 minutes to use the secure link codes for your recruitment interview. Now shall we get down to the interview?¡± ¡°I, uh, I am not sure why I am here or where here is?¡± ¡°You are on the servers of the spaceship designated GFA1752. This particular server is used in military recruitment for this sector of the void. The reason you are here is to be assigned to a boot camp that is best suited to your particular class.¡± ¡°What, void pilot?¡± ¡°Yes, now that particular class has two options, the navy or the Marines both use void pilots. The question here is, do you want to fly ships or drones?¡± I clicked my tongue in annoyance before responding, ¡°I can fly drones back home, why would I want to do that here?¡± ¡°How would I know, your primitive humans do weird things, and the drones from our marine branch are a lot more sophisticated than the primitive versions on your planet.¡± ¡°Still sounds like a drone operator instead of a pilot to me.¡± I muttered as I looked down at his desk for a few seconds while I considered it.¡± ¡°Pardon? I couldn¡¯t hear you, recruit¡± ¡°You are not really giving me an option, the only thing I would choose is to be a pilot of a ship, otherwise I wouldn''t be a real pilot, would I?¡±If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. He instantly grinned, and I watched his uniform ripple from his collar down to his boots, changing from a forest camo to a black and grey camo. The symbol on his shoulders changed to a new one. ¡°You wish to choose the navy? Please confirm this decision by stating ¡®I choose to join the Navy¡¯. Otherwise, I won''t be able to process your request.¡± ¡°I choose to join the navy¡± I deadpanned at the man as I stared into his eyes. He dropped his grin and started moving papers around his desk before touching the top one on a stack and flicking his finger in my direction. A hud activated in my vision and the papers appeared floating just in front of me. I could see my health displayed at the bottom left as numbers. And I began to read the contract floating in front of me. ¡°This is a lot of words,¡± I muttered loud enough for him to hear. ¡°Shall I simplify it for your primitive mind?¡± I tried to look past the papers to glare at him, but the top page shifted, staying in front of my eyes, its contents changing, as the other pages disappeared. I, Kenna Mackenzie, hereby agree to the following conditions. A semi-transparent window appeared below it with the outline of a right hand. And the words ¡®place hand here to sign¡¯ I paused and then read the page again trying to take it in and understand what I was agreeing to. I finally reached up and placed my hand against the outline as it flashes green and then vanishes. The uniform-changing man in front of me smiled again and then shuffled the papers before pulling open a drawer and dropping them into it. ¡°Alright,¡± he said as he closed the drawer and looked at me. ¡°Your paperwork has been submitted, filed and forwarded to your drill instructor and your secure uplink codes have been updated. You will have ten minutes of home world time to get your affairs in order before you are ordered to report to boot camp. Any questions before I request your disconnection?¡± ¡°What do you mean ten minutes? How the hell do I even use the uplink? And more importantly, what is happening to my body while I am using the uplink?¡± I rapid-fire asked as my eyes narrowed to glare at the smug-looking guy. ¡°I am going to ignore the obvious question, as I am sure anyone from a planet with the concept of time. Can tell how long ten minutes is and what it means. So let''s move on to the second question. Anyone with an uplink cradle can send their consciousness to the galactic server. However, since you are currently not using one of those to attend this appointment, I can only assume you do not have access to one and therefore are using the very primitive thought connection way of connecting to the galactic server. You connect by simply thinking ¡®Activate secure uplink¡¯. I do not recommend long-term use of this method as it has known side effects. But if you are insistent on using it, then your body simply goes to sleep where it is and remains asleep until you disconnect. Now please exit my office and good day.¡± He turned his back to me as his chair swivelled, and I felt an urge to give him the bird finger but stood up and stomped my way out of his office. The second I passed through the doorway though, I felt my body jerk and my eyes snap open. A little semi-transparent blue box read ¡®You have been disconnected¡¯ I let out a sigh of annoyance as I turned to see Wilma holding my door open and waiting for me. Shifting my legs, I slowly stood up out of the car and looked at Wilma. ¡°Welcome home, young miss.¡± CHAPTER 8: PREPARATIONS! ¡°I have ten minutes, I need to be in bed before that timer runs out, and I need to speak with my father before that, tell him it''s about the void thing.¡± I declared to Wilma. ¡°Is that why you passed out in the car for a few minutes? I thought you were trying to sneak in a power nap before you saw your dad¡± I nodded as I quickly walked past Wilma and headed up the stairs and into the main doors. Wilma followed quickly by my side. And whispered to someone as we passed the huge double front doors. The man she had whispered to ran like a hellhound was nipping at his ankles. I continued towards my bedroom, deciding I did not have the time to get distracted by watching him run. The mansion was huge; it had a basement and three floors above the ground floor. My bedroom was on the top floor and I quickly moved over to the grand staircase and ascended to the first floor, turning in the direction of the next staircase up when I spotted my dad quickly walking to catch up with me. Watching it I remember Dad had once said ¡®Kenna, one does not ever run, if we are in a rush we walk briskly but never enough to appear as though we are in a rush, for we are calm and collected at all times.¡¯ I smiled at him as I slowed so he could catch up before I ascended to the second floor. ¡°Kenna, what is the rush and why do we need to talk about your void so quickly, can we adjourn to the tearoom and have some tea over this discussion?¡± ¡°Afraid not Daddy, I have less than ten minutes to be laying down before I am forced back into¡­ something, I''m not exactly sure what it is yet, but I will find out after I finish what they are calling boot camp for the galactic alliance navy¡± He paused a second on a step before taking two to catch back up with me and started side-eyeing me. ¡°What?¡± ¡°There are whispers of the Galactic Alliance, on this planet. There is no proof they are real, but the rumour is that they are some sort of government out there in space that controls our sector of it. They are known only to noble clan leaders because the system informed us when we became nobles that the royal we serve answers to the galactic alliance government. But we don''t have a royal, so we don''t know how it affects us yet.¡± ¡°Then, once I complete boot camp, I could find out more information on how this all works, and maybe get some benefits for our planet and clan¡± ¡°Yes, my dear, that is my hope, but in the meantime what is your plan for our two guests?¡± I stopped at the foot of the staircase up to the third floor as I turned to face him, my eye quickly checking the clock that had appeared in the top left corner of my new hud showing I had five more minutes till my deadline.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°Uh, well I''m guessing Alison was initiated since she got shot, so she will need a clan if she can''t start her own. I think that might be something she would enjoy, but I''m not sure.¡± ¡°Not our clan?¡± my dad asked quickly. ¡°Considering she is a foreigner, that means she would already be in if you wanted her to be, since you are asking me, then it is to see if I will separate the clan from friendship and make the right decision with all the facts instead of an emotional one. So, I put this to you Dad, should she join our clan and be sent to America to expand our territory on a real estate front purchasing up land and building businesses on it? Hell, you could build houses on it and rent them out. Or option two send her home to start her own clan. If it helps, I think she was working on a law degree. I mean, I would use it as a sneaky way to push into America and build up territory.¡± My dad slowly nodded as we turned and walked up the last staircase. He didn''t speak again until we reached the top of the staircase. ¡°And what about the one I want to do unspeakable things to for almost taking my baby from me?¡± ¡°Marvin¡± I whispered as I glanced at my dad''s face. ¡°Yes, the hatchet boy.¡± ¡°Leave him to rot in that cell with one square of toilet paper to use per day, or maybe some straw.¡± ¡°Half rations too? And how about no straw or paper?¡± ¡°Sure, also stale bread and dirty water.¡± I stopped outside my bedroom door as I let out a sigh, reconsidering it. I glanced at the timer to see I still had four minutes, then looked at my dad and sighed again. ¡°No, best to give him manual labour to do, keep him busy and useful to the clan until I get back from America with an explanation. We might need to exchange him for something, so it''s best that he isn''t a skeleton.¡± My dad and I looked at each other then we started to laugh. After a few seconds, my dad finally started to nod his head. ¡°Aah, stale bread and dirty water, is this a medieval prison?¡± ¡°You would know better than I¡± ¡°And I''m not telling, now get in there before you pass out in the hallway.¡± I nodded and then opened my bedroom door, stepping through and closing it, leaving Wilma and my dad standing on the other side. I turned to see my old suit with a large lounge room taking up the area in front of me. The very comfy-looking couch sat in front of a huge, hundred-inch screen television. I hurried past all that and headed for the door on the right, entering a rather large wardrobe, moving through it to the ensuite. I quickly stripped and got in the shower, rinsing myself off with the long-needed hot water. Before getting dressed into my jammies and moving on past the bathtub to my bedroom. Jumping into the huge king bed. Dad had once said they didn''t make king beds like this anymore. It was big enough to fit several people. I smiled happily as I snuggled into it, pulling the huge quilt up around my neck As I sank into the many pillows. ¡°I have missed this, it really is heaven!¡± I almost dozed off before I managed to wrestle my consciousness back to being awake enough to glance at the timer. I was down to seconds. ¡°Activate secure uplink¡± I mumbled as my consciousness slipped from my grasp again. I was struggling to hold onto it. The bed was just so comfy and plush. The next thing I knew, I was standing on a field in a skin-tight suit that went from my neck to my toes. I was also surrounded by what had to be a hundred or so, men and women wearing the same thing. ¡°Listen up you puke stain excuse of a meat bag! I am your recruit division commander, you may call me drill sergeant or sergeant Oostarn and you all will be turned from the stain you are into something I can work with, and that''s just day one. Get ready, cadets, you are now in boot camp! CHAPTER 9: BOOT CAMP START! We were quickly pushed onto a track field and told to run, each time someone started to slow down they were yelled at by the drill sergeant until they were running at full speed again. I had no idea how many laps I ran before the ground decided to take a run at my face and steal all the air from my lungs, leaving me coughing and gasping before I lost consciousness. I woke up lying on a cot in a room with a dozen others. I slowly sat up, seeing the other people wearing the same black skin-tight suit talking and wandering around the room. ¡°Oh good, you are finally awake, we can start now, gather around everyone!¡± the drill sergeant called out from across the room. I got to my feet and walked over, joining the other recruits in a sort of semicircle in front of the drill sergeant. Waiting to find out why we were all here and what was going to happen next. ¡°Alright, if you are in this barrack, that means you managed to run at least one lap on a five thousand metre track. The amount of laps you managed to complete will be displayed on your reward notice, along with how many credits you have earned for completing your first job as a recruit. But it won''t be this easy from here on, you will train like your lives depend on it from zero eight hundred until sixteen hundred then you will go to the job board outside and select a job to complete before reporting either to training at zero eight hundred tomorrow or the barracks to sleep no sooner than twenty-one hundred if you enter the barracks before that time you will be fined. Got it! Good, now the rewards.¡± She waved her hand in our direction as if she was virtually sending us something from her hud. She continued talking, ¡°it is currently zero seven-fifty-five. That means I expect you to be outside after dressing yourself from the lockers by your beds. Once outside, you will move to your squad positions and stand at parade rest. I expect you to be there in five minutes. Dismissed!¡± The semi transparent blue screen appeared, informing us all how many laps we had completed and what our rewards were. Congratulations, you have completed six laps. This is the most laps completed by a human recruit of this boot camp. An extra reward has been awarded. You have received ten thousand credits. You have been appointed team leader. You have been awarded one small perk. I turned and rushed over to the bed I had come from. Finding a locker standing next to it. The other recruits were rushing around to get to their own lockers. I read the window as I reached my locker, causing me to falter as I read ¡®team leader¡¯ wondering what the hell was up with that and why I had become one. I pulled open the locker only for a window to appear inside it asking me if I wanted to equip my armour or my uniform. I mentally clicked the uniform. Something shot out of the locker, hitting me in the chest. I stumbled back a few steps, grunting in shock as I looked down to see myself wearing navy camo fatigues. I slowly turned away from the locker as I stared at the uniform I was wearing.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. ¡°How the?¡± I mumbled as my mind slowly put it together. The skin suit changed colour like the recruiters, but that couldn''t be right because the clothing actually looked like clothing instead of a skin suit. I slowly walked outside with the other recruits. I noticed my hud was displaying a silhouette of a body at a spot on the grass for me to stand, it even had a little arrow to show me which way to face. I went and stood on the spot facing the correct way and the silhouette vanished. Looking back down at my uniform as I reached up and tugged on it softly, making sure it was actually there. It was. ¡°Attention on deck!¡± the drill sergeant yelled as the silhouette appeared again, showing how to stand at attention. I moved to copy it, and it vanished once I was in position. ¡°Alright listen up you stains, the six people standing in front of all of you aren''t fools standing in the wrong spot, they are there because they are your team leader. They are your team leader because they managed to outperform you in your first job in the Navy, and someone had to be the team leader, so why not the best runners. No need to cry if you are not the team leader because boot camp just started, and you will have four more chances to become the team leader. Cause in four weeks you all graduate. That means you, current team leaders, are going to have to continue proving you are the best. I know you will fail¡­ except maybe one of you who is fit enough to be assigned to a carrier-class ship already, and if they don''t tank the next four weeks then they will be. This is big, so you should all strive to gain this kind of advantage. Now, no team can be without their squad leader. That is why these three sergeants standing behind me are here today, they will be squad alpha, squad bravo and squad charlie. Two teams go into a squad. And I''m going to have a little fun by mixing and matching teams. Team Mackenzie you will be with team Silvertree in alpha squad. Team Amberleaf and team Hammerfist will be squad Bravo. That leaves team Steelanvil to go with team Jones in Charlie squad. Sergeant Ritz, take alpha squad and run them through flight simulators. I think they are fit enough for it.¡± ¡°Yes ma''am, you heard her stains, get your asses in gear and fall out! We are going to learn how to fly some toys!¡± Sergeant Ritz screamed as she walked over to stand in front of me. Her right arm had extended to point at a building In the distance to my left. The silhouette reappeared and moved its right fist to its chest and stood For a second before dropping its arm and turning to face left For a second before turning left to face the squad. I quickly moved to follow its actions and once I was facing the squad, little words appeared in front of my left eye as if someone was typing them, so after Reading a few words I got the hint and started yelling them to the squad. ¡°Squad! We have our Orders. Let''s get to them! Left face.¡± I then had to wait for everyone to turn left before the last word appeared, and I yelled, ¡°March!¡± My silhouette then appeared and turned right, paused for a second and then started marching along next to the squad, causing me to imitate it quickly. I had marched about halfway to the building when I had the idea to check my status page by thinking ¡®status.¡¯ I wanted to see if all this Navy stuff had done anything to it and if my credits were listed. Name: Kenna Rowan Mackenzie Clan: Clan rank: P. Baron-Tak Military Rank: Recruit Military Position: (Unnamed Team) Team Leader, Alpha Squad Galactic Credits: 10,000 Class: Void Pilot Titles: Survivors guiding light. Scion of clan Mackenzie CHAPTER 10: FLIGHT SIMULATOR! The squad had entered the building to find it was a huge warehouse full of pill-shaped capsules and the sergeant screaming from behind us to find our assigned capsule that was highlighted on our huds. My hud led Me to a capsule in the middle of the room with a big black 7 on the back of its white shell. As I moved around to the front, I noticed team leader Silvertree was standing in front of the capsule next to mine. She was seven feet tall and radiated beauty. I blinked a few times in shock when I noticed her pointed ears. She stepped forward and entered the pod as it closed around her. ¡®Elf?¡¯ I asked myself as I stared at the pod. I was still standing there staring at her pod a minute later when the sergeant walked past and pushed me roughly into my own pod, snapping me out of my daze as the pod closed around me, encasing me in darkness. ******* Sergeant Eloana Twiddles. Was sitting at her desk in the NCO office watching the alpha squads¡¯ holographic monitors. As the recruits were loading into the virtual hangar filled with a few different types of ships. She did not notice the man standing behind her watching the screens over her shoulder. But she had noticed a human recruit stare with her mouth open at an elf as she stepped into her pod before the human was pushed into hers by the sergeant, and was now watching her load into the hangar next to a spitfire void plane. ¡°Bumpkin from the outer rims, bet you don''t even know that boot camp is on a time dilation, and you will be completing all four weeks in one day. I bet you haven''t even seen an elf before¡­ Ya know what, let¡¯s just turn her training from basic to realistic.¡± she chuckled to herself as she reached up and tapped the holo screen before continuing.¡°Go on, little bumpkin recruit, get into the spitfire and know the pain of failure! Then I''m going to bleed your little account dry until you''re too poor to afford life in the military. I hope you get drummed out fast, little bumpkin!¡± The man standing behind her was listening to her mutter to herself and slowly shook his head, knowing an elitist attitude like this kept many promising NCO''s from making officer rank. He turned and walked over to stand behind another Sergeant watching the Beta team. He knew there was nothing he could do to save that recruit as the NCO''s in this room were not under his command and he was just sticky beaking into the training program hoping to find a promising potential recruit for his platoon. But he was already filling out a complaint form against the sergeant to her Commanding officer on his hud. A few seconds later it was complete and sent. His eyes dropped to the holo screens showing the beta squad. He watched them walking towards a hangar full of ship parts while a sergeant was yelling at them about what they were about to do. ¡®Void engineers, useful, but I already have a squad of them that doesn''t need new members.¡¯ he thought as he watched the team leaders start directing their teams towards a pile of parts cordoned off from the rest. He turned, losing interest in them quickly, and moved over to the last Sergeant in the room watching Charlie squad.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. Who were already running through an obstacle course wearing heavy packs and carrying various types of rifles and heavy weaponry. They were working on their endurance. He let out a long sigh as he turned away, heading back to watch Alpha Squad. ¡®Marines, not part of my command. Looks like alpha squad is the only pool I will be able to choose from, but they are controlled by an elitist That will only support those from or closest to the core worlds.¡¯ Stopping behind Sergeant Twiddles, he watched her for a while before looking at the screens. He silently watched the human that the sergeant was currently trying to throw obstacles at to make her look bad, but the plucky human seemed to be weathering them with ease. He couldn''t help but snicker inside his head when he heard the human scream ¡®It is just like flying a plane back home, only faster and more terrifying¡¯ watching her move in and out of the other pilots as she dodged them pulling off stunts that the instructors had yet to teach the class he knew at that moment he had to have her. ******* ¡°Aaaahh, haha, this is amazing!¡± I couldn''t stop myself from screaming in joy as I sat in the ship''s cockpit, which looked like the front end was a needle and the back end a teardrop. The controls were amazingly sensitive, the slightest touch could send the ship hurtling in another direction. I couldn''t keep the big smile off my face as I moved the ship between the other pilots'' fighter ships, quickly learning how to fly in space. For some reason, it looked like their ships were flying like kids'' push-bikes with training wheels or something, while mine was a top-of-the-line sports car. I glanced at the objective listed on the bottom left of my hud telling me I had completed My objective to fly in an S-shaped pattern between at least five other recruits'' fighter ships. I chuckled as I saw it update to ¡®fly at least two metres apart canopy to canopy with another fighter ship for thirty seconds¡¯. I glanced at the nearest fighter ship and shifted my own around to fly with them. I rolled my ship, slid over the top of them, and slowed myself down to fly with him. I looked up into his canopy, watching him freak out at how close I was before finishing the thirty seconds and rolling to the left, flying away. I slowly began to circle back around towards the carrier, enjoying the view of a ship that was supposedly the size of a city. But to me, it kinda looked like a giant beetle in space without any legs. I was trying to spot the hangers that housed the ships, knowing I was about to learn how to fly the drop-ships. The objective had been updated to ¡®return to carrier¡¯. I continued to smile happily, finding these objectives easy. I had grown up flying planes with my dad and uncles. We had been up almost every weekend. When I turned sixteen, my uncle Bruce had purchased a Cessna Skyhawk and stored it in a hangar near my university. I was allowed to take it up whenever I wanted. I had my private pilot''s licence, so I could use it to fly three of my friends to Vegas for the weekend. As I got closer to the carrier, I noticed green squares in front of my fighter ship slowly getting smaller as they led me into an open hangar. I slid the fighter ship out of them, only for them to turn orange as I got closer to their edge, then red as I crossed out of them. I laughed and slid back into the middle and headed into the hangar to land in the green-lit square on the deck and started running through my power-down checklist. CHAPTER 11: STAR HAWKS! I was enjoying the feeling of sitting in the pilot''s seat of a drop-ship while waiting in the hangar as I ran through my pre-flight checklist. It had been a week since we started boot camp, and yesterday a few team leaders had switched to new people. I had somehow managed to remain a team leader. The sergeant in charge of my squad had also given us a team name and ordered us to come up with an emblem for it. Apparently, every team needed one, even if it was only formed for boot camp. We were the Star Hawks due to our uncanny ability to silently fall out of the sky and land in hot zones while snatching victory by getting back out again with minimal damage to our ships. Personally, I choked it up to the fact my team was eager to follow me into spending every credit we had earned since day one on food and so many training simulators to get our timing and skills up to the level needed to pull it off. At the time I had wondered if there was a skills page that listed what skills we had, but I never found one and when I asked the sergeant he just told me to go away in a very profanity filled way. I had also encouraged my team to keep the initial credits from the running reward as a nest egg in case something went wrong like we failed to complete something and didn¡¯t get paid or worse we received a fine. Not all of our squad members were still with us at the end of the week. We had completed a promotion exam and were promoted to privates. Our squad leader then threw all of us into a private first-class exam; two of the elves failed it and were washed out. Sergeant Ritz seemed to be determined to have us at the rank of sergeant before graduation. Team Silvertree had become the Molten hounds and had been assigned the spitfires to fly since their team had unanimously chosen to specialise in them, leaving my team to focus on the drop-ships. Their emblem, according to PFC Silvertree, was a common native hunting dog from her home planet, it had lava dripping from its mouth and the emblem had lightning bolts crossing each other in the background. To me, it looked like a three-headed great dane that was drooling lava. I turned my head, checking a camera¡¯s holo screen displaying the hanger behind my drop-ship. The people I was waiting for still had not arrived. I quickly glanced at a drawing on my hud that I was slowly building. After I became a private, we had been given access to a military store in our huds and I had purchased an app allowing me to mentally draw pictures. So far I had the outline of a hawk with its wings flared out as it came down, golden talons extended to snatch a marine from the ground, but something about it just wasn''t right¡­ like it was missing that little spark that would make it perfect. A smile slowly crept onto my face as I had an idea. I left the hawk black to indicate space, the outline was a beautiful ultramarine colour. I pulled up some nice bright white stars, carefully placing them onto the chest in the shape of the big dipper to represent the most famous celestial stars in Scotland and to represent the Northern Hemisphere. On the stomach of the hawk, I placed the southern cross to represent the Southern Hemisphere. After that, I placed a bunch of dull small stars around all of them to give it a spacey kind of look. Once I was done I nodded to myself in satisfaction as I whispered ¡°Perfect, a little piece of home to carry with me out here to see the stars.¡± This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. I left the marine as he was, charging forward with his rifle raised, and submitted the emblem logo for evaluation. Hoping it would be accepted and not declined for already belonging to some other team or squad. I then closed down the app and glanced at the camera again to see I was still alone. I was about to whine and complain about my passengers taking forever when a holo screen appeared on my right, out of the way of everything but still prominent enough for me to see the face of my Sergeant on it. ¡°Sergeant Ritz, good to see you today, what is the special occasion that has you calling?¡± I asked cheekily. She smiled softly for a second before it vanished and instead Of replying to me, she made an announcement. ¡°Greetings, molten hounds and star hawks. Today is a special day. Because a bunch of my old friends have decided to do a training exercise by going back to their basics, and you all get to play a role in their deployment and protection as well as retrieval.¡± I saw a flash of light out of the corner of my eye and turned my head to see a man in a hazard vest and camo pants waving a light from a pen over the side of my ship. But before I could voice a concern about it, sergeant Ritz caught my attention again. ¡°Eyes front! I''m not done talking! Geeze the cheek on these pilots after they get a little rank under their belts. But I suspect you are being distracted by a ground Crewman who is spraying your team''s emblem onto the side of your ships. Congratulations On your successful submissions. Team Star Hawks cut it close with their submission, though.¡± He shook his head in mock dismay before continuing. ¡°Molten hounds emblem is not too exciting in my opinion, I have seen dozens of variations of the Miltdu that seeing it no longer spurs much interest, but the star hawks¡¯ emblem is something new, I have not seen anything like it. Is this creature common on your planet, PFC Mackenzie?¡± ¡°Uh, no, it is not-¡± ¡°Oh!? So it is a rare beast? Fascinating, you will have to tell me all about it later because we are almost out of time for your explanation. Okay, what is about to happen is molten hounds will get the green light to take off, and then they will follow their mission objectives until the drop-ships launch then molten hounds will form up and follow star hawks to the planet protecting them from any enemies making sure they make it to the atmosphere so they can complete their mission. Once planet side, you will provide cover support and act as the bombing team for any air raids, the marines call in. Star hawks, you will be waiting here in the hanger for the marines to come charging in, they will load up inside your cargo area, strapping into the seats and will wait for you to get them planet side where they will disembark to complete their mission leaving you to either hunker down and hide until they request extraction or fly around out of the way, risking enemy spotting you and attempting to shoot you down, your choice. Okay, that is everything from me, good luck and remember you will be doing a lot of these sorts of missions over the next week, proving you are capable of continuing down the path of your chosen speciality. Sergeant Ritz out!¡± The screen vanished, leaving me alone as I heard the three spitfire engines powering up as they left the deck and headed for the hangar exit. Leaving the five drop-ships waiting for our precious cargo to arrive. CHAPTER 12: UNDER FIRE! Feeling a little alone and left behind, I kept glancing at the camera feed as I ran through my checklist again, making sure everything was in working order and ready for takeoff. Once I was done with the checklist and my passengers still had not shown up, I couldn''t help but glare at the camera feed for a few seconds before letting out a sigh, knowing that glaring at a holo screen wouldn''t do anything. ¡°Status¡± I mumbled. Name: Kenna Rowan Mackenzie
  1. Clan: Mackenzie
Clan rank: P. Baron-Tak Military Rank: Private First Class Military Position: Boot Camp Alpha Squad, Team Leader, Star Hawks Galactic Credits: 10,743 Class: Void Pilot Titles: Survivors guiding light. Scion of clan Mackenzie I felt a small sense of pride as I looked at the star hawk in my military position. It felt like I belonged to something unique. Feeling the urge to go see the emblem, I got out of my seat and walked through the cockpit door past the seats and down the ramp before turning right and walking around the side of the ship to look at the huge emblem on the side. It looked like it was part of the metal, huge and beautiful. A bang snapped me out of my admiration for it and caused me to turn my head to see a stream of green camo-wearing marines running out of a door towards the drop-ships. I noticed as they reached the optimal spot they would diverge like a river hitting a rock, until five streams were running across the hanger deck, one for each drop-ship. A few seconds later, the squad of marines heading for my drop-ship was storming up the ramp and inside, only for the last man to stop at the bottom of the ramp, staring at me. ¡°You the pilot?¡± Like an eejit, I just nodded. I felt like my mouth was open slightly, so I quickly closed it before letting out a cough to cover my embarrassment. ¡°Yes, uh. Yes, I¡¯m the pilot¡±. ¡°You know, you''re supposed to be in the cockpit not ogling your team''s emblem, right?¡± I felt a blush rush up my neck and over my face before a glare settled in place. I was about to open my mouth and yell, but he spoke first, preventing my tirade. ¡°Although I must admit it is very beautiful, and yet terrifying but also, one of the most unique creatures I have ever seen.¡± he grinned at me then walked up the ramp and into the drop-ship leaving me there alone. I let out a sigh as I took one last look at it and ran to follow him into the drop-ship. He was strapping himself into a seat. I glared at him as I walked past, heading for my pilot¡¯s seat.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. ******* Sergeant Oliver Sanchez had just strapped himself into the drop seat and looked up to see the cute pilot walk past him. He couldn''t help but grin as he saw her glaring at him. Somehow she looked cuter when she was glaring. He shook his head trying to dislodge the idea that this pilot kind of reminded him of his little sister back home and turned his attention to work and used his mind to open his hud and start a chat channel with the other members of his squad. [SGT. Sanchez: Listen up, we are headed to the planet Junto¡¯clera. Population¡­ uh, I can''t count that high, but let''s say it is a very big number. That means there is no rest for us wicked souls! Haha, alright We will be up against those ugly blue octopus head-looking people, no other species will be in this engagement¡­ no promises for tomorrow. Expect bows, darts and lots of poison. Oh, and don''t forget they can spray that ink crap from their faces, if it gets in your eyes it will eat your eyeballs right out of your skull.] He paused there as he accessed one of those apps he was not meant to use in a boot camp training server, but he felt that a pilot really should experience it happening before they got blindsided by it during real combat. The app brute forced a connection for him to the ships¡¯ cameras, allowing him to see what the pilot saw outside the drop-ship. ¡°Shit, those spitfires are already missing two of their pilots? That''s not going to bode well for this group of recruits,¡± he muttered to himself as he observed the drop-ships flying in a V formation, with the drop-ship he was on in the lead. Personally, he would have had them flying in a diamond formation. The spitfires were also formed up in a V formation of their own, covering the front and sides. He was about to turn his attention back to prepping his men when the spitfire on the left side of the formation exploded. Before he could blink, all the drop-ships suddenly broke formation flying in a chaotic pattern as they spun and twirled, the speed increasing as they left the spitfires behind. They reformed back up in a diamond formation and began to corkscrew their way towards the planet at a speed that had him getting nervous about how fast they were going to hit the atmosphere at. He could see the spitfires trying to keep up, but it was clear they didn''t have the same level of training as these pilots. He shifted nervously in his seat when he saw them shift suddenly, alternating their flight path to skim against the atmosphere instead of into it. A second later, another spitfire was destroyed as it did not shift with the drop-ships. [CPL. Lipsto: Sarge, are you seeing this feed? Who the hell are these pilots? Seriously, this flying is good enough to attract the interest of them.] [SGT. Sanchez: I know, but It is rough and unpolished. Still, it is surprising that they are only in the first week of boot camp. I wonder how much time they have spent in the training simulator?] [CPL. Lipsto: You are kidding, right? Can the simulator even train this kind of skill?] [SGT. Sanchez: uh? I admit it''s been a while¡­ Wait, wait, are you noticing it? Our ship is leading, and the others are following a few seconds behind, it is like a spiralling dance of following the leader.] [CPL. Lipsto: oh, shoot, you are right. Dang, if she stays team leader till the end of their training, then these pilots are going to become very attractive recruits for them.] [SGT. Sanchez: I have no doubt she will, only a serious bone head would take TL from her at this point. [CPL. Lipsto: she is passing through the atmosphere, I think it''s time we start prepping the squad. Sir] [SGT. Sanchez: oh, right, we are still talking in the squad channel, aren''t we? Okay, you all know the drill, we go in, grab the mission objective and drag his ass back to the drop-ship and haul him back up to the carrier. It''s an easy in and out! Let''s get it done!] [YES SIR!] [YES SIR!] [YES SIR!] [YES SIR!] [YES SIR!] [YES SIR!] Yes, sir, started flooding my squad channel. I didn''t much care about looking at who said it. My attention had already shifted back to the cameras, watching the last spitfire crash into the atmosphere at the wrong angle and go up in a ball of flame. I gritted my teeth and shook my head slightly, ¡®Those pilots were definitely green¡¯ I thought as the ship I was on started rushing towards the ground. I stood up and turned towards the drop door, ready to run out with my squad. [SGT. Sanchez: on three! One¡­ Two¡­ CHAPTER 13: PLANET SIDE! I swear I could hear my teeth creaking or something as I gritted them together. The ground was rushing up as I tried to manoeuvre the drop-ship away from whatever was flying up at us at an alarming speed. I barely had time to register that It had been fired before it was already hurtling past us. ¡°Shit, shit, shit!¡± I screamed the last word as I smashed the button for the ramp and pulled back on the yoke. My hand shifted quickly to add more power to the thrusters, then to the landing gear. The engines screamed to slow my speed down, barely getting it slow enough in time for the landing pads to hit the ground with a rough landing. I turned my head as I cut the power to the engines and looked out the door at the Marines and screamed. ¡°You have twenty seconds to get the hell out of my ship!¡± I quickly shifted my attention back to the controls and began shifting power back into the thrusters for take-off. I shifted the yoke at the last second to fly a few feet off the ground, giving the marines a bit longer to jump out. The sensors were going ballistic at me, screaming all sorts of warnings. ¡°Aah, what the hell are they shooting at me?¡± I complained as I glanced at the rear camera to see four marines still inside. I shifted the ship hard to the right to avoid whatever my sensors told me was about to occupy the position I was in. I let out a hiss as I yanked the yoke back hard and pushed all the power into the engines climbing into the sky. A few seconds later I smacked the ramp button to close it only to hear someone yell. ¡°What the hell, I''m still in here, ya know!¡± I glanced at the camera feed for the cargo hold and frowned as I saw only one marine still standing by the ramp door. I couldn''t help but let out a sigh, but then I didn''t have time to pay attention to his problems. I was trying to get the ship high enough to vanish into the clouds in hope they could provide me with some cover. ¡°Hey, open this door and get me back down there right now!¡± I ignored the fool, he didn''t jump in time, and I wasn''t going back down for one slow marine. I climbed above the clouds and turned slowly, circling back around as my sensors started letting up on their screaming. I had lost track of the other drop-ships. I was about to hail one of them to find out where they were. When a chill ran up my spine and my left hand moved quickly, pushing the lockdown button, closing the door to the cockpit and sealing it shut. Moments later, I could hear the marine pounding on the door as he screamed to be let in. I was going to just ignore him until I heard a bang and spun around to see a dent in the glass of the door where his sidearm was pointed. ¡°You¡­¡± I growled in anger as I turned to the contact holo screen and pushed ¡®contact Sergeant Sanchez¡¯ The screen changed to a private chat. [SGT. Sanchez: not a good time, pilot. We have the cargo but getting him out is proving difficult, not to mention we are not at the extraction zone yet.]The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°That''s nice, first what the hell are these ass hats shooting at me? And second, tell your dumb ass slow marine that couldn''t even jump out of a drop-ship to stop trying to break into the cockpit before I space his dumb ass." I screamed over the banging of the marine¡¯s sidearm as he shot the glass a few more times. [SGT. Sanchez: what?... uh¡­ hold that thought.] The banging suddenly stopped, and I could see on the screen that the marine had stood still for a few seconds before he stomped over to a seat and sat down, but he kept shooting the camera a glare. [SGT. Sanchez: I apologise for PFC Juttins¡¯ behaviour. He will be reprimanded severely. As for what''s being shot at you, I am not entirely sure. The Hocto are advanced enough to shoot laser beams into space and destroy ships in orbit. However, this is boot camp, and you are meant to be experiencing basic training mode, not realistic. But, your training being set to realistic would explain their level of technology even down here. I mean, I''m supposed to be up against darts and bows, not auto turrets and plasma rifles.] ¡°Basic? Realistic? What are you talking about?¡± [SGT. Sanchez: uh¡­ well boot camp is referred to as basic training, once complete you have the option for advanced training ya know if you want to actually go into real world missions. It is also referred to as realistic training. Uh, by the way, do I still need to fire this flare now that we are at the extraction zone or can you just come pick us up?] ¡°Uh, well the flare is meant for a location reference, so I know where you are. Wait, if this is a realistic training mode, does that mean I don''t have to do the advanced training anymore?¡± A light on my radar suddenly appeared and started blinking. [SGT. Sanchez: How''s a locator beacon working for you? Ya know, since we are playing on realistic mode. As for your query about the advanced training, the answer would have to be¡­ dunno, but I will find out for you. I tapped the blinking dot as I shifted the yoke. It spun the ship around to point in the direction of the sergeants¡¯ beacon. I took a deep breath and then checked my sensors. ¡°Okay, here I go Back into hell, apparently a realistic version of it.¡± I pushed the yoke forward and dropped through the clouds like a stone, and thirty seconds later I was back in hell, dodging what were apparently laser beams. ******* ¡°Sir, what the hell is going on? I would swear this was one of our training programs, not the boot camp walk in the park it¡¯s meant to be.¡± ¡°I don''t know, corporal. But I will find out. However, I am tempted to not touch it, once I do, considering the results it is producing with these drop pilots.¡± I saw the corporal nodding out of the corner of my eye before focusing on the sky. The star hawks¡¯ drop-ships were dropping faster than I had ever seen one fall, at the last possible second their engines flared at max shooting the ships forward across the landscape only to lift their noses and land in front of the marines the drop doors already open. I waved my hand quickly and ran onto the ramp, aiming my rifle across the field to cover my squad as they all ran onto the ship with the cargo. I turned, walking up the ramp slowly as it began to close. My eyes slid over the captive, making sure the Hocto king had his mask on securely and was secured tightly in his seat. They then moved and locked onto the little shit that failed to get out in time and then had the balls to attack the pilot. A glare settled onto my face as I marched across the deck to stand in front of him. I stood there staring down at him, unable to decide what punishment I wanted to dish out to the man who nearly cost us our only way off this cursed planet and out of the simulation. He turned away from the camera and looked up at me about to open his mouth and spout some excuse that I no longer cared to hear, and at that moment I decided the ultimate punishment for attempted sabotage of the extraction vehicle would be appropriate. ¡°There is a rule, it is a very simple rule. An unspoken rule among the commanding officers of the marines. It is a rule that no NCO or higher will ever break. It is the one rule that is absolute no matter what happens. Don¡¯t ever fuck with the drop pilot!¡± ¡°But Sir-¡± ¡°Shut the fuck up! You are hereby banished from my clan and off my squad effective immediately¡± CHAPTER 14: TROUBLE IN CAMP, PART 1! Sergeant Eloana Twiddles threw her datapad down on her bed as she screamed in anger. That insufferable bumpkin had survived the seventh impossible mission. Not only had she survived, but her entire team had done it too. No matter what she threw at those damned drop pilots and their bloody marines, they always seemed to pull through it. Pacing her room, she tried to think of anything she could do that would get rid of that bumpkin. ¡°Ooh, I got it, if I complain that she is too harsh to lead, then that will show that bumpkin her place at last!¡± ******* Sergeant Oliver Sanchez was stomping around the squad room as he growled in frustration, someone was really screwing with this boot camp, and he believed he knew who, but it was also getting to the point that even his squad was struggling to keep up. The second week had finished and only one of the molten hounds. PFC Silvertree had made it through the week without washing out. Unfortunately for the star Hawks, they had also lost one of their own to an over-stressed mental washout. Oliver had heard the gossip floating around about what had happened during the promotion exam, too. Mackenzie had made it to the rank of corporal; everyone else had fallen asleep from exhaustion during the exam, and one of them had ended up in the hospital due to collapsing during a stress test. They had failed to get promoted. Some sergeant named Eloana Twiddles had started pushing for Corporal Mackenzie to be demoted from team leader on the grounds she was obviously pushing her team too hard and was driving them into the ground, otherwise they wouldn''t have been too exhausted for their exam. She was also claiming that Corporal Mackenzie was attempting to endanger the lives and mental health of all her training officers by forcing them to monitor and assess the brutal and extreme training regiment she was forcing on her team. He knew It was a complete load of bullshit and the real reason was the seven missions they had been forced to complete in what he had discovered was in fact set to realistic mode. His own squad looked ragged and dead on their feet, and barely managed to complete the last mission, the assassination of the king of Platuron. An absolutely insane mission for a realistic mode, especially when they were beefed up with the help of the completely unlikely Classio races¡¯ advanced technology with its blasted-assisted auto aim and fricken built-in space magic. Allowing those infernal turrets to shoot at your face but hit you in the ass. That mission had no place in a boot camp, let alone a training mission for a squad of actual marines that had real world mission experience under their belts. He let out a frustrated growl and then turned to his squad, who were lying all over the squad room, too exhausted to change out of their mission gear. ¡°Listen up, squad¡­ or at least pretend you are,¡± he said tiredly as he sat down on a bench. Corporal James Lipsto suddenly sat up from the bench he was lying on as the light from his com bracelet turned off.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. ¡°Sir, you''re not going to believe this, but Mackenzie has been demoted to brick two. A PFC Johnson is currently being pushed through a promotion exam, which he is refusing to take, by the training NCO Twiddles. He is being appointed the new team leader of Star Hawks, but he is refusing command, stating that he defers command to his most trusted and former leader Corporal Mackenzie, who outranks him.¡± ¡°Damn¡­ alright, well on the bright side, I have got our orders from LT. We are officially off the boot camp detail. You may all start submitting every single complaint you have.¡± The dings he was receiving from his squad were almost deafening, like they each had hundreds of complaints they had been saving up. He let out a sigh when the cacophony finally stopped; he then attached his own complaints and a brief summary and sent the entire thing to his Commanding officer, Lieutenant Wiltor Cilterian. ¡°Alright, that''s all sent off to LT. Cilterian who no doubt is currently receiving complaints from the other four squads as well. But just for fun, I''m going to take any bets you want to make. I bet that he is probably at this very moment relaxing on his home estate with his father, Celestial Duke Arthur Cilterian of the Elfian Core world.¡± ¡°There isn''t a snowflake¡¯s chance on helio that could get me to take that bet, sir!¡± Chuckles started off softly from the squad, but before long it had turned into a full-blown roar of laughter. ******* ¡°Aaah, what the hell is this b.s.? Demoted? Dereliction of duty for failing to provide adequate respite during missions and training exercises? The hell does that even mean? Sergeant Ritz didn''t allow us more than the allotted eight hours of rest and sleep.¡± I mentally turned off my hud and was about to let out a scream as loud as I could when I was interrupted by PFC Johnson. ¡°Ma¡¯am, Drill Sergeant Oostarn wants to see you in her office right now!¡± he said as he was saluting, then turned and hurried off. I let out a groan before turning and heading in the opposite direction he had come from and walked to the NCO building. It took me a while to find the correct door and when I did, I was still not sure that it was the correct door as someone was scraping a Drill Sergeant word sticker off the door. I decided to knock on it just in case it was the right door, and the moment my hand got near it, I heard. ¡°Come in Corporal¡± I blinked and slowly withdrew my hand before reaching for the doorknob. I stepped through the door and closed it behind myself before standing at attention in front of her desk. ¡°Ma¡¯am, you asked for me?¡± ¡°Yes, I have called you here to discuss a few things. Let''s start with PFC Silvertree; she has filed enough complaints to create a foot-tall stack. I don''t know what you did to upset her, but I kid you not I have one here that says and I quote Private First Class, Mackenzie turned her head made direct eye contact with me and coughed three times, I felt threatened. As a drill Sergeant, there is nothing I can do about all these complaints even if they are ridiculous, but I think it''s an attempt to rack up as many complaints about you during boot camp as possible in hopes no ship will want to take a chance on a problem pilot. But since my predecessor was demoted and transferred to who knows where I have literally just been promoted and as the Lieutenant in charge of the boot camp server on the ship GFA2812 I can dismiss these frivolous complaints as nothing more than nonsense that eats up our valuable server space. However, there is one I can''t just dismiss, as it is a somewhat fair complaint, and you did not counter-complain it in time.¡± CHAPTER 15: TROUBLE IN CAMP, PART 2! She looked a little more serious as she watched me for a few seconds before finally telling me what the complaint was. ¡°It is a complaint about your actions on your first mission with the Marines. PFC Silvertree complained that your team panicked, broke ranks and rushed the planet leaving behind the spitfire team leading to the death of the entire team. Normally this would be a fair complaint as you should have had a full team of spitfires covering your approach and been trained to not break formation with them. However, it was your first mission, and you had not been given any training for that situation yet, and the missions that followed had to be performed without a spitfire team covering you. So, I filed a punishment on the complaint, stating I have ordered your team to complete a proper training exercise that will teach the star hawks proper protocols and formations in their own time.¡± She gave me a stern look for a few seconds before grinning and continuing her speech. ¡°Now I could have dismissed that complaint as well if you had filed a complaint of your own upon your return from that mission stating the molten hounds failed to supply adequate protection for your team. However, since you have not done that, and I have reviewed the footage of that engagement I have decided to attach the footage to the complaint so that any potential recruiter viewing your file can clearly see your skill during the first mission of a week two boot camp and know without a doubt that it was a failure in the spitfire team and not a failure of the drop pilots. I have also taken the liberty to decide that PFC Silvertree has become a hostile pilot towards your team and most likely will not be able to provide adequate defence for your team on her own, so I have declared her a washout and she will be rejoining the rest of her team to try again at the next boot camp training program aboard this server. As for your defence, I have assigned the Sergeants overseeing the spitfire teams training to enter missions with the star hawks. They will be more than adequate for the job, so make sure to impress. ¡± She gave me a knowing look for a few seconds before letting out a sigh and continued talking ¡°Now that''s dealt with, I am going to continue onto the part that scares the living crap out of me. And should terrify you. In this universe we inhabit there are a lot of clans, a staggering amount of them, but there are a little over one hundred that are known as the three core worlds and those that surround them. Alright, let me give you a little backstory on this so you can fully understand the gravity of what I''m going to tell you. First, we have the elf clan which is the most powerful clan at this time, they hold the position of the first core world and are known as the Celestial King Dawntree clan. The second core world place is held by a powerful clan that seems to focus on engineering. They are the Dwarf clan known as the Celestial King Steelanvil clan, and yes, we do have a Steelanvil in the engineering program right now. The last core world is held by us humans, though do not let that fool you into thinking their clan will even acknowledge you exist, let alone lift a finger for you. They are known as the Celestial King Olympus clan.¡±Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. I felt my jaw drop open as I stared at her. ¡®Olympus like in the Greek fricken gods, that Olympus?¡¯ I couldn''t help thinking as I struggled to collect myself enough to listen to what she was saying now. ¡°-are not exactly surrounding as they are more all over the place but have enough territory to achieve their clan ranks. So, after our three core worlds, we have our nine Celestial Dukes who are referred to as the inner worlds. After the nine terrifying clans that might be able to take on one of the core worlds if and only if they all banded together and actually worked together without any backstabbing or betrayal. We have the twenty-seven Celestial Marquess who make up what we call the outer worlds. And then after them are the rim worlds, which are made up of eighty-one Celestial Counts. If you were to ask me about anyone after them, I would have to say no one would care to remember or label them, as they are simply known as backwater clans after that. If you are not from one of these one-hundred-and-twenty clans, then you are backwater trash. That is the way it works. Now fun little fact, most of our orders come from these Celestial counts. The clans higher than them have their own armies that are way bigger than the Galactic Federation Alliance. The Marquess is triple the size of our army, and the dukes are triple the size of them. So, if you or I were to irk even slightly a member of one of those Celestial Counts¡¯ clan members then they have the power to send a GFA carrier ship into our home solar system and destroy every planet there until only stardust is left, they might even snuff out the sun for good measure.¡± She nodded at me and gave me a few minutes to come to grips with the immense power she was talking about before she decided I was ready for the killing blow. ¡°Picture that kind of power, that the Celestial Counts wield and how scary it is for me to even brush up against it, and then imagine how I felt when I received a message from Clan Leader Celestial Duke Arthur Cilterian him fucking self!¡± I felt it, I felt my face drain of all blood instantly. ¡°You can relax and stop having a panic attack or whatever that face is about. While the message was about you, it was not a complaint for you. Celestial Duke Arthur Cilterian has a son, and his son is a void officer like myself. Interestingly enough he commands the platoon of marines your squad had been training with for the last week, and they held all their complaints until they were no longer assigned to this server before submitting them all at the same time to their commanding officer who happened to be enjoying dinner with his father on their home world when he received them. To say he was irked would be the understatement of the century. It caused him to do an audit of this server, and they went through everything with a very fine tooth comb. It has led to many changes, for instance, my predecessors¡¯ demotion and transfer for allowing so much of the shit going on to pass by unnoticed or punished. It turns out among a great deal of other things he was allowing one Sergeant Eloana Twiddles a great deal of free rein in the way she trained pilots including but not limited to the training mode in which your squad was experiencing. Turns out it was set to realistic mode from the very beginning. Your handling of that has impressed not only the marine squad but now also the Celestial Duke and his son. Therefore, under all of their strong recommendations, I am reappointing you as team leader of the Star Hawks and leave you with one decision. Would you like to complete the last half of your training in the basic mode it was meant to be in, or would you like to continue in realistic mode and be the first team to complete realistic Boot Camp?¡± CHAPTER 16: THE DECISION! I felt like I was going to have a heart attack or something. This was way too much information. ¡°I¡­ uh¡­ uh¡­ I¡­ team?¡± I took a deep breath while looking at the lieutenants¡¯ confused face and tried again. ¡°Can I uh, get the opinion of my team first before I decide it does involve their future too¡± She smiled and nodded her head before she spoke. ¡°A wise choice, yes of course, then have your hud send me the answer so you don''t have to come back here again, and I can get to work on sorting the mess my predecessor left behind. Corporal, you have a big week ahead of you, but I know you can do it. Oh, right before I forget, you are probably worried about the difficulty Twiddles was setting for you in the realistic mode, well you don''t need to worry about that anymore Ms Twiddles was charged with a fair few crimes and was court-martialed for things including but not limited to the harsh treatment of recruits that according to the evidence has been going on for a long time, so you were not the first she attempted to force wash out, but you will be the last. She was also charged with bribing a marine to purposefully murder a recruit pilot during a joint training exam. Yes, your team was being tested. However, there is evidence that the marine refused until the marines'' children were threatened to get him to open fire on your cockpit. I think the charge of treason was even thrown at her, anyway she is no longer in the Galactic Federation Alliance and has already been sent back to her home world to spend the rest of her life in a four by four padded wall jail cells for the criminally insane. Now if that is all then you are dismissed¡± I saluted, turned and then left the room as I stepped out. The man was now pushing bubbles out of the sticker on the door that read Lieutenant Oostarn. I smiled at it and then quickly headed to the cafeteria, where my team should be eating at this time. I felt lighter and like a hundred years of stress had been removed from my shoulders, and almost skipped into the cafeteria and over to the table my team was eating at. ¡°Damn, corporal, did you win the lottery or something? You look downright ecstatic.¡± ¡°Lieutenant Oostarn just made me team leader again and informed me that the molten hounds are gone, so they will be replaced with their instructors for the remaining half of boot camp, so our training won''t suffer, but we have to complete a simulation on protocols and formations that we were supposed to have learnt last week before we can tackle this week''s training. The better news is I have found out why the missions were so difficult, and the person responsible for throwing extra challenges into the simulation has been¡­ removed permanently, so we won''t have to worry about them anymore. But we do have a decision we need to make¡­ together¡± ¡°What is it?¡± ¡°Yea, don''t keep us in suspense, what is it?¡±Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°Ma¡¯am, we will follow you no matter the decision you have already proven to be an effective leader and I personally would follow you to your next posting given the option and if you give me the name of your solar system''s orbital station I will move to it and join your guild. Because I really want to remain in your team¡± ¡°Yea, what Johnson said¡± ¡°Oh there is no way you are getting rid of me either, we are all star hawks for life now. I am even considering getting the emblem tattooed on my arm!¡± We all turned to look at PFC Ripter after he made that declaration and stared for a few seconds. The thought of what the hell an orbital station even was evaporated from my mind. The emblem drifted into it, and for a few seconds I even pictured it on my own right shoulder. ¡°Let''s do it¡± ¡°Yea, come on. Let''s go get it done right now, all of us¡± ¡°My idea, so you know I''m in¡± All three of them turned to look at me with expectant eyes and big grins. ¡®Fuck, peer pressure strikes again. I wonder how pissed dad¡¯s going to be when a tattoo appears on my shoulder while I''m sleeping¡¯ I couldn''t help thinking before a huge grin spread across my face. ¡°Damn, alright, let''s do it!¡± I cheered before stopping and smacking my forehead. ¡°Oh, crap, I forgot the big decision, we have to decide if we want to continue in realistic mode or wimp out and do basic mode for the rest of boot camp.¡± The three of them laughed at me before standing up and herding me across to a little kiosk near the barracks, and Johnson started fiddling with it as the other two grinned at me. It was PFC Ripter that answered for all of them. ¡°Isn''t it obvious we are hardened realistic boot camp trained drop pilots, why would we wimp out now when we are already halfway through. Let''s finish this shit in style, Corporal!¡± I grinned and nodded as I typed out the message on my hud and sent it stating our intent to continue on realistic. I then walked over to the kiosk and looked at the design program closing and a window opening asking if Johnson was sure he wanted to use that design and I could see a perfect picture of The star hawk emblem positioned to cover the right shoulder. He clicked yes, and then a hand print appeared on the screen asking for payment. He clicked split payment, then placed his hand on the screen. PFC Ripter quickly ran forwards and slapped his hand down on the kiosk screen. PFC Walker quickly moved forward, pushing Ripter out of the way so she could place her hand down on the screen, and then I slowly moved toward the machine as they made room for me. I looked down at the hand print and smiled softly. ¡°We are Star Hawks for life. We now fly together in this life and the other." I proudly declared. They screamed yea! As the four of us raised our right fists into the air together with big grins on our faces only for them to vanish a second later as we began to scream and rip at your tops to expose our right shoulders that was being burnt and coloured revealing a tattoo in the most specific detail and colour I had ever seen like the tattoo was alive and would devour me if I wasn''t careful. ¡°Holy mother of all living fuckity fucks that hurt!¡± I screamed as I turned a few times, waving my clutching my arm as I tried to mitigate the pain. After whom knows how long, I finally stopped and turned to stare at the other three before the mention of an orbital station popped into my head and I frowned. ¡°What''s an orbital station?¡± I asked curiously. The three of them froze and turned to stare at me like I had lost my mind, before Johnson finally coughed and asked. ¡°Your system doesn''t have an orbital station? How the hell is your solar system progressing?¡± I blinked confusedly as I stared at them. My eyes shifted from one to the next, each looking back at me like I had lost my mind and should know exactly what something as basic as an orbital station for my solar systems¡¯ name would be. ¡°I¡­ uh, well you know scientist invents stuff and then ya know patents and stuff before it ends up on the market, but orbital stuff is a little out of our reach we are working on it though. Rockets and satellites, we are getting there¡± CHAPTER 17: ORBITAL WHAT? They continued to stare at me like I was crazy. Johnson''s mouth was opening and closing like a fish before he finally said. ¡°The hell are you talking about? An orbital station is not built; it is purchased with galactic credits and built by nanites. It is the core of the entire system, no civilians or guilds can warp ships or get any commerce into or out of the solar system without one. I mean, if you really didn''t have one then your solar system would be¡­¡± he trailed off as his mouth fell open, and his face slowly drained of colour. ¡°Would be, what?¡± I heard Ripter let out a sigh before he answered ¡°Well, it would allow anyone to declare your planet a combat zone and then any Celestial Count could send a Galactic Federation Alliance carrier to¡­ well claim the solar system and all its resources. It''s basically what we will be doing after we graduate. The only way to prevent it is to have an orbital station. It declares the owner of the orbital station the owner of the system and Galactic Federation laws apply, preventing any of the Celestial clans from reaping the resources.¡± ¡°I uh, I guess I had better start saving to get one then¡­¡± ¡°Quickly, this is not something you want to let drag out.¡± ¡°Yea, but you need like a million credits to buy one¡± ¡°Yea or a medium perk but who has one of those just lying around. Haha.¡± The three of them started laughing until they noticed I wasn''t, and they quickly turned to stare at me in a mix of astonishment and curiosity. ¡°You don''t¡­ Do you? Ripter asked me ¡°Uh, well, you see¡­¡± I began to reply before Johnson suddenly started screaming at us. ¡°Shut up! Everyone shut up,¡± he glared at each of us before continuing in a whisper. ¡°this conversation is over, do not speak, do not even think! If it is said it is recorded if it is recorded it can be viewed and who the fuck knows what someone can do with that, so here''s what is going to happen. We know nothing we say nothing, and we all agree that when we get out of boot camp we will send a message to Kenna Mackenzie we will use her civilian hud account that is attached to her home world body and from there she can direct us to the orbital station that is already in her home world system, and we can join up with her there.¡± He waved the other two away, indicating for them to run fast, before turning to look at me and stared intensely into my eyes. I was starting to feel uncomfortable until a message appeared on my hud.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. ¡°Hud to hud messaging. Security protocols on these are insane. If you have a medium perk then the second you wake up in your home world body scream ¡®I spend my medium perk on an orbital station¡¯ if you don''t have one it will be purchased instantly and the Galactic Federation Laws will apply immediately. However, if there is already one in your solar system it will inform you there is already an orbital station and what its name is, you can then message us that name, and we will be able to come get you off that planet.¡± He nodded his head, turned and ran away as he began screaming and calling out about how cool the tattoo was. ******* In the middle of a grassy field covered in hundreds of marine squads who were laying down shooting at a castle was a certain squad who were still on their feet as they advanced across it like they were enjoying a Sunday stroll through the park. All the surrounding soldiers couldn''t help but think they were crazy, the squad was laughing in the middle of a war zone. ¡°Sergeant Sanchez, after last week this mission seems kinda¡­ uh, easy¡­ do we really have to hang with these platoons, or can we just deal with that castle? I mean seriously, I know those missions started at our standard but by the end of the week it was insane fantasy impossible missions, and they kinda make this one feel like we are on a newb mission.¡± ¡°Yea, sarge. Can we just deal with this already?¡± ¡°Alright, alright. Let me get approval from the LT. before we go storming the beginner castle.¡± The soldier who was laying nearby couldn''t help but overhear this conversation and was getting curious to what kind of training they had been put through. Was their Lieutenant harsh and cruel? ¡°Alright, we have a green light. Let''s finish this nonsense.¡± He continued to lay in the grass watching this squad of marines suddenly charge forwards and slam into the walls of the castle, and before he knew it they had started throwing each other onto the wall until only one soldier was left outside who then jumped as high as he could and caught the hand of a marine laying on the wall and was hauled up by them before they all disappeared into the castle. He turned his head to look at the marine laying next to him and whispered. ¡°They are insane, think they will die?¡± ¡°Fifty credits says they are already dead¡± They both started laughing only to be silenced by a ding on their huds informing them that their mission objective had been updated to mission complete, head for extraction. ¡°Hey, uh, what did you say that squad''s name was?¡± the other marine asked him as he blinked in confusion before slowly turning to look at the marine and whispered. ¡°Uh, the uh, the emblem said Steel Hellians squadron¡± Before the second marine stood up he looked at the first and whispered back ¡°I¡¯ll have to remember that¡± then he stood turned and started running towards the extraction zone, the first marine stumbling to his feet and quickly following. He had no doubt in his mind the Steel Hellians squadron would soon become legends. ******* On a server aboard a Galactic Federation Alliance Prisoner Transport ship FAPT9102, was a room and in the middle of that white room with padded walls a transparent plastic chair that seamlessly integrated into the floor, upon that chair was a lady wearing a straight jacket that was locked to the chair so she could not stand. She was slowly rocking back and forth as she whispered to herself. ¡°Don''t worry little bumpkin, I know your secret and soon everyone will know your secret, it will get out, and then you will be ruined, and I will laugh and laugh because I have already gotten the last laugh, that''s right little bumpkin, I have won because I know your dirty dark little secret that you don''t want anyone to know, but I know it. For my name is Eloana Twiddles, daughter of Celestial Count Malcolm Twiddles and I know what you don''t want anyone to know because it will be the end of your little backwater bumpkin world that''s right you nasty little bumpkin I know your dearest filthy planet is all alone without any orbital station to protect it and best of all¡± She paused as she cackled and pulled against the restraints as she kicked her legs about before finally settling down. She slowly turned her head up to look at the camera in the middle of her room and smiled the biggest and happiest grin she could before she started screaming. ¡°And I told, I told, I told, I told! I told my dearest daddy everything!!¡± CHAPTER 18: BOOT CAMP ENDS! I was laying face down on my pillow as I slowly reviewed the last two weeks. It wasn''t as bad as week two, not by a long shot, but it had been tough on the mind. We had spent the first day getting the protocols and formations training complete for the Server Lieutenant then the rest of that week in a classroom studying we apparently had to know every inch of our ship what each part did and how to clean and service it in the field just in case something went wrong, and we couldn''t get back to a carrier or orbital station. That was also when I found out the damn thing had been upgraded and the ones we flew had been upgraded with built-in planet side camouflage emitters that could literally turn the damn drop-ship invisible. Seriously, that would have been nice to fricken know during week two. On the bright side, like all weekends, this one also came with a promotion exam. My team now had three corporals and was led by my bright shiny new Flight Sergeant stripes. I did look into that and apparently there is a difference. A flight sergeant, like myself, is a sergeant that is an active pilot, but a Sergeant is a ground sergeant that focuses on office work and other things like that or if they are in the marines then I guess working with marines. Honestly, going through week three was a bit of an adjustment for all of us. Sergeant Ritz had been resigned, demoted or something I''m still not really sure, but she was replaced by a husky fellow named sergeant Jones. Who was a very literal type of man and insisted everything be done right and would not give an inch. So, failure wasn''t an option and if you did fail you redid it three times over to make sure you didn''t fail it again. At that point, I also knew the week ahead was going to suck. Sergeant Jones had already told us what was coming and that I had better pass the surprise promotion exam in the middle of the week, if I wanted to lead my current team after I graduated. He had also warned them that they had better pass it if they didn''t want to wash out and fail to get their flight clearance. To say we were motivated to pass was an understatement of the century. That flight clearance passed over to the real world even during our off time, It would allow us to fly military grade ships. The beautiful part about that is if I had a ship in my home solar system I could fly it around to my hearts¡¯ content, but I don''t, and now I have to figure out what this orbital station thing is and get it and hope to hell my three friends can actually fly their own ships to the system or the station is going to be a kind of useless hunk of metal floating in space. I let out a groan as I rolled over and decided to check my status screen. There had been no time for training simulators, so a bit of money had piled up. Name: Kenna Rowan Mackenzie Clan: Clan rank: P. Baron-Tak Military Rank: Flight Lieutenant Military Position: Boot Camp Alpha Squad, Team Leader, Star HawksIf you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Galactic Credits: 301,962 Class: Void Pilot Titles: Survivors guiding light. Scion of clan Mackenzie I let out a soft sigh as I looked over my status, we had all passed the not so surprising promotion exam. However, I knew there was no way I was going to pay for that orbital station with credits, so saving my medium perk was definitely out the window. I sat up on my bunk as I glanced at the time and then turned my thoughts to the final week. It had been a roller coaster ride of combining everything we had learnt and then implementing it. Yesterday was the final exam. They spawned us into clones of our body. We were in the real world, and they had us board our drop-ships that the engineering class had printed, then assembled. Our mission was to take squads of marines down to some planet. There were hundreds of thousands of them, and we were not the only drop-ships flying down. Each of our drop-ships only had space for one squad, so we had to fly them down, drop them off and come back to pick up the next squad. I hadn''t even managed to get all of them down before our orders changed to retrieval of all planet side squads. Apparently we had dropped off some elite squad called the Steel Hellians, and they had gotten impatient and simply stormed the objective, completing the entire mission alone. We also finally learnt what it meant to lose a clone body during a mission when Ripter missed a change in our formation and was out of line when an orbital laser hit his drop-ship, killing him instantly. When we got back to the carrier, he was standing at the edge of a cordoned off area watching the engineers rebuild his ship. We took down two more squads before his ship was complete, and we finally got the chance to ask him on the ship''s com channel. It had cost him a thousand credits to respawn inside a tube that he pushed open and stepped out into a room full of those tubes and lockers, it took a while, but we did manage to get him to admit he and everyone else was respawned naked. And the reason he was out of time was because a scuffle had broken out in his ship between two marines over some girl. We all learnt the valuable lesson of why we should always use the lockdown button to seal us inside the cockpit. It was three drops later that we found our next scuffle in Flight Sergeant Walkers¡¯ ship as she came down to land. I remember I was feeling annoyed at how these damn marines were treating our ships and told her to open the drop door, then pointed the nose of the ship at the sky and drop the fools on their heads. She did, and I got to watch marines falling out of a ship and hitting the ground, not all of them got back up. We didn''t get any more scuffles after that. I shook the thoughts from my head as I got to my feet and walked over to the nearby locker and equipped my uniform, getting ready for my graduation day. ¡°Graduation day, we finally get to go home, are you excited, Ms Kenna?¡± ¡°Why, Ms Zeo if I didn''t know any better I would say we were both ecstatic¡± This caused us to both laugh before turning and walking across the barracks to the door and stepping outside. We looked at the oval field in front of us, all done up and made pretty for a graduation ceremony. We both grinned and walked towards our Sergeant. ¡°Big day, are you four ready for it?¡± he asked us. ¡°What''s to be ready for? All we have to do is show up and look beautiful¡± Zeo Walker replied. ¡°You are about to find out,¡± he said with a big grin on his face. I groaned as I turned to look around myself quickly. I had never liked it when someone had said that it always seemed to come with a surprise or twist that I wasn''t expecting, and it wasn''t always to my benefit. CHAPTER 19: GRADUATION! Eloana Twiddles was giggling in her little room as She tried to use her hud, but the prisoner transport ship was always blocking access to it. She sighed, but it quickly vanished as she thought about how much time she had been sitting in this room by now. ¡°Mmm, I bet my cute little bumpkin with all her hopes and silly dreams has had her final exam. Now that, I am not there to show that little bumpkin the true path she should have taken. But that means she has spent time in the real world and that means my dearest daddy has received my message about my little bumpkins solar system and I have no doubt he has already found it and declared it a combat zone. Oh, it brings me such great joy to know her stupid little system will be picked clean until there is nothing left by the sensible Twiddle clan and those happy little fun-loving guilds. I have no doubt they have already selected the carrier for the job, and the guilds are rushing to buy up guild hall space on board. Hahaha, hurry up, little bumpkin, and graduate so you can feel my wrath! But, but, but, best of all you silly little bumpkin, once the combat zone has been declared there is no way for it to be undone. Haha, you are screwed, you and your little dirt planet. Haha¡­ although there is one way¡­ but you will never be able to afford it so it doesn''t matter hahaha bye bye little bumpkin, you should have taken the out I so graciously had offered you instead of showing off in front of me. ******* On a carrier over a blue, grey planet stood a squad as they loaded into a pod. A lieutenant was standing in front of the pods giving orders to this squad. ¡°Steel Hellians, you will be inserted by drop pod! When you hit the ground you are to regroup and then charge the mountain indicated on your maps, it is the known position of the enemy¡¯s power station for this section of orbital defences, when you blow it up we will finally be able to start sending drop-ships down, securing us a place to start the invasion. I need you to get this done!¡± ¡°Don''t worry, Lieutenant Cilterian, we will get it done. That training you sent us on was hell but very effective. Relax and get ready for us to look cute for the photo op of your squad in their sexy armour.¡± There were a few laughs before the drop pod doors closed, sealing them in. ¡°Yea, yea, I am clearly sending a squad of comedians to blow up a power plant.¡± The pods vanished from in front of him as he let out a sigh. He turned away as he brought up a deployment map so he could see where all his clan assets highlighted in a glowing green were in the known space and where other clans assets in their own colours were. He was about to declare the drop mission had begun when he noticed four carriers of the same colour making a beeline for a certain solar system that was quickly changing colour to indicate it had gone from a neutral protected zone to a combat zone. Something about the zone scratched at the back of his mind like he should know it, but he couldn''t remember why. He slowly rolled his shoulders as he pushed the feeling out of his mind and clicked on one of his own clan carriers and slid it across to the new combat zone it was closer than the four heading that way and would get their first allowing him to take ownership of the zone, and he could then figure out what was bugging him about it later. He decided to attach additional orders to the one he had given the carrier moments ago.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°GFA1193 I am ordering you to the solar system listed as MWOA254, some Celestial Count is sending four of his carriers there, and I can''t think of any possible reason such a small solar system needs so many carriers to conquer it, therefore I am attaching these additional orders on to you. Go to MWOA254 and set up a parameter, declare the entire solar system property of the Celestial Duke Cilterian clan, and then investigate and find out why so many carriers were ordered to that solar system. Report your findings back before you do anything else. We might be looking at a protected species that is about to be harvested illegally through legal channels and if that is the case then I want to know so we can put a stop to it! However, if your findings are above board and there are no illegal preventions stopping you from harvesting the solar system yourself, then I give you the green light to begin harvesting it. Lieutenant Wilter Cilterian over and out!¡± He turned his attention back to the drop pods and clicked the button to indicate they were on their way to the planet before closing the map and walking out of the room. He couldn''t help but let out another sigh. ¡°If that uppity Celestial Count is hunting something illegal, I''m going to have so much fun after requesting permission to start hunting his estate.¡± ******* Sergeant Jones led us up to a stage that had hundreds of chairs on the field in front of it, and we stood there with half of the recruits that had started boot camp with us, it seemed that they had been washing out of the other programs as well. And at the same rate we had been losing our own. I could see on their uniforms that not all of them had been passing all of their promotion exams, but their program seemed to be more forgiving. As the marines had one sergeant, two corporals and the rest were private first class. The engineers were a mix between Sergeant and Staff Sergeant. ¡°Atten-Hut!¡± yelled Lieutenant Oostarn We all moved quickly on reflex, standing at attention as we faced out towards the fields. The chairs suddenly were not empty but filled with people in uniforms, none of them below the rank of Lieutenant. ¡°Congratulations on graduating boot camp! Now the sea of officers you see in front of you are currently assessing the last four weeks of your service with the Galactic Federation Alliance and will be choosing whether they would like you to join their squads or platoons. Good luck!¡± She turned away and stood on the edge of the stage staring out at the sea of officers with us for over an hour, silently waiting. Until finally the last officer vanished from his seat. She then turned back to us and smiled. ¡°Congratulations you have all been chosen, you will receive your orders in four weeks. In the meantime, you will be enjoying rest and relaxation on your home world. Then the real fun begins. Serve well and honour this boot camp when you go out into the game! Dismissed!¡± ¡®You have been disconnected¡¯ appeared across my vision. CHAPTER 20: BUYING AN ORBITAL STATION! I opened my eyes slowly as I let out a yawn. My body felt like it had had the best sleep of my entire life. I was still feeling comfy and a bit drowsy, the warm bed slowly trying to tug me back into sleep. However, I could hear the voices of my dad and uncle. ¡°Joseph, this is her decision, we can''t make it for her.¡± ¡°Oh, don''t give me that rubbish you are her father, the head of this clan and that is a medium perk in there. The branch leaders have already started preparing lists on what they want it spent on and are getting angry with you for not calling a clan meeting immediately to have her spend it. Seriously, over seven maids heard you screaming ¡®holy shit, she has a medium perk on her status¡¯ you can''t hide it now. So, just hand it over to the clan... Haven''t you been whining for the last two hundred years about wanting to scrounge together enough small perks so you can spend it on that clean energy system power plant that could literally run all the electricity on the entire planet? You could buy it right now. Just think about the amount of land you could buy with that kind of free income¡± ¡°I know, I know, but it''s her perk that she earned. We can''t just take it from her. Before you start again. Yes, I will compromise, alright. I will encourage her to spend it on something the clan can use, but let''s face it, the list of what''s available to spend that medium perk on is extensive. There are space stations and spaceships and other shit on there, for crying out loud.¡± ¡°Who cares about space stations or spaceships? We can''t get up there to use them, and we don''t even have a pilot trained to fly up there anyway. Plus, I am pretty sure the noble family in America has been pushing for space travel because they almost have a medium perk of their own and are eager to get space superiority so they can claim the planet by war or some such nonsense and become the royal clan. We need something now here on the planet to earn us more money so we can buy up the land and become recognised by the system as the royal clan before they get there. That way we will have claimed the royal title first and there will be nothing they can do about it and will have to hand over access to space. William, We need that perk in there to do it.¡± ¡°Enough Joseph! I have already said I won''t make the decision for her, it is her medium perk. I will try to convince her to spend it on something that will benefit our clan and elevate It to a higher rank, but it is her decision and that is final!¡± I was wide awake now and slightly annoyed. I quickly got out of bed and went to my ensuite, closing the door and locking it before getting in the shower. Needed to wash and brush my teeth before I dealt with the crazy going on out there. After finishing up with my morning routine, I found myself in front of my bedroom door wearing the nearest thing I had to my uniform, but it had no sleeves, which caused me to chuckle. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡°Guess that''s a habit now¡± I muttered to myself as I went to reach for the doorknob, only to stop as I realised my dad and uncle were still arguing on the other side. ¡°Joseph, stop it. Do you really think staying out of space will help us? We own land on Mars and the moon, for crying out loud. Why are you so focused on the ground?¡± I yanked open the door as I glared at the fools arguing over what they wanted. I could see my dad was a little concerned and remorseful, but my uncle looked arrogant, like the decision of what was going to happen to my perk was already decided by him. ¡°You need to come with me, child. A meeting has been called. The clans¡¯ branch leaders have decided on what will happen to your perk.¡± ¡°Joseph, don''t lie to the girl, I have called no such meeting, and you know it, besides clan law states no one can decide what someone else¡¯s perk is used on.¡± ¡°It''s too late. I just received a message, the branch leaders called it themselves. They are demanding the girls'' presence and this is no small perk we are talking about, this is the first medium perk that any clan has ever seen. The decision on what it''s spent on is no longer up to you, or her. Now come with me, child!¡± I patted my dads shoulder gently as I smiled and indicated for my uncle to lead the way as I slowly followed him. My uncle led me through the mansion until we finally reached a room that would probably once been called a ballroom. Inside, a couple dozen people were standing around talking to each other, but it stopped the moment I stepped into the room, and they all turned to look at me. ¡°Ah, finally our medium perk is here to be spent. Good, let''s get started.¡± ¡°We should spend it on land. I did my research, and it is possible to purchase fertile soil for all of Europe, giving us ownership of it and elevating us to at least planetary count.¡± I could see half A dozen or so of them nodding their heads in agreement, but someone from what I was guessing was an opposing party spoke up before that claim could get much traction. ¡°Nay! I say we spend it on a research space station. We could use it to research new technology and medicines Cornering the markets, and we can use the income from that to claim more land on Mars where we can build the first domed habitat for humans. That will elevate us higher in the solar ranking.¡± My mouth was slowly falling open as I listened to their claims and demands one after another they continued, some even having a second go changing what they wanted. I shook my head slowly, getting tired of listening to their bickering and decided to put an end to it ¡°Listen up and you will hear! System, I wish to spend my medium perk on an orbital station!¡± I declared loudly to the entire room for all the fools to hear. I could hear them starting to laugh, while a few had already turned back to talk about what they were going to spend the perk on, when a lightning strike slammed into the floor next to me and a man stepped out before he spoke. ¡°Request suspended, pending negation with a system administrator!¡± He looked at me and then smiled with what to me looked a little like a mocking smile before he continued. ¡°Considering how far into the backwaters this place is, you better be very good at negotiation, but I doubt that will matter. Since I have already denied your claim!¡± ¡°I¡­ you¡­ what?¡± CHAPTER 21: ORBITAL STATION NEGOTIATIONS! I stared at this man with a look of confusion on my face. He on the other hand was looking at my face and the smile on his face was slowly getting bigger until he finally said. ¡°Yea, I went ahead and denied it already because there is no way a backwater world like this one has a large perk and the only way to purchase an orbital station inside an active combat zone is with a large perk.¡± ¡°What do you mean a combat zone? When did that happen? Who authorised it? I was told I could buy an orbital station for a medium perk, and now you''re inflating it to a large perk that''s like four times the cost.¡± ¡°Ha-, spoken like a confused backwater newbie. It''s very simple really, when powerful forces take an interest in something a system administrator Is assigned to oversee the process. What has happened is a celestial duke and a celestial count have made claims to this solar system. However, neither of them have arrived yet, so when you throw your silly little hat into the ring I get sent down here to make sure it is fair and informed.¡± I saw out of the corner of my eye a few of the branch leaders had been getting ready to jump into the conversation, but as the system administrator mentioned the celestial nobles they all suddenly clam up and turned slightly away like they had no part in this. I let out a hiss of annoyance at the sight and turned to look at my father for advice, only for him to look defeated and shrug. Letting out a sigh, I slowly turned back towards the man to ask what my options were, but he was staring at me like he had seen a ghost. I saw a flash of concern and worry cross his face for a second. ¡°Are you okay?¡± ¡°Why is that image on your right shoulder?¡± he asked, his voice full of anxiety. ¡°That is the emblem of the star hawks, a team of drop pilots that recently made a name for themselves in the battle of Caliuta. A new unspoken rule was made after one of them dropped an entire squad without landing on the orders of their crazy, insane leader.¡± I could see his eyes shifting nervously between my own eyes and my tattoo, which my father had been slowly shifting around me so he could get a look at it. ¡°What''s the big deal? And for the record, it is a tattoo my team got together in boot camp.¡± ¡°The uh, big deal, uh, well you see, Flight Sergeant Johnson is the nephew of the clan leader of Celestial Count Truba Johnson and their clan has started petitioning for the star hawk squadron to be placed on an independent carrier that answers only to the Galactic Federation. Flight Sergeant Ripter is the great-grandson of his clan leaders¡¯ sister who he adores, and she adores her great-grandson, so he has put his support behind this petition as well, showing that even though he is a Celestial viscount he still wants to be a part of this event. But neither of them would worry me if it wasn''t for Celestial Marquess Joshua Walker, father of Scion Zeo Walker, who, I''m guessing, you would know as Flight Sergeant Walker of the star hawks¡¯. One of the big twenty-seven clans throwing their full support behind something like this can turn a lot of heads, many are scrambling to work with or against them on this. However, the bit that makes me actually nervous is that the celestial duke Arthur Cilterian has also moved to support this petition. But hey, one of the big nine has made a declaration for the first time in thousands of years. I''m sure it''s only a big deal, right, it''s not a colossal huge mega fucken shit your pants and run home to mummy and pray no one notices your planet kind of deal.¡±This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. He had started nervously mumbling but about halfway through clearly the stress was getting to him and by the time he finished he was screaming and panting like he had run a marathon and we both just stood there staring at each other for a few minutes while he was regaining his composure. But I was also quickly getting an idea, and a shit eat grin slid over my face. ¡°So, does that mean I can have my orbital station for a medium perk?¡± I asked as innocently as I could. ¡°Fuck no.¡± burst out of him like I was the biggest fool for asking. ¡°Worth a try¡± I muttered as I turned to think. ¡°Look, Flight Lieutenant I think their support behind your team is less to do with you and more to do with the other three members and none of them wanting the other to have any kind of control over what orders they could receive but also wanting to keep an effective drop team together in hopes they can expand that by teaching others to be that effective. And none of that will help you at all or allow me to give you a fully functional orbital station. I just can''t give that to you.¡± My eyes narrowed as the way he said it slowly turned over in my head, causing me to hesitantly ask. ¡°Then what can you give me for what I have that will get my solar system protected by galactic law?¡± ¡°Ah, now that is a good question, let¡¯s see what I can give you that will get you the Galactic Laws¡¯ protection.¡± His fingers started moving through the air as he typed, clicked and moved things around. It took a while and I could see him grimacing then smiling only to grimace again. ¡°Okay, I think I have something that will work. But you will have to work hard to maintain it and get it producing an income quickly, but it will give you what you want, and it¡¯s the best I can do for you.¡± ¡°Well, what is it?¡± I asked after a few minutes of silence, his stupid grin sitting on his face like he was enjoying teasing me and having regained the upper hand in the negotiation. He chuckled softly before he leaned in like it was a huge deal, and he was doing me some kind of big favour. ¡°It is the Orbital Station Base, it comes with a habitat, a gate and the foundation that will allow you to build a fully working orbital station. Now in your records it states you also have a small perk. To get the protection you want, I recommend you add it to this negotiation and purchase a space dry dock. It will come with a couple licences and blueprints, so you can manufacture a few small ships like the ones used in mining and hauling, that way you can start mining the asteroid belt and create commerce for yourself. Or you could rent those ships out to independent mining companies and do contracts, but that means less money for the orbital base. And it won''t get you the law''s protection. What will, is spending 100 thousand credits on purchasing the production licence to build Galactic Federation Carriers. Any space dry dock that can build those, is protected under galactic law and seen as a fully functional orbital station, and that will give you ownership of the solar system. Side note, it will also elevate your clan to a Solar Tak clan. However, the downside is they can only be purchased like this in the middle of a combat zone by a guild, so you would have to be the leader of a guild in order to complete this purchase.¡± He extended his hand and smiled at me as he wriggled his fingers, trying to tempt me into a handshake. ¡°So, how about it? Will you start a guild, and use that guild to purchase with your medium perk, an orbital Station base. Then spend your small perk to purchase a space dry dock for that orbital station base, and lastly spend 100 thousand credits to purchase the manufacturing licence of the Galactic Federation Carrier. Oh, and I will throw in the carriers¡¯ blueprint for free. Do we have a deal?¡± CHAPTER 22: FOUNDING A GUILD! "Wait, I have to start a guild? What does That even mean? Is this some sort of game?¡± ¡°Uh, well I suppose it''s fine if I tell you, you were going to find out the next time you uplinked anyway. Alright, let''s see¡­ how to explain this¡­ oh, I know. You are a noble clan called a planetary Baron-Tak, right? Well, the planetary Baron-Tak has a lifespan of about one hundred and fifty thousand years, give or take a few years. But what you may or may not know is that every noble rank jump adds fifty thousand years to your life span. So, a planetary duke is 500 thousand years of lifespan, but a planetary king is one million years. The royal clan doubles the dukes to ensure their reign is maintained. At Least that is what we tell them. You see, the Solar Tak rank has a life expectancy of ten million years. And the reason they outlive planetary kings by so much is to maintain balance in the galaxy. You don''t want wars breaking out every million odd years for successions or a billion other reasons that one would kill their own kin for a throne, especially on a galactic scale. Yes, I know you''re going to ask how does rank affect life expectancy. Well, the answer is obvious, it''s the nanites in our bodies. They are programmed to shut down and flush out of the hosts¡¯ system within the last fifty or so years of their lives, allowing the host to age and die.¡± He held up a hand as I went to open my mouth. He hadn''t answered anything I had asked yet, and while this was fascinating, it didn''t really have anything to do with what I wanted to know right now. ¡°Relax, I''m getting to the point. With Solar Tak¡¯s living for ten million years and solar barons living for twenty million years. Just imagine how long the lifespan of a celestial count or higher is. I am going to assume you don''t know the ranking system. I mean, this planet is on the edge of the systems¡¯ expanse. Well, if you do, then just consider this a recap. You have the mortals that have not gotten their hands on the system yet. Oh, side note, when your clan becomes a Solar Tak I recommend you slowly start initiating everyone on the planet. After the mortals are the initiated, also known as citizens, then the planetary nobles and the royal that rules the planet. They are like the governor of the planet to the Solar Tak who rules all the planets in their solar system. You get the gist? Okay, here is the rapid version. Mortal to citizen to planetary to solar to sector to galactic to celestial and once you reach the rank of celestial king. Uh¡­ well you see, no one has ever seen a member of that rank die of natural causes so we have no idea how long their lifespan is. Now, when you live as long as a celestial does, and you have all that time on your hands.¡± He started making a motion with his right hand for me to fill in the blanks, and the thought running through my head terrified me. ¡°They invented a game using the cloning pods and then started declaring wars. That''s why this solar system has been declared a combat zone. It''s so they have something to kill and gather resources from.¡± ¡°Indeed, but the game is bigger than that, not everyone is into killing. There are guilds that go around behind those crazy warrior types, and they create life, seeding a new sun and planets, starting life anew, nurturing it and raising it. Slowly putting it all back together again. I know the Celestial King Olympus clan is into that sort of thing. There are also guilds that are into research and construction. Ya know, everything any other game would have, you can find a guild out there, doing it.¡± ¡°I uh, I need to uh, found a guild like right now, don''t I?¡± ¡°Oh, well, I would say within the next ten minutes, yes. That way, the nanites will have the seven days needed to build everything before the first carrier arrives.¡±If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. ¡°I would like to found a guild please¡± I stated. I could feel a slight bit of trepidation running up my spine as I looked into the system administrators¡¯ eyes. However, it was not him that answered me, but the system. A screen appeared in front of my face. Congratulations on forming a guild, the processing fee of fifty thousand credits has been deducted from your account. Please name your guild¡­ I quickly looked around me for ideas on what to name the guild as the transparent screen remained in front of my face. ¡°Uh¡­¡± Would you like to name your guild, uh? ¡°What? No!¡± I blurted out. Please name your guild¡­ I resisted the urge to say uh again as I cast my eyes around the room quickly for inspiration. My eyes landed on a photo frame hung on the wall of my mother and father during their trip to Japan and in the background was a beautiful cherry blossom tree. My eyes froze on that tree and a smile slowly crept onto my face as a few ideas began to piece themselves together to create¡­ ¡°I wish to name my guild Blossoming Terranova.¡± Congratulations, the guild Blossoming Terranova has been formed. You have been registered as the Guild Mistress of this level one guild, you may now register up to fifty members. Congratulations, ability Quest Giver has been successfully removed. Congratulations, you have received the ability Guild Quest Giver. This will allow you to give quests to your Guild members for them to complete. The screen vanished, and I was left standing there staring at the smiling face of the administrator as he wriggled his fingers temptingly in front of me. I let out a sigh and grabbed it, giving it a shake. Congratulations, the Orbital Station Base and space dry dock has begun construction in orbit of planet Earth, located in MWOA254. The attached gate has been given the designation Blossoming Terranova Gate. I quickly sent off a message on my hud to Johnson, Walker and Ripter telling them the gates¡¯ name. ¡°Congratulations, Solar Tak Scion Kenna Mackenzie, on your purchase. Now I can give you a little detail on your purchase. Are you ready?¡± Before I let him start on a new explanation, I quickly thought ¡®status¡¯ wanting to see how much it had changed. I quickly read it before turning back to him and nodding that I was ready. Name: Kenna Rowan Mackenzie Clan: Mackenzie Clan rank: Solar Tak Military Rank: Flight Lieutenant Military Position: Pending Galactic Credits: 6,961 Class: Void Pilot Guild: Blossoming Terranova Guild Position: Guild Mistress Guild Level: 1 Titles: Survivors guiding light. Scion of clan Mackenzie ¡°The orbital station base was purchased by a guild granting it a subsystem linked to the game; this gives the base a level at the moment it is level zero, but once complete it will be level one. This is great news for what you wanted to get from it because as you level it up, it will grant you more privileges and access. The habitat has a district called the guild district where you and any other guild you rent space to can set up a guild hall. In your guild hall exclusively, will be a room that only the officers of your guild can access and inside it will be a table that will allow you to plan the purchases and upgrades to your orbital station base. It will also allow you to control the entire orbital station base from that table, all of its systems. Heat, oxygen, water, even greenhouses and there are a lot of other things.¡± He glanced up then looked at me and smiled softly. ¡°Ah, my time is up. Big events are about to happen in this solar system¡­ Good luck.¡± He then vanished in a flash of light as it raced from the ground under his feet and back up through the hole in the roof that it had made when it landed, and vanished into the sky. I was about to let out a large breath of relief at his departure and slowly come to terms with everything that had just happened. However, I noticed the audience I had forgotten about, and they were all staring at me. Five seconds later, the noise of all their voices descended upon me, demanding explanations and answers to countless questions and demands. ¡°Crap¡± I groaned. CHAPTER 23: UNINVITED GUESTS! In an office was a desk with a holographic screen covering most of the wall behind that desk. A man sat in front of the desk typing away on his holographic keyboard when he heard a ping and an urgent notice appeared on his screen. ¡°Blossoming Terranova dry docks? Who are they? And why do they have a Galactic Federation carrier licence?¡± He frowned as he started typing on his keyboard urgently. Looking up any information he could on this new dry dock. ¡°Alright, a newly established guild. Owns an orbital station base with a space dry dock. Damn, not a bad way to spend a couple of perks or a decent starter fund.¡± He pulled up the information on the solar system and froze, a look of confusion crossed his face. ¡°Combat zone? That can''t Be right¡­¡± He typed away on his keyboard again for a few minutes before looking up at the screen. ¡°Oh, that greedy little shit, well I will just rescind that authorisation to label this solar system a combat zone. Returning it to a protected neutral zone. Aaaand done!¡± He declared the last bit as he finished typing. He started tapping away again after admiring his work of saving a solar system from combat. He began pulling up lists of people as he looked for the right candidates and placing their files and pictures up on his big screen so he could review them at a glance. ¡°Perfect, captain Luscious Rivers and captain Jessica Biko are from opposite sides of the planet from each other, so one can be uplinked while the other is out in the real world.¡± He moved his hands about his keyboard. Sending out orders to them to transfer their data to a Galactic Federation carrier that looked like it was scheduled to enter the designated solar system within a few hours. ¡°There we go, those two will take care of the galactic federations¡¯ interests in MWOA254.¡± ******* Jessica Biko was sitting in her recliner as she ate a television dinner with her family. The television was a brand-new cathode Television, it now had colour, the first of its kind. She was enjoying watching it with her family when her hud made a ding sound and displayed an urgent alert for her. She glanced at it and intended to ignore it because this was her family time. However, she noticed a crimson alert attached to it and groaned in annoyance as she knew she had to open it immediately, which she did. After reading it she read it again before leaping to her feet knocking her tray to the floor. ¡°Oh, my gosh, I have to uplink immediately and get to the ship headed to my new posting before it arrives in system¡± she told her husband and children as she rushed out of the room towards the bedroom.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. ¡°Hunny, why the rush? Can''t it wait a couple of hours?¡± ¡°No, a carrier is entering a combat zone solar system within the hour and the GF have unauthorised combat in that zone. I have been ordered to prevent them from beginning any hostile actions towards the inhabitants of the solar system.¡± She yelled as she rushed to put on her pyjamas. ¡°Jeez, that sounds serious, want me to uplink my arse and transfer it and the guild to the same carrier so you can hire us as security and enforcement of laws.¡± ¡°If you don''t mind, darling?¡± ¡°Consider it done, sweetie, the Cerberus guild will be there to glare at those silly sailors.¡± He said, as he began changing into his pyjamas and sending off messages to the officers of his guild with his hud. They both chuckled softly before he yelled out to the children, ¡°clean up the living room and go to bed, mum and dad are going to go bring home the big creds!¡± Moments later they had uplinked and began the process of transferring themselves to the galactic Federation carrier Merrigold. ******* An officer who was running checks in a certain area of the ship. Gasped in surprise as all the cloning tanks began to activate and fill with liquids. He quickly brought up the command channel on his hud informing the commander of what was happening. He was ordered to monitor It. So he stood there, waiting until a ship-wide announcement was heard around him. ¡°Attention all hands. Prepare for exit of subspace. We will be entering the combat zone of MWOA254, where we have been ordered to secure the solar system and investigate the reason for it being declared a combat zone. Once this is complete, we may stand down and defend our position, or we will begin harvesting! That is all¡± A few minutes after the announcement, the pods completed their process and quickly drained the fluids away, leaving fifty-three people stepping out of them and reaching for lockers before turning and marching out of the clone pod room and stood in front of him. He looked over the group seeing a mix of skin colours and genders amongst all of them but the just under seven foot tall almost pitch black man that stood in front of him drew all of his attention as he swallowed nervously. Until the shorter Lady of the same skin complexion and wearing captains¡¯ bars on her uniform moved to stand directly in front of him and waved her hand in his face. ¡°Hey, tell your commander to stand down and relinquish command to me. I will be on the bridge in a few minutes to take command.¡± He just nodded but didn''t comply completely, instead he told his commander that a platoon had spawned, and a captain was telling him she was taking command and would be on the bridge soon. ******* I was looking around the command room of my new guild hall in the orbital station base, my eyes wide and full of wonder. It had taken me five days to get a rocket, despite the branch leaders losing their shit as they tried to stop me from using more clan money to acquire one. It then took an extra day to get it into space and another to get it over to the orbital station base. I had not been able to get it to dock with the station, so I got it as close as I could, then took a space walk over to the airlock. I walked through a few corridors from the airlock until I exited into what looked like a city sized parking lot. As I wandered, I noticed two things. First the city sized parking lot wrapped around the second thing making it a four city sized parking lot. The second thing, which was in the middle of the habitat, was an actual four lane wide street that wrapped around a tower. I had discovered the direct path from the last corridor to the tower lined up with a huge door on the side of the tower that had a name over the top of it. Blossoming Terranova Guild Tower. I had gone inside to find a long corridor on my left and another on my right. They were both filled with locked doors on each side of the corridor. In front of me was a double door of an elevator. Once I had stepped in and turned to look for a panel with buttons so I could choose my guild halls¡¯ floor, I instead found nothing by an omnidirectional view of outside the tower. A few seconds of confusion were redirected when the doors slid closed and a voice that I could have sworn was some actress I knew, said. ¡°Top floor, Blossoming Terranova Guild Hall.¡± I never even felt the elevator move, but the scene outside the tower showed it clearly raised all the way to the top. Before opening and letting me out into a luxurious reception room complete with desk and pictures on the wall, there were even a few plants. I smiled as I shook off the walk down memory lane and turned away from the command table that was displaying the solar system around the orbital station and was about to head out to see if I could find any kitchen or cafeteria in this guild hall when I heard an ominous alert. ¡°Alert! Unannounced Galactic Federation Alliance cruiser broadcasting the identifier name, GFA1193, Merrigold. Has failed to send guild command their entry permission for Blossoming Terranova Guild Territory, and has just surfaced from subspace at the edge of the solar system. Do you wish to hail the ship?¡± CHAPTER 24: THE ARRIVAL! Alison was sitting in a plane seat waiting for the plane to taxi out to the runway. She had decided to fly back home and gone to the airport to buy a ticket to America. She had hoped Kenna would come and see her but according to a Joseph Mackenzie, his niece, Kenna, had no desire or intention to see her. She let out a sigh. Something about that man felt wrong and creepy, and she didn''t trust him, or what he had said. She did not believe Kenna would tell him that, she knew Kenna was more direct and would have come to tell Alison herself if that was the case. She thought status as she felt the plane lurch back a bit, indicating it had begun taxing out to the runway. Name: Alison Elise Rose Clan: Clan rank: Solar Tak Military Rank: Recruit Military Position: Pending Galactic Credits: 0 Class: Void knight Alison, of course, had been to her recruitment assessment and signed the documentation. She was now waiting for her boot camp to be assigned and had not been told how long she had to wait for it. The plane had made it out to the runway when a screen appeared in front of her that made the colour drain from her face. ¡°Crap, not now!¡± Secure Uplink remotely initiated. Per the agreement you made with your recruitment officer. You will be unconscious for twenty-four hours. ******* I looked at the command table sceptically and couldn''t resist asking out loud. ¡°Hail the massive carrier that is full of marines, spitfires, drop-ships and who knows what else¡­ Are you freaking kidding me?¡± I bit my lip in a moment of indecision pressing down on me, calling someone that commanded a fricken Galactic Federation Alliance Carrier when I was just a drop pilot fresh out of boot camp, was a little scary. However, a new alert from the command table made the decision for me. ¡°Alert! Galactic Federation Alliance cruiser broadcasting the identifier name, GFA1193, Merrigold. Has begun hostile actions by deploying troops, orbital station bases sensors are indicating the deployment of fifty cruiser class ships that have begun to spread out and are heading to set up a parameter around the solar system. Accompanying them are five-hundred destroyer class ships that are also separating into teams of ten destroyer class ships per cruiser. Also being deployed are one-thousand frigate class ships, who have also begun to move in teams of twenty per cruiser. Hostile carrier has been changed from neutral to hostile.¡±If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. It took me a minute to recover before I started screaming in panic. The trepidation I had started feeling only intensified by magnitudes as I began to fear for the safety of my planet and everyone on it. ¡°Hail the carrier, hail the bloody carrier right now!¡± ******* Commander Haruto Sato could hear the banging on the bridge door of his carrier and was trying his best to ignore it. He had ordered security to arrest the fool that thought they could take command of his ship. He didn''t care that they were a captain, this was his ship and on it, he was king, and he had his orders and had not received any new ones. The reason security had been unable to arrest her yet was because she had come with another captain and an entire platoon of fricken void knight class marines. ¡°I am ignoring you and your breach of command protocol!¡± He shouted at the door before turning back to his ships¡¯ command table as he watched the cruisers, destroyers and frigates leaving his carrier to set up their perimeter around the solar system. He was about to turn back to the door and tell the captain to stop banging on the blasted door and go away when it suddenly opened, and she marched in, followed by her platoon. Who spread out with their weapons pointed at his bridge crew, ordering them to cease all actions. ¡°Commander Haruto Sato, you could be hereby relieved of duty and shall be arrested for failing to comply with a lawful order! However, I will assume the message you received from the officer I met at the exit of the clone chamber was not the one I gave and give you one last chance. By order of the Galactic Federation Headquarters, you are hereby ordered to stand down and hand command of this ship over to the two captains that have arrived onboard your ship until the ship has docked with the MWOA254 orbital station base and a proper branch office can be set up. You are also hereby ordered to take no hostile-¡± She was cut off suddenly when the command table between them let out a loud ding and announced. ¡°ALERT! Incoming hail from the Orbital Station Base Blossoming Terranova. Do you wish to accept the hail?¡± ¡°Uh, XO, please note that I have stood down and relinquished command of the carrier Merrigold to the Captain by order of Galactic Federation Headquarters.¡± ¡°Yes sir, the ships¡¯ Commander has stood down. I shall note it in the log!¡± Captain Biko nodded her head and then moved to wave her hand over the command table to answer the hail. A bulking white suit with a flag of some kind on the arms appeared on the screen. The humanoid suit was wearing some sort of helmet with a glass panel and inside, it took a few seconds, but the captain managed to get an angle where she could see the young face of a woman inside. She quickly came to the conclusion that this woman was wearing a very primitive space suit. ¡°I am Captain Jessica Biko of the Galactic Federation, I just took command of this ship from Commander Haruto Sato, while I understand the deployment of these ships around this Solar System can be seen as hostile. I assure you I am only allowing it to continue as they are currently under the orders to set up a perimeter and defend the solar system from hostile forces. I was sent here by Galactic Federation Headquarters to set up a branch office at the Blossoming Terranova Orbital Station Base, are you the Guild Mistress?¡± I saw her mouth open to respond, but before she could, the ship''s sensors and I assumed her stations¡¯ sensors as she stopped and looked down at something. Let out an alert ding. ¡°Alert, three entry authorised Ships have surfaced from subspace! Tracking them on route to the Blossoming Terranova Orbital Station Base.¡± My eyes slowly tracked them on the solar system map as the ships¡¯ sensors quickly identified them. I quickly read the information. Yarahoto Class, privately owned ship, Pilot: Travis Johnson. Serotoh Class, privately owned ship, Pilot: Zeo Walker. Snubsert Class, privately owned ship, Pilot Brendan Ripter. I took a step back from the table as I looked at the information with a bit of nervousness.¡¯that can''t be good news¡¯ I thought as I watched three void pilots from Celestial clans race each other across the solar system and the worst part about it was they were here in person and not in clone bodies. I couldn''t help myself. I looked up at this unknown potential Guild Mistress and I asked. ¡°Friends of yours?¡± I watched her eyes shift up to look at me and a smile spread across her face as a nagging feeling of worry ran down my spine at the sight of that smile. ¡°Star Hawks always fly together¡± CHAPTER 25: WHERE IS THE CITY! Zeo was pushing her ship as hard as she could, she was trying to beat the two punks to the orbital station base and be the first to tell Kenna the good news. But they were proving hard to shake. By The time she received her landing clearance, they were still coming into the hangar with her. She shook her head, knowing they would have to tell Kenna together. She landed the ship shortly later and started running through the shut-down checklist as quickly as she could before getting up and leaving the cockpit. As she stepped out of her ship, she noticed the boys doing the same and quickened her pace, but a look of confusion crossed her face when she saw they were not trying to get to Kenna in any sense of a hurry. Instead, they were talking to each other while leisurely strolling across the hanger, Zeo scoffed and walked over to Kenna. ¡°Hello Kenna, how are you doing? Oh, want to tell me why the big bad carrier is getting all pissy on the channels before I tell you my good news?¡± Kenna mumbled something as she looked down at the deck and shuffled her feet before looking back up at her. ¡°Pardon? I didn''t catch that¡± ¡°I got excited to see you three and hung up on her, I have been a little scared to answer her hails since then.¡± Zeo blinked a few times and then pinched her thigh to keep herself from bursting into laughter at the absurdity of a Guild Mistress being afraid to tell a captain to shut up and stay out of their territory until she was ready for the captain. The two boys behind her didn''t have as much success, and Zeo could hear them snickering. ¡°Uh, that is okay, Kenna. We can deal with the scary captain together, after we get to your guild hall. I will also tell you my good news there.¡± The two girls walked out of the hanger into a corridor that led through a few more and finally out into the huge parking lot. Zeo could hear the boys following behind her whispering to each other, but she ignored them as she couldn''t hear what they were saying anyway. However, when she stepped out into the parking lot area, she stopped dead and her mouth fell open. ¡°Where the fuck is your city?¡± She screamed. ******* I winced as I heard the scream echo around the city-less City. ¡°Wasn''t included?¡± I watched Zeo slowly turn to me, her eyes wide with shock. I could also see the boys behind her standing frozen in shock too. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. ¡°I know it wasn''t included, by the wording you said the administrator used. That is why each of us brought a gift in the cargo holds of our ships, so you could build a mining barge from each of us. We also brought enough resources to build four mining barges for our own, we will pay your dry dock construction fees, of course. And we each have a request for a mining contract. Anyway, I thought your celestial clan would be rich enough to build up a city, even if it is located so far from everything.¡± ¡°Uh, Zeo, my clan just jumped from Planetary Baron-Tak to a Solar Tak when I accepted the administrators'' deal.¡± I watched Zeo stumble back a few steps like she had just experienced a physical blow, and the two boys were staring at me with wide eyes like they couldn''t believe what they had just heard either. ¡°W¡­What?¡± she stammered as she stared at me. ¡°My clan just jum-¡± ¡°I heard what you bloody said! I just can''t believe it! How the hell is a planetary baron-Tak so good at piloting, let alone found in a boot camp for celestial clan training¡± ¡°Uh, well, I grew up in the air, flying Cessna¡¯s and other planes so when I got to boot camp it was just¡­ the same only I didn''t have to worry about crashing into the ground. As for how I got into that boot camp, I don¡¯t know the answer. I do know, a recruitment officer assigned me to a boot camp and told me I had ten minutes to connect to it.¡± ¡°Okay, putting aside the fact I have no idea what a Cessna is, and I''ll assume a plane is a ship that only flies inside the atmosphere, but what the hell do you mean a recruitment officer only gave you ten minutes to uplink to boot camp?¡± I put on a mocking tone as I remembered back to what the recruitment officer had said and used all the acting skills I didn''t really have to pretend to be him. ¡°Your paperwork has been submitted, filed and forwarded to your drill instructor. You will have ten minutes of home world time to get your mundane primitive neanderthal affairs in order before you are ordered to report to boot camp.¡± I said, as I even did a face to put emphasis on how annoying I had found the man. ¡°That''s outrageous, even for a planetary noble to be only given ten minutes. Law states a recruit be given at least twenty-four hours!¡± Zeo screamed. ¡°Wait, do you happen to remember his name and what ship he was on?¡± Travis asked as he slowly walked over to us, followed by Brendan. ¡°I think his name tag said Sut¡­ something¡­ Suto¡­ Sutori! Yea, it was Sutori, and he said he was on GFA¡­ seventeen¡­ uh, ¡­oh! GFA1752.¡± I watched all three of them wince slightly and then give me a look of sympathy before Zeo motioned with her hand for us to start walking towards the guild tower. As I walked next to Zeo, I could hear Brendan and Travis talking behind us. ¡°Jeez, Trav, she was boned from day one, they really had it out for her, didn''t they¡± ¡°Unfortunately it seems so, yes. However, she did lead our team to an astonishing victory that has written our military ticket, so to speak. So, I guess we do owe her a little.¡± I turned to look over my shoulder at them, and they stopped talking instantly and gave me a sympathetic smile, before my attention was drawn back to the front by Zeo. ¡°I should treat you with cold disdain, that is what is expected of a celestial when they encounter a mere solar. I should dissolve my friendship With you and leave immediately, and the law even encourages me to fine you, maybe even throw in a little jail time, for leading me to believe you were a celestial. However, your placement in that boot camp was not your fault and we did make the assumption. And as much as I am loath to say it, the loudmouth behind us is right. You did lead us to a historical victory that has greatly helped us in our military careers¡­¡± I watched her glance back at the two boys. They both gave her a thumbs up and a big grin. I heard her let out a sigh before turning back to look at me. ¡°Alright, fine. Kenna, I am going to treat you like you are one of us and like you did belong in that camp even though you were put there to wash out repeatedly. That would have been three times before you would have received a stain on your record as incompetent and, you would not have been offered a military position anywhere after that.¡± She let out a huff and gave me a look before she turned to look at the boys again who were both nodding and smiling, she then turned back to me and continued. ¡°Alright, since I am going to pretend you are one of us, I''m going to help you a bit to at least make sure what you do have isn''t usurped, which it can be. CHAPTER 26: USURPED! ¡°What do you mean it can be usurped?¡± I screamed as I whirled around to stare at Zeo. She took a step away from me at my sudden movement before sighing and continuing to walk as she motioned me to hurry up. ¡°Relax girl, you are stress-walking and that''s not good for your skin. Besides, it''s not as bad as it sounds, and it''s easy-ish to fix. The ships we came in on have raw minerals in the cargo holds. Like iron, copper, steel and other stuff for the space dry dock to build the ships with. If you take the resources from the boy''s ships and use them to build mining barges you can then use them to collect more resources to construct a refinery with, and I strongly recommend you do that before you try to build anything else, it will make it easier. You will of course need to bring clan members up here to fly them. But perhaps you should first take the minerals from my ship that I was going to give to you for you to build a third mining barge and instead use it to build a C9 skiff. It''s kind of like our basic drop-ship, but it can only transport four people and a pilot. It also looks sleek and sexy instead of boxy. It can get you across this solar system in about two hours.¡± I looked up at the towers¡¯ sign as I passed under it and entered the tower. ¡°Wait up, Zeo, Kenna. I noticed this city literally has nothing, maybe you should take the resources I was going to give you for the mining barge and build a warehouse to store the ores inside. It comes with some really neat features at level one, like self transportation to the work site.¡± Travis called out. Brendan quickly shook his hands to indicate he wanted no part in any offering, as I turned to look at him. ¡°No-, you don''t want me to suggest anything. Trust me, you most definitely want at least one mining barge, or you are going to be boned.¡± Zeo nodded her head slowly as she considered what the boys were saying before slowly turning to look at me again and as she stepped inside the tower. ¡°They are right, you are definitely going to need the skiff and the warehouse. Then your best option is to use the mining barge to collect resources to build the furnace factory, and then you will be able to start building your city, without those you kinda will be boned." I could hear the slight reluctance to admit it in her tone. The doors to the elevators opened in front of us, as I considered what they had said for a few seconds before following them into the elevator. I turned to admire the view of the empty city for a second before I heard the ding. ¡°Top floor, Blossoming Terranova Guild Hall.¡± ¡°Why do I need the skiff?¡± I asked curiously. Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. Zeo slowly turned to look at me like she was about to reluctantly pop the one bubble I held before she firmed her resolve and spoke. ¡°You said you were a planetary Baron-Tak before you suddenly jumped to a Solar Tak. Well, the reality is, you are not a Solar Tak at all. What you actually are is a Guild propped Solar Tak, and you can be usurped if someone of your clan has a stronger tie to more land and challenges you for guild ownership, the system could recognise them as the guild owner and transfer all control to them. Your clan would still be a guild propped Solar Tak, but you would not be in charge of this station anymore. The other option is you let someone else into your guild that is not of your clan, if they own more land and are recognised by the system as being higher ranked than you, they can also challenge you for ownership of the guild and take it from you. The worst part is, they don''t even have to tell you they are doing it.¡± I felt my stomach drop out and fear run rampant in my body as I took a step away from Zeo shifting my eyes to the boys in hope they would tell me it was some kind of sick joke. Neither of them would look me in the eye, though. ¡°You are joking, right?¡± ¡°I am sorry, Kenna, but I''m not. However, there is a solution, and that solution requires you move the ore from Travis¡¯s ship and build a warehouse. It also requires you to purchase a licence and a blueprint for the C9 skiff and then build it.¡± The ding of the elevator reaching the top floor interrupted Zeo as the doors slid open. We all slowly walked out into the reception area as I glanced at my status to see how many credits I had. Name: Kenna Rowan Mackenzie Clan: Mackenzie Clan rank: Solar Tak Military Rank: Flight Lieutenant Military Position: Pending Galactic Credits: 6,961 Class: Void Pilot Guild: Blossoming Terranova Guild Position: Guild Mistress Guild Level: 1 ¡°How much is the licence and the blueprint?¡± I slowly asked. ¡°Uh¡­ we will need to move to your command table so we can access the galactic market. Oh, and don''t worry, only Guild officers and yourself can actually interact with the table. It will completely ignore us.¡± I nodded my head slowly and then led them through the extensive guild hall with its training rooms offices and who knows what else that I hadn''t gotten around to finding yet until we reached the door with the word Guild Owner on it. They stood there and stared at me, not moving to open the door for me, until Travis suddenly spoke. ¡°We can''t even open the door to the room without being guild officers. That''s how tight the security is.¡± I blushed slightly then opened the door letting them in and closed it behind us before walking over to the table that was still being hailed by the carrier. We ignored the hail, and Zeo talked me through accessing the galactic market and filtering what I wanted to search for. We soon found a listing for a C9 upgradable skiff licence that was priced at three thousand credits. The blueprint was thankfully a lot cheaper at the price of two hundred credits. I purchased both and then exited out of the galactic market, but before I did, I noticed there were a fair few other things I could purchase. There were listings for everything from civilian clothing all the way up to military hardware. I shook my head thinking I should look into that later and listened to Zeo as she directed me to the next step. ¡°Alright, Kenna. We now need to tell the dry dock to start building the skiff. The dry dock has cheap standard droids. They will unload the ships and carry the ore to the dry dock. They will then use that ore to build the ship, but if you don''t want to carry that ore yourself to the warehouse construction zone, then I suggest you start the skiff construction but designate the warehouse construction zone as the drop-off point for the ore. Then open the city construction tab and tell it to build a warehouse with the provided resources. That way the droids move the ore to the right location and then the warehouse will be built before the droids are instructed by the warehouse to take the ore from the warehouse to the dry dock to build the skiff.¡± I nodded my head in understanding and then began to manipulate the command table to do just that. When I was done, I turned back to Zeo, deciding I had a question I wanted to be answered. ¡°You still haven''t told me how to prevent myself from being usurped with the skiff, are you going to tell me?¡± CHAPTER 27: THE HOSTILE! The command table was displaying the droids leaving the dry dock area and marching across the city-less city towards the hangars to collect the ores when Zeo looked up from it to nod her head at me. ¡°Yes, of course. To fix your problem, you will need to become a legitimate Solar Tak. You can do this by taking the skiff to¡­ uh, what''s your furthest planet from the sun that no one has a claim over?¡± ¡°Pluto¡± I replied by reflex before I paused to consider how true that statement was. I continued slowly. ¡°I think, scientists on the planet below keep changing its designation, it used to be a planet then it got downgraded to a moon without a planet then I think it was listed as an asteroid before being changed to a dwarf planet. And there might be more dwarf planets out that far, but I''m not sure. ¡°Uh, alright. Let''s go with Pluto. You will need to take your skiff out to this Pluto dwarf planet and land on its surface. Don''t worry, I brought a gift for you to set up here in your guild hall, it is a printer that is set to print my own clan''s space suits. They are skin tight full bodysuits that cover from your toes to your neck. Once you are wearing it, it will then form a transparent shield around your head and provide you with fresh oxygen. Completely safe and can be worn under your normal clothes¡­ Uh, right back to the point. Haha. Well, when you land on Pluto, you need to exit your skiff and stand on the planet''s surface. Once you are standing there all you need to do is say ¡®I Kenna Mackenzie Scion of Mackenzie Clan hereby claim this celestial object as my personal property.¡¯ that will make you, Kenna, the planetary king of Pluto. Then you just do that to each planet and dwarf planet or moon as you work your way back to this planet below. I would skip it and continue to grab all the Celestial objects that are unclaimed by anyone else. If someone does have a claim to even an acre of land, the system will inform you that you can not claim all the land. And then inform you who has a claim and how much of a claim there is on the celestial object.¡± I slowly nodded my head as I glanced down at the command table, watching the droids move the ores towards a spot on the north-eastern side of the habitat. ¡°Getting all the celestial objects would probably take me the better part of a couple of days.¡± I mumbled as my eyes tracked the marching droids. ¡°In a C9 skiff, yes, most likely.¡± Zeo replied as her eyes dropped from my face to track the droids as well ¡°That explains how I become a planetary king of each place, but not how I become an actual Solar Tak.¡± ¡°Oh, once you have a majority ownership of the solar system you are recognised as the true owner of the solar system, and you are ranked up to Solar Tak. The reason you word the claim the way I told you to is so you, Kenna Mackenzie, become the planetary king and not your clan. That way, no one in your clan can claim to own more land than you and usurp your control of the guild. But as a member of the clan, your entire clan benefits from your rise.¡±The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. The droids had arrived at the warehouse construction zone and started putting the ore down off to the side, but one of them had not done this, instead it walked into the middle of the construction zone and from what I could tell. It sort of looked like it was melting the ore in its hands, then spreading it out in a wave to land on the construction area that was then self building the foundation of the warehouse. A 1% had appeared in the middle of it. Next to a countdown timer starting at 6:00:00. ¡°There you go Kenna, you will have your warehouse in six hours. And then the droids will begin construction on your skiff.¡± Zeo said to me excitedly. As I stood there watching the droids slowly build the warehouse, a thought crossed my mind and I turned to look At Zeo. ¡°Wait, do You know who Sutori is?¡± Travis shifted uncomfortably Before he answered me for the group. ¡°Uh, yea he is Sutori Twiddles, some military officers in my clan have been trying to build a case against him for a while. Our belief is that he is using his position to place recruits in boot camps above their skill level in hope they will wash out permanently. It''s not exactly illegal or abuse of power, as he has claimed in the past that he thought they could handle the challenge and wanted to give them the opportunity to rise to their potential. Not all recruits fail, so it''s hard to prove he is doing it out with malicious intent. However, they are always placed where another member of the Twiddles clan has control over their training, and the training seems more challenging than it should have been. In your case, my cousin says you offended Sutori somehow, and he decided to overreach and instead of sending you where fewer people would have noticed, he sent you to a celestial camp where everyone would notice. The likely reason was for you to mess up so badly and be caught out that it would have angered enough celestial clans that they would have wiped out your solar system. However, when you went to the training like a Bilto to air, it forced your twiddle training officer to really overreach and by doing so she offended a scion of the celestial duke clan with the way she treated his men. This caused the celestials to come down on them instead. Which left all the celestials thinking you were one of them, but none of us knew which clan you were from, so they are treading Carefully in case you are from a higher clan than themselves. My clan doesn''t now as I have been keeping them informed of my findings as requested and I have no doubt those two have been doing the same. But on the bright side, my clan has declared war on the Twiddles clan and has started moving carriers and warships to take their land from them.¡± ¡°So has mine¡± ¡°Mine to¡± ¡°You see Kenna, you impressed a lot of powerful people or enough people that they influenced your status in the military enough that our clan''s leaders have decided they want you in the war effort and have decided to give you a chance.¡± Zeo waved her hand in front of Travis and drew my attention to herself before she took over the talking. ¡°Our recommendations to have you remain the leader of our team even after boot camp is probably a part of that influence that swayed them to keep you, but that means the three of us are now also responsible for you, since you are not actually a celestial, but we have already vouched for you.¡± She turned her head, looking down at the progress the droids were making. I checked too and saw they were now at 3%. I then looked back at Zeo who was staring intently at my face. ¡°Kenna, we are going to need to teach you the celestial code of conduct and help guide you into becoming a celestial Tak, but it is now time for us to talk business, and I am afraid our friendship has no place in it.¡± CHAPTER 28: CONTRACTS! Zeo, Travis and Brendan spread out around the command table, but they were all focused on me. I noticed the boys were waiting for Zeo to start the business talk. We were all shifting our eyes between each other. I even glanced down at the table to see the warehouse at 10% before looking back up at Zeo. ¡°Alright, fine. I will go first.¡± Zeo declared as she let out a huff of air. ¡°Okay, I should probably start by letting you know how big a deal this event is. I did a little research on your planet while we were walking across your city of nothing, and your planet has a lot of ideals that the rest of the universe just doesn''t have. Out here it is more strong rule and weak obey. For instance if I, the scion of a celestial marquess clan was to go visit a galactic king leader then he would be grovelling and offering up anything and everything to make me happy. Mostly to ensure I don''t get within the same solar system as him, but you get my point, right? Anyway, for someone like me to come all the way to the guildhall of a solar Tak is unthinkable to the Celestial clans. Which is why we can not let it be known that it has happened, and that is why our three clans have made an agreement. The military is separate from clan affairs. In the military you are our commanding officer that can''t be changed now that it has been established, but out here we can''t be seen anywhere near you. Unless you wish the spite and fury of galactic and sector clans to come down on you. So basically don''t see anyone in person where they can scan you.¡± I watched the two boys nod their heads quickly as they put a serious look on their faces. I let out a sigh but nodded my head and indicated for her to continue. ¡°We were telling you about the celestial kings, dukes, marquess, and counts, but we did not mention the Taks of those ranks. Well that is because we know where most of them are except for four. The three Celestial Duke-Tak and the six Celestial Marquess-Tak clans have not been seen in a long time, and we all thought you might belong to one of them. That is why we were being careful with how we treated you, and my clan even agreed to show you face by sending our scion all the way out here just to deliver a few gifts and hopefully establish this mining deal. Now the mining deal is very good for you when we thought you were a Celestial Marquess-Tak. However, my father has decided since you were not the one to deceive us, and we need to keep up appearances, not to mention He had already agreed to it for this solar system¡­ we are going to honour that deal and still offer it to you even though you are a Solar Tak.¡± She made a move with her hand like she was tapping something on her hud and then sending it to mine. A few seconds later, there was a ding and a contract appeared on my hud. ¡°As you can see, the Walker Mining Corporation is willing to offer you a share in the MWOA254 branch of the Walker Mining Corporation. Allowing you to receive fifty percent of the weekly profits hauled out of the solar system. And offering to leave ten percent of what is mined behind in your warehouse for your guild''s personal use before anything is hauled out of the solar system to be sold. We are asking to be allowed to operate with three barges at first and use ore that is mined right here in your solar system to build more barges. We will pay for your dry docks time and use with either credits or ore if you would prefer that. Considering you are not a celestial clan, I personally suggest you take the credits, as you will need them more than the ore. We wish to scale our operation up to a total of two-hundred and fifty barges within ten years. However, since you are a Solar Tak my father also wishes to advise you to suggest making an addendum to the contract and allow our company to scale that amount of barges up to a thousand within ten years to get more of our people into this solar system. That would then encourage our clan to request a defence contract with you where we can offer to send warships here to help defend the solar system and our company''s interests as well as your guild''s territory.¡±Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. I saw Brendan shift with a slight bit of tension in his face as Zeo made her offer, but it was Travis who spoke next as he tapped at something on his hud and flicked it to mine. ¡°My Clan''s company, the MWOA254 branch of the Johnson Mining Corporation, wishes to make the same contract offer as the Walker Mining Corporation except we are offering sixty percent of our sales and twenty percent of the mined ore to be left behind for your guild''s personal use. We are of course also offering the same for the use of your dry dock.¡± Brendan was shifting uncomfortably as before only stopping just before he let out a long sigh, he then reached up and tapped at his hud before flicking his wrist sending his clan''s contract to my hud. ¡°My Clan believed you were part of the Celestial Marquess-Tak and made a large offer in hopes you would allow a lowly Celestial Viscount to benefit from this Solar System. The MWOA254 branch of the Ripter Mining Corporation. Wants to offer you ninety percent of the weekly profits hauled out of this solar system. And offering to leave forty percent of what is mined behind in your warehouse for your guild''s personal use before anything is hauled out of the solar system to be sold. We are asking to be allowed to operate with one barge at first. We request access to your gate at a reasonable fee so that we can bring in more barges or ore to build more barges, paying for your dry docks time and use with either credits or more ore. We are hoping to scale our operation up to a total of two-hundred barges within twenty years.¡± He then gave me a pleading look to fix this contract to make it more fair, but it was Zeo who leaned over and whispered to me before anyone else could speak. ¡°Kenna, you can''t accept that offer, it would be a huge slap in the Celestial Viscounts face. You need to offer a fairer deal that matches the other two that you have received to send the message that you are toeing the line but are still showing respect to those far stronger than yourself.¡± I nodded my head to Zeo as she leaned back, and her face returned to a passive indifference. My eyes shifted to Brendan, and I decided to let him hang for a few minutes while I thought over the offers I had received. What a better offer would be that would not offend the stronger offers, but yet show my respect. ¡°Brendan Ripter, I reject your offer and instead wait for your amended offer. May I suggest The MWOA254 branch of the Ripter Mining Corporation offer me sixty-five percent of the weekly profits hauled out of this solar system. And offer to leave twenty-five percent of what is mined behind in my warehouse for my guild''s personal use before anything is hauled out of the solar system to be sold. And that you offer to be allowed to operate with three barges at first, with permission to be able to scale the operation up to two-hundred barges in ten years. Of course, using the ore mined in this solar system to build them at my dry dock for a fee.¡± He smiled and nodded his head as his fingers were dancing across the air in front of him, a few moments later he tapped at his hud and flicked it towards me. ¡°Is this contract more acceptable to you, Kenna? It has everything you have requested from the MWOA254 branch of the Ripter Mining Corporation¡± CHAPTER 29: FLURRY OF ACTIVITY! ¡°Great, glad that is sorted¡± Zeo declared as she glanced back down at the command table before looking back at me. ¡°The warehouse is ninety-five percent complete. I didn''t expect hashing over contracts to take five hours, even with us telling you the short version of it all.¡± ¡°But all three of our clans can now do some mining in this solar system. And believe me Kenna, you need the income because once you start getting into what this station can do and how much it''s going to cost on licences and upgrades and running costs it will all add up. And it really is not something a planetary Baron-Tak can afford, which is why orbital stations are owned by at least a solar Tak¡­ but then they normally rule over populations that are not on a single planet¡­ I would suggest turning this into a trade hub, but you''re kinda on the fringes. Hmm, I''m not really sure how you are going to make this solar system profitable.¡± ¡°She will think of something, Travis, stop bullying the girl.¡± ¡°Oh, shove off Brendan¡± They both glared at each other for a few seconds, while Zeo and I rolled our eyes and turned away from them. ******* ¡°A bloody Planetary Baron-Tak, upon Boonta¡¯s hairy armpit, what are we going to do brother? ¡°Alright, alright, calm yourself Fredrick. Zeo is with her now, she can coach the little mortal and prop the damn thing up. In the meantime find out what land those bastard Twiddles own that is near enough to this Kenna, that way we can take that land and when the time is right, give it to this mortal, that way when we give her clan enough land to drag them into a galactic standing we can then absorb them and bring ourselves up to a Celestial Marquess-Tak.¡± ¡°Zeo, won''t like that¡­¡± ¡°It doesn''t matter if she likes it or not, her little mortal playmate will be in our clan and the daughter of a branch leader. She can play with the little mortal whenever she wants.¡± ¡°As you wish, brother, I will look into the land that the Twiddle clan owns in the Milky Way and send some ships to acquire it.¡± ******* ¡°Mr President, I have a report on something I think you will want to see. It¡¯s about our friends across the pond.¡± ¡°Mr Washington, as you can see, I''m already swamped. If it''s not something I have to sign, then just read it to me.¡± The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. ¡°Yes, Mr President. NASA has tracked a rocket leaving the atmosphere and travelling out to what appears to be an orbital station. Our records indicate that it was not there two weeks ago when our satellites last scanned that area of space.¡± ¡°So? England has sent someone to investigate?¡± ¡°Uh, no Mr President, it looks like a corporation in Scotland has done it and is now sending people up to live on the station. But that''s not the worst bit¡± ¡°Well hurry up, and spill the juicy news¡± ¡°Yes Sir, some of our spy satellites have spotted what appears to be a large gathering of spaceships on the edge of the solar system, and they are moving to surround it. Three small ships broke off from this and headed straight for the station after the rocket reached it.¡± ¡°Are you telling me alien contact has been made by a foreign power!¡± ¡°Yes Sir.¡± ¡°Get the lawyers in here we need to get our own people up there now, I won''t have our country being excluded from any deals they make, I want an ambassador prepped and ready to go up with in the hour, find me a rocket and have some marines stuffed into it with the ambassador and send them!¡± ¡°Yes Sir!¡± Mr Washington hurried out of the Oval Office to make the preparations as quickly as he could, a big smile on his face. Some bloody clan in England had gotten ahead of his clan and reached space, but he would use the power of his government to force a seat at the table for his own clan. And who on this planet had the power to deny him that, his class was Void Knight, and he was a marine sergeant leading an elite Squadron, who could stop that. ******* ¡°Your Majesty, your Majesty! I have a report on something I think you will want to see. It''s from our neighbours across the pond.¡± ¡°Mr Taylor, what are the Americans up to this time?¡± ¡°Your majesty, the Americans are prepping a rocket as we speak. I think they intend to send it to the space station that recently appeared in orbit, I strongly recommend we ask that Scottish clan that just sent a rocket up for help! We can''t allow the Americans to speak for us in this situation, whatever it is.¡± ¡°Make it happen, Mr Taylor! Send an ambassador and a bunch of marines right now!¡± ******* Kenna was sitting in her brand-new skiff, screaming her head off in excitement as she zoomed across space towards a dwarf planet she didn''t even know the name of, but her sensors had picked it up and marked it as the farthest celestial body from the sun. It was moving so fast, she was literally watching a planet fly past her every ten or so minutes as she headed out. It took her about two and a half hours to finally reach the last celestial object, and her skiff came down faster than she expected. She thought she had nearly hit the ground until she realised she had, and the antigravity landing plates had bounced her off it. Once she landed and the skiff was just hovering a foot off the ground, she climbed out of the skiff and fell onto her hands and knees before puking. She watched it rush out of her helmet like there was normal gravity, only to fly away from her like there was no gravity. ¡°This technology is amazing¡± she whispered. She slowly got to her feet and turned a few times as she looked at the ground. Until she decided this spot was as good as any. ¡°I Kenna Mackenzie, Scion of Mackenzie Clan, hereby claim this celestial object as my personal property.¡± She looked around a few times expecting something to happen but after a minute when nothing had happened she frowned and dropped her arms as she looked around. ¡°The hell?¡± she asked before a window popped up. Congratulations, Kenna Mackenzie, you are now the owner of the celestial object AG37 also known as Farfarout. Congratulations, you are now the Planetary Queen of Farfarout. The screen then vanished, and I was left standing there feeling giddy. ¡°Ha, take that!¡± She walked back over to her skiff and climbed into it and powered it on, once it was ready she set the navigation system to take her to the closest celestial body. She was heading back to earth, but she was claiming everything on the way. ******* Mr Washington was sitting in his office looking at a live feed on his laptop. A platoon of American Grade A marines were strapped into a rocket and every single one of them was a long time member of the Planetary Baron Washington clan and the ambassador that had been chosen was just initiated into his clan. He watched the live feed as the rocket prepared to launch. He couldn''t help but let out a cheer of delight as it ignited and rose off the launch pad and into the air. ¡°Yes! Go capture that orbital station!¡± CHAPTER 30: BROADCASTING A KNOCK! I was flying through the atmosphere on my way out of Uranus, the ship''s shields protecting the ship and me. I had landed the ship on the liquid that was meant to be its surface and leaned out to touch it. Zeo had assured me that the suit would protect me. It was horrible, the planet of ice and a terrible overwhelming smell of ammonia had made me puke¡­ again. My hud had also informed me that each of the three mining corporations had each used the dry dock twice and paid me twenty-five thousand credits in fees each time they built a mining barge. According to the contract, they would each do it at least once more before getting to work, if they hadn''t already. I was turning my skiff away from Uranus and heading towards the next planet. I had claimed Uranus''s twenty-eight moons before I got to Uranus. The system had not said I was the planetary king of any of the moons, but it did say I was the owner. I was now on course to Saturn, it was going to be a long, long day, Saturn has one-hundred and forty-six moons. Once I had claimed the moons, I would move on past Saturn. Apparently not all gas giants could be claimed, to claim them they had to have some sort of surface that you could touch. If they didn''t then they were to be strongly protected as they were a resource that is mined slowly while they are being replaced to not upset the celestial balance of the solar system. ******* Mr Washington was watching the rocket through a satellite as it headed towards the new orbital station. However, he was not pleased that the Russians, Chinese and somehow a rocket with the flag of England on it, had also sent rockets. ¡®This is going to become a nightmare¡¯ he thought as he watched four rockets trying to converge on their destination, it had all happened with so much public spectacle that a lot of governments had started to get involved, many demanding answers to why these rockets had been sent up. Keeping this quiet was going to be very difficult, if they could manage it at all. He was honestly surprised someone hadn''t slapped a UN flag onto a rocket of some kind and sent it up by this point. But all this wasn''t what had him most worried. What had, was that an unknown ship design had left the orbital station, came down to earth for half a day and then returned to the station. He wanted to know what it had done down here, but no one could tell him, no matter how much he poked at the alphabet soup around here. He let out a groan as he received a message on his hud from one of the spies that worked for his clan, telling him the UN had finally begun their own move into space by going through NASA. ¡°This is just great.¡± he bemoaned, ¡°my seat of power is going to turn into a frickin political hot seat of squabbling and bickering about who owns space.¡± It took the better part of two days for the rockets to begin orbiting with this orbital station. He had received reports that his clan couldn''t find an opening to dock with the station, and it was not responding to any hail. He was about to tell them to land on it and cut their way in when his hud received an announcement from the system. CONGRATULATIONS! Are offered to the Mackenzie Clan of earth for becoming the owner of MWOA254, that is the solar system you are in. The Mackenzie clan now officially owns over half of the celestial objects in the solar system and have been officially recognised as a Solar Tak clan!Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. He sat there, feeling like someone had just hit him over the head with a baseball bat and then tried to run him over with a truck. ¡°Huh?... oh, those frickin bastards! The rocket, the first rocket to go up, of course they were making deals with those aliens, and now they are leapfrogging ahead of us! Well, I won''t stand for that.¡± He tapped away on his hud sending the marines in orbit an order to get inside that station at all costs and secure it until he arrived to take command. If there were any aliens on board, then act like you were there to protect them. Inform them that the people they just sold half the system to were dangerous criminals, and you were there to arrest them and prevent them from committing a new heinous crime against the people of the planet below. He then turned to his phone and told his secretary he needed an emergency meeting with the President. ******* Zeo was exiting the hanger, Kenna had given it to the Walker mining corporation¡¯s MWOA254 branch for storing the mining barges in the contract they had signed. When her suit picked up a weak primitive signal being transmitted from somewhere nearby. ¡°What the hell?¡± she whispered as she lifted her left forearm and began accessing the suit''s controls from the holographic interactive menus on the suit''s forearm. Until the transmission came through clearly. ¡°-the American Marines attempting contact with the unknown guests aboard the orbital station. We are here to protect you and establish dialogue between yourselves and our ambassador. Beware the people you have been negotiating and trading celestial objects with illegally according to our country''s and planets laws are criminals wanted for war crimes, theft, extortion and treason. Please respond and help us bring these criminals to justice. I repeat. I am Captain Washington of the Planetary Baron Washington clan, and I am accompanied by the American marines attempting contact-¡± She blinked a few times as she stared at her forearm in confusion before looking up to her and informing the boys of the frequency channel she had found and suggested they listen to it. She then sent off a message to Kenna, telling her she should get back to the orbital station quickly so she could explain what an America was and why they thought she was a war criminal. The message continued to repeat as everyone gathered inside the guild tower. It had taken Kenna half an hour to get back, slipping between the rockets outside to dock with the orbital station and come to the guild tower. As she passed by the outside rockets, the message had changed to. ¡°I am Captain Washington of the Planetary Baron Washington clan, and I am accompanied by the American marines attempting contact with the unknown small ship passing by our own ship. We are here to protect you and establish dialogue between you and our ambassador. Beware, the people you have been negotiating and trading celestial objects with have been done illegally according to our country''s and planets laws. They are criminals wanted for war crimes, theft, extortion and treason. Please respond and help us bring these criminals to justice. I repeat.¡± After Kenna had docked with the Orbital Station Base, the message had reverted to the previous one. Indicating that it was a living person repeating themselves and not a recorded message. Kenna, had let out a long sigh after she listened to the message and fiddled with the controls to figure out that all the rockets out there represented a different country or place from earth and were broadcasting very similar messages, basically the same message, in their own languages. Kenna after a dozen minutes of pacing and cursing to herself finally told us it was Planetary clans trying to trick us into arresting or killing her so they could take control of the orbital station. Basically a grab for power. Zeo couldn''t help herself and had to ask the question in all of their minds. ¡°How shall we respond?¡± CHAPTER 31: NUCLEAR FOOTBALL! I was about to tell them we shouldn''t respond, when my hud pinged and brought up a camera feed from outside the station, showing that a space suit had landed on the hull of my orbital station and a fair few more of them were coming down to land. A spike of worry ran up my spine, I couldn''t help but think, ¡®what will they do if they get in? Will they kill me?¡¯ My eyes shifted past the video on the screen to the ship that had gone down to earth for half a day to pick up as many of my cousins that wanted to come live in space with me. Nine had agreed to do so. My eyes shifted to the eight of them that were trying to figure out if they could build housing by willing it into existence. The last one, had run like a child in a candy store straight for my only mining barge as he screamed in glee. He ran around it a few times before declaring his lifelong dream to mine in space had finally come true and took off with it, heading out to the asteroid belt so he could begin mining. As my eyes shifted back to the camera, I began to wonder how I was going to get out of this one. I had begun to turn my head to look at my three friends when they burst my hope bubble by saying. ¡°No, we can''t get involved in this. We shouldn''t even be here, and don''t think about calling the carrier on the parameter for help. Their job is protecting you from those outside, not your own people. You are going to have to handle this yourself, but as a friend, I will give you a hint¡­ an orbital station''s habitat is not defenceless.¡± I glanced at the camera feed and after glancing around to see if I could do anything, I realised everything to do with the station was done at the command table. I ran, I knew I had a lot of running to do, but I quickly ran into the guild tower and started banging on the elevator doors to hurry up before jumping in and being forced to wait what felt like an eternity for it to ascend. Once it finally reached the top, I rushed through my guild hall to the room with the command table. On the way, I nearly tripped over an office desk. It really hurt my knee. I looked slightly up at the 3d holographic image of the orbital station and the one-hundred and fifty red dots running across it in 3 groups. I knew there were that many because the little counter floating over them said so. It didn''t take me long to realise they were three platoons of marines from the three rocket ships. I decided to respond to their hail in hopes it would at least buy me some time to figure out what kind of defences I had and how to use them. ¡°This is the orbital station responding to all hails, do you copy?¡± I noticed all three groups of marines came to a stop on the hull, waiting, as if I didn''t already know they were there and by stopping I wouldn''t be able to detect them. A fourth group of fifty came into existence nearing the hull of the station as I watched them land on the hull and stop as if waiting for something. I decided to play the dumb alien that didn''t know how this ancient tech worked. I quickly came up with a plan. I picked a name that sounded alien. I went with the first one I thought of and pretended to have a conversation with it. ¡°Hey, Zirt. This thing is so ancient, how can I be sure they hear me? ¡­What? ¡­yes, I am holding the button like you said. ¡­what? What do you mean, there are funny dots running across the hull of the orbital station? ¡­Of course, I''m still holding the button you said to hold it. ¡­Let go? Zirt, are you sure about that? ¡­alright fine, I''ll let go but this better work, cause if it doesn''t, then you are going to be cleaning out-¡±Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. I stopped transmitting and waited to see how they would take it. Curious to see if the marines on the hull would rush forward or the ambassadors in the rockets would rush to respond to alien contact. I actually felt a little excited to see what the first response to potential alien contact would be. I had also decided to make it a little fun and had included earth in the transmission, that way politicians would be rushing to take control of the situation and with any luck create a global cluster adult relation. ******* Mr Washington was sitting in an emergency meeting. He had acquired one of those things mortals used to relieve stress by squeezing them as he watched the video feed on his hud. His platoon of marines had stopped moving on the hull of the station and were requesting orders. The ambassador still sitting in the rocket was losing his ever loving mind at potential contact, asking what he should do, and now the damn government had recorded the transmission and was playing it in an emergency meeting that he was currently sitting in. everything had really taken a wrong turn down fubar lane. ¡°She sounds young.¡± he suddenly said out loud, it was a mistake to say it, but he decided to go with it since it was already out. ¡°I don''t think she is an alien, I think she might be one of the criminals that has hijacked the station. Let''s craft a response and see how she responds, fill it with earth references that only someone from earth would understand.¡± He then typed a message to the platoon and ambassador telling them to shut up and wait for further orders, the government had gotten involved, and he was attempting to include them into the order to take the station by legal means. ******* Mr Taylor was sitting in an emergency meeting with her Majesty, listening to a recording of their own as they tried to decide what to do. ¡°We were late to the party, but we are on the hull like the rest, your majesty¡­ what should we do?¡± ¡°She sounds like she is from the north¡­ but the Americans keep telling us there are American war criminals up there and to let them handle it.¡± ¡°No doubt a lie so they can seize control, your majesty.¡± ¡°I agree, Mr Taylor, form a response and see if you can slip in a question about her being from the north, if she is from Scotland then we will move to aid her. And block the Americans, Russians and the Chinese the best we can, if she is from the Mackenzie clan then she is a friend and I don''t want one of ours in the lurch when any of them descend on her.¡± ¡°Yes, your majesty!¡± ******* Zeo walked into the command table room that Kenna had left the door to open. She looked at the orbital station floating above the table and frowned slightly when she saw all the red dots just standing there and no defences had been activated. ¡°What''s going on?¡± she asked curiously ¡°I am waiting for a response, I threw a metaphorical nuclear football at the planet in the form of a broadcast that could be picked up by anyone with a radio, and now I''m waiting to see what happens.¡± ¡°What''s a nuclear football?¡± ¡°Oh, of course I''m such an eejit. You have no idea what that reference is¡­ oh, ooh, ooooh, I am so glad you are here now.¡± ¡°...why?¡± ¡°Because I need someone that doesn''t understand common earth sayings that way you can tell me when stuff doesn''t make sense, ya know, like a canary down a coal mine.¡± Zeo couldn''t shake the urge to slap Kenna, but she wasn''t entirely sure why she felt that way. CHAPTER 32: GET OFF MY HULL! It took roughly twelve hours before I got a response, and I had spent the first hour watching the two-hundred people on the hull of the station. After the first thirty odd minutes they had started sitting down and relaxing as they waited, now all of them were lying around relaxing as I was sprawled over an armchair playing games on my hud. My mining barge had even returned three times while we all waited. Callum had even sent me a message telling me how creepy it was to come in with all those people staring at him as he passed. Unfortunately, he had not found all the ore I needed for a smelting factory yet, and I was still encouraging him to find the missing ore. However, we had gotten enough to build the first housing building for my cousins and I had ordered a bunkhouse to be built. It had finished within two hours, and they had immediately started asking why there was only one toilet in a ten bedroom building and nothing else. Turns out I needed to upgrade the building to get toilets and kitchens in each bedroom. I noticed as the upgrades increased, so did the luxuries and building size. This included turning the bedroom into a suite at level four. However, the problem with that was I needed more resources, a lot more and some of the upgrades were asking for wood among other things and every upgrade had a credit price tag. I had cursed a lot as I looked down at the planet, knowing I was going to need a way to get wood from there. Zeo had gotten bored waiting after ten minutes and had moved over to a couch off to the side of my command room and had not moved from it since. I think she was playing some game on her hud. The response I received was not one but five, and I had not expected one of them to be from the UN. Which in hindsight would explain the last rocket to arrive while we were waiting. The station had recorded their transmissions so I could play them back on my Command table. It even highlighted which rocket the transmission was coming from. What surprised me was the one from the English rocket. It was a secure-encrypted transmission that was waiting for me to answer. ¡°I have a phone call,¡± I whispered as I slowly stood from my chair and took a couple steps to stand next to the command table. My hand reached out to accept the call. ******* ¡°Mr. Taylor, how long do you suppose it will take before, who we suspect is up there, to answer?¡± ¡°I am not sure, your Majesty, it could be five seconds or thirty minutes¡­ I wonder who Zirt is?¡± ¡°Most likely a false name, meant to get the public interested. I have no doubt that it is an attempt to get some sort of protection from the people. Perhaps, to keep the governments of the world from swarming the station and taking it by force, or maybe to keep the clans of earth from doing the same.¡± ¡°Too right, your Majesty. How about a spot of tea while we wait?¡± The soft ringing sound suddenly stopped with a loud click of the connection being established. The two of them then heard the young voice of the person they had been waiting for. ¡°Greetings to England from the Blossoming Terranova Orbital Station. Why are you stomping on my hull?¡± This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. ¡°Greetings, to the Blossoming Terranova Orbital Station, I am Mr. Taylor in service to Her Majesty the Queen, leader of the England Clan. Uh, the reason our men and women are on your hull is because America, Russia and Chinese are there.¡± ¡°I know, and I''m not happy about that either.¡± ¡°Yes, of course not, ¡­ I am sorry, I am not really sure on how to address you. However, you sound like you are from the north.¡± Mr. Taylor looked towards her Majesty when no answer came immediately, feeling a little nervous that he may have spooked the young lady they hoped was from the clan to the north. ¡°Lots of planets have a north¡± His head snapped back to where the voice was coming from, and he couldn''t wait to deliver the next line her Majesty had instructed him to, he felt excited about the possibility that they were right. ¡°Yes, doc, but we have not seen you yet, and our men have an awful lot of running to do.¡± ¡°Ooh, that gives me a great idea, hang on. ¡­ Hey Zeo, in the market is there a ship that can chameleon itself to look like anything?¡± ¡°... Uh, yes, there are a fair few that you could purchase the licences for, that have that feature, or you could level up a fair few other ships that can equip that feature. ¡°Sweet, we will have to go shopping later.¡± ¡°I can''t wait, you know I love shopping Kenna, but you know how you told me to warn you if I''m not really following what you are talking about? Well, I stopped understanding a while ago.¡± ¡°Oh, crap. They lured me in with my favourite television show. Oh, they''re good.¡± ¡°Yea¡­ also you are still transmitting¡± ¡°What? No way, I pushed this pause button right here.¡± ¡°That pauses the holographic display, not the transmitting line.¡± ¡°What? This shit needs a manual or something!¡± Mr. Taylor glanced at her Majesty who nodded and held up a piece of paper saying ¡®she has to be Scion Kenna Mackenzie.¡¯ Mr. Taylor nodded, he knew the Mackenzie clan was the only noble clan in Scotland. He then turned to speak with Kenna. ¡°Scion Kenna Mackenzie, may our people come aboard to defend you from the other nations of earth and help secure your claim to the station?¡± ¡°What? No! They can get the hell off my hull and back in their rocket and out of my orbit.¡± ¡°Miss Mackenzie, please I-¡± ¡°Get off my hull! Here is some advice for you, I do not need your protection, this station has teeth!¡± The line made that clicking sound of a phone hanging up before it went silent. Mr. Taylor turned to look at her Majesty for guidance. ¡°Get our men off that hull. While rude, it was a warning, and we should listen to it to show we can be friends or at least trusted. However, while our men are returning to earth, I need you to send out our own clan members. I want them to pick up the Mackenzie clan. Use official badges and laws to pick them all up, from the leader all the way down to the nobody bag boy, if they are in the clan or related to it, I want them.¡± ¡°Are you imprisoning them, your Majesty?¡± ¡°...no, they are our invited guests we shall bring them in and protect them from the other countries, make it look like they just up and vanished.¡± ¡°Yes, your Majesty, I will see to it personally.¡± ¡°Very good, oh, and Mr. Taylor¡± ¡°Yes your Majesty?¡± ¡°Be discreet¡± ¡°Of course, your Majesty¡± Mr. Taylor turned and left the room, walking down the long corridor away from the bunker her majesty had used to take up home in. It was, of course, located underneath the palace. She had moved there after the report of her death had been announced to the public, it wouldn''t do for someone that appeared to be her age but wouldn''t actually die for a very long time, to be seen still alive. As he walked, he muttered to himself. ¡°I wonder if anyone will resist? I don''t have orders to not hurt them if they do¡­ well my men''s safety does come first, as long as they are alive that''s what matters, right?¡± CHAPTER 33: THEY LEAVE! I glared at the command table after the call had ended as I pushed that dumb pause button to get the hologram working again. ¡°Stupid advanced technology, and no one includes a stupid manual or a stupid video tutorial on how to use it.¡± I growled a little more to myself before looking down at the other waiting messages in the table. Letting out a sigh, I was a little reluctant to play them now, but I did. First was the Russian, I listened to an entire angry speech that I did not understand a word of. Next up, was the Chinese one that was all in another language. I could not understand that one either. ¡°I am not sure if I want to listen to the American speech that will most likely boil down to ¡®give me the space station or else¡¯ or the UN speech that I¡­ ya know, I honestly can''t think of a thing they would have to say to me.¡± ¡°You are their leader, you don''t need to listen to them right now, why don''t we peruse the market, you could buy that manual that you wanted.¡± ¡°Are you telling me the market had a manual for this damn table the whole time?¡± ¡°You didn''t know?¡± ¡°No!¡± ¡°Oh, well it does¡± ¡°¡­where is it?¡± ¡°In the manual section under Command Tables. Of course.¡± ¡°Of course¡± I growled back as I pulled open the market table and started moving through all the tabs. But before I could get into it, I noticed that the people from England had suddenly stood up and were running along the hull back towards their rocket. They were not the only ones doing it; the UN was also making a run for their rocket. ¡°Well, that''s peculiar¡± I mumbled as I watched their progress. ¡°What is?¡± ¡°Oh, the United Nations people are withdrawing as well, but if I think about it, it''s not that surprising. I would assume the English reached out and said something to the UN, and they have decided to withdraw. However, as someone that has had no political education or brushes with that sort of power, I can¡¯t think of what could have been said to them.¡± I turned back to the market screen.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. ¡°Alright, let''s see what we have, there is the weapons tab. Of course, I heart guns still thrives. It has subtabs for civilian and military. Apparel tab, oh, it has a subtab too. Civilian, of course. Hmm, the military subtab is greyed out.¡± ¡°Yea, we can''t let every crazy person out there have access to our military tech, you will need to claw your way into an officer''s position where you have the authority to authorise the use of military equipment and supplies. After you have accomplished that you will have to sell the orbital station base to Kenna Mackenzie as a guild can not own an orbital station with military grade anything.¡± ¡°But the orbital station has a dry dock that can build carriers, for crying out loud!¡± ¡°Yea, that''s why they sent those captains to set up an outpost office here so they can immediately purchase any military ships you build for the good of the blah blah you get it right? Now relax, Kenna. Buy your manual.¡± ¡°You are trying to handle me and I don''t like it.¡± ¡°Ah, right, yes, I guess I am. Sorry Kenna. I''m getting a bit stressed. Dad has started sending me messages in the last hour. He wants me to start having certain conversations with you and recommend you purchase a few things, and I have been telling him where he can stick it. However, he is being rather persistent about this.¡± ¡°What do you mean, Zeo? Why would he want me to buy anything? And what conversations?¡± ¡°It''s nothing really¡­¡± Zeo let out a long sigh as she stared into my eyes, she looked like she was about to tell me, so I didn''t want to push. However, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the Russians and the Chinese had begun moving back towards their rockets. Travis Johnson came running into the room a few seconds later, he looked a little worried to me as he came to a stop next to Zeo. ¡°Zeo, has your dad been pushing you to ask Kenna probing questions?¡± ¡°Yea¡­ he has also sent me a list of things he wants me to try convincing Kenna to purchase, and they wouldn''t help her in the short term at all. They are all things that¡­¡± ¡°You don''t think?¡± ¡°Shit, I do! I have to go! I have to get back to my clan before¡­¡± Zeo moved to my command table and quickly took control of the market, moving the screen until she had purchased a book called ¡®celestial code of conduct¡¯. She then reimbursed me for the purchase before turning and heading for the door. Travis quickly moved to follow her after his eyes turned away from his hud. ¡°I am really sorry Kenna, but if my dad is attempting to do what I think he is, then the boys and I really need to leave and get back to our clans before my dad starts moving. Otherwise, everyone is going to notice something big is going on and will begin moving to take a piece of whatever it is, that includes poking their noses into this solar system.¡± Zeo paused at the door and looked back at me as she bit her lip. ¡°Last few pieces of advice before I go, the reason the three of us have not asked to join your guild even though we said we would, back in boot camp, is because we all outrank you as celestials and if we joined your guild we would end up taking over. Second piece of advice, we are two weeks away from uplinking to our new posts. In that week, I suggest you get your planet in order and under control so they can start providing your station with resources that you will need to grow stronger. I also recommend getting your entire clan up here onto the station so they can defend you. Build hydroponics first so you can feed everyone, then housing. Don''t worry about where to place it, it''s pre-arranged, that''s why every station has the same layout and is easy to navigate. Get officers for your guild and turn this guild hall into a proper command post for the station. Oh, and after you have done all that, then tell those captains to hurry up and set up their offices. ¡­uhm. Oh, our new commanding officer is meant to have an uplinked meeting with you sometime in the next seventy-two hours, make a good impression for our team, yea?¡± She hurried out the door and vanished, after I gave her a nod. I let out a loud sigh and turned to look back at my command table. The holographic image of the station showed me that the Americans were the only ones still on the hull, and the rest had made it back to their rockets. I was really curious to know what had been said to get them to do that so quickly. ¡°Well, I guess it''s time to finally call that captain back, I hope she isn''t still pissed about me hanging up on her. Oh, and I should probably call dad too and organise a way to get everyone up here. That means I will need to buy and build a ship to transport everyone. Shit, so much to do and so little time!¡± CHAPTER 34: THE DROP CARRIER! I had been scrolling through the market looking for a cheap ship I could use to bring my clan up, but so far all I had found was three that could do it. However, they would require multiple trips to get everyone in the clan up here. I let out a sigh, knowing I had to get into the details of the ship''s to see which would be the best, but I had been going non-stop for a week now, and I just wanted a break. I looked past the market hologram screen at one of the stations to see three green squares highlighting the ships that were leaving the station and speeding away towards the carrier. ¡°Bye, come visit again, soon¡± I mumbled. I reached out to reluctantly open the info screen, knowing I had no choice and had best get this done. However, I was stopped by a message that appeared on my hud. Greetings, Flight Lieutenant. I am commander Lucas Winch, the commanding officer of the Carrier GF0074, named Terance. I write this letter to you so that you are aware that sometime in the next twenty-four standard hours you will be forcibly uplinked to your squadron interview aboard my ship. A group of the Navy officers and some of my own ship officers will perform an interview with you to see if your¡­ team would be a good fit for one of us. Thank you for your time, Commander Winch. ¡°What does he mean good fit? Damn it everyone has been pushing me around recently, and I''m getting tired of it, all this crap and not knowing what the hells going on, I''m sick of it! ¡­Ya know what, let''s see if this thing has a manual on guilds as well, let''s see what I can really do! ¡­but first I need to get the dry dock building that ship.¡± I let out a long breath as I calmed down. Now that I had vented, I turned my attention back to the market screen, and I opened the info tab on a twin tailed gassix. It was a light transport ship that could carry ten people from the planet-side into orbit. Where it would dock with a larger ship or space station. I shifted my attention to the second info screen, which displayed the information on a twin engine valcor. To my eyes, it looked like the drop-ship I used during bootcamp. It could transport twenty-five people. The holographic image, that continued to spin and move as if I was touring the ship, made me believe it truly was the drop-ship I had used. I couldn''t resist the excitement I felt quickly rising, and didn''t even bother looking at the third option. I paid the one hundred and fifty thousand credits for the licence to build the ship and the blueprint to do so. Quickly closing the market table, I pulled open the command window for the space dry dock. Feeling excited to start building my very own drop-ship. However, my finger froze over the build button when I noticed it was greyed out and a little warning below it in red stated I was missing resources. Quickly navigating the windows until I found the only resource I was missing was five iron ore.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. ¡°Are you kidding me!¡± I screamed at the window as I stared at it in disbelief. ¡°Five fricken iron ore, that''s what is stopping me from starting my plan to bring my clan up here?¡± My eyes slowly drifted past the window to the image of the solar system floating above the table. I could see the Galactic Federation ship''s floating around the perimeter and each celestial object within, I could also see the Americans still sitting on the hull of the Space station base. However, my eyes settled on the three ships flying towards the solar systems'' perimeter. I had asked Zeo why everyone had arrived to the solar system so far out. Zeo told me it had to do with the safety restrictions in the subspace drive, not allowing any ship to exit Subspace anywhere near the location that a celestial object could inhabit. After watching them for a bit, I shifted my attention to the asteroid belt where the mining barges were flying around rocks extracting the resources. ¡°Hurry back, I only need five iron¡­¡± I shook my head, feeling silly, it kinda felt like I was playing some sort of game and I had to wait for a NPC to bring me something before I could complete a quest. A window suddenly appeared in front of my face. ¡®Forced secure uplink establishing¡¯ it vanished soon after, and I had just enough time to think ¡®What the? It''s been like twenty minutes¡¯ Then my vision turned white, then black before clearing to show me sitting at the foot of a long table. I could see a man sitting at the other end and down the sides were more men and women wearing the void navy uniforms and all of them were looking at me. ¡°Flight Lieutenant Kenna Mackenzie, you are a pain in my ass. I have been ordered to take you and your former team aboard my ship but now that you are here it is up to me what I do with you lot and none of these officers want you all, so I''m splitting the team!¡± He turned to look at the officers around the table as they all turned to the holographic screens in front of them. ¡°Okay, first up we have a Flight Sergeant. He is a drop pilot named Brendan Ripter. His scores in boot camp are fairly decent, and his scores are off the charts in drop manoeuvres, both in-planet and out. Works well in formation and solo flight. He has no complaints against him. However, as you can see, there is a fair list of compliments and recommendations attached to his file. Who wants him?¡± I opened my mouth to complain and declared that my team wanted to stay together. A symbol appeared in front of my face of a silhouette face and three lines, a red circle was around it with a red line going through it. ¡®They have me on mute!¡¯ I screamed in my head as I closed my mouth and tried not to glare at the commander as they continued to talk. It annoyed me as I watched them bid on my team, taking them and assigning them to squads in various platoons. Then they finally turned to look at me again, the last member of the star hawks that had not been given to a squad. ¡°Alright, it seems no one wishes to bid on the acquiring of this Flight Lieutenant, honestly I''m not surprised, a Flight Lieutenant holds the rank to lead, but this one has no leadership training from any void recognised military. I can not boot her off my ship, as I have been ordered to take her. This means I answer directly to the Void Emperor, who is the real ruling clan of the galactic empire. So I am reassigning you from a drop-ship pilot to a Drop Carrier. Welcome to Terance, Flight Lieutenant Kenna Mackenzie, I hope you adjust quickly to your new station!¡± Everyone around the room started chuckling and grinning at me as my vision turned white, then black. Announcment! I have started going through the chapters adding bits and pieces to the chapters like Kenna thoughts or feelings, since so many of you have requested that I do so. I have already completed chapters 1-3 and will continue working my way through all the chapters until done as I find time to complete them :D thank you for your continued support and comments, I hope we can grow and enjoy this book for a long time to come! Apparently chapters have to be 500 characters long, that''s such a pain, I just wanted to make a small announcement, and now I have to ramble to make up the words, that is mean, well whatever, I hope you are all enjoying the book so far, I have screenshotted a few comments and posted them on my discord answering them there. One or two have made me laugh, I am truly loving all the support and comments that you are all giving. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. The final chapter will be on the 24th of Feb, it''s a month after my first chapter, and those on Patreon will have almost caught up to me, don''t worry I have an extra ten! Saved for a few people to read and correct or tell me I''m a fool and make me rewrite it :P after the 24th chapters will begin a slower release schedule as I have small children and I want to be a part of their life there for I only write after they go to bed, which sometimes is reaaaallly late so I don''t get to write anything on those nights. The new schedule will be one chapter every 3 days, fingers crossed. CHAPTER 35: PLAYER! I opened my eyes to see my command table in front of me, as I leaned gently against it. My own mining barge was half way back to the station, I let out a groan, briefly wishing Zeo hadn''t left, and I could have just asked her to go back down to get more of my clan again. A new message from the Americans was blinking as it waited for me to answer. I ignored it and decided to shoot messages off to the star hawk team first. [FLT. Kenna Mackenzie: just finished my¡­ uplink meeting with Commander Lucas Winch. I was on mute the entire time, I didn''t get to say a word. We have all been split up, you three have gone to three different platoons, and they are going to be using you as the platoon drop pilot. No one wanted me, so the commander has reassigned me to drop carrier, what ever that is.] After sending the message I turned to look at the American one I had received, glancing at the marines still lying around on my hull I let out a huff of annoyance and hit play. ¡°You little usurping bitch, how dare you steal what is rightfully the property of the Baron Washington clan! I will have that station back and if you don''t get the hell off it right now I will carve you out of it, you common piece of trash have no right to steal that station from your betters-¡± I hit end not wanting to hear whatever else he had to say, my eyes shifted to the marines on the hull that were suddenly standing up. I let out a sigh as I pulled up the manual on the command table and began to skim through it. The manual had a lot of information, some of it was very detailed, including a step-by-step guide on how to complete the task. Other bits were just mere mentions as if it was possible, but the author didn''t have the time to talk about it. I finally found the section that talked about defences and how the table allowed me to use them. Luckily it wasn''t a mere mention, but it wasn''t that detailed either. ¡°Well, looks like I''m about to find out what teeth this place has to deter intruders.¡± I mentally activated the station defences and watched, waiting to see what would happen. ******* A sergeant with the name patch on his chest reading Washington was standing on the hull of a station his clan leader had informed him rightfully belonged to their clan. Some common clan woman had somehow gotten inside the station and locked them out of it, and he was ordered to get inside and take it back. However, before he could, other noble clans had sent their own marines, so he had to play nice and wait. They were all gone now, and he had just received his orders to cut open the hull and get inside. He was about to ask for a tool from one of his men so he could begin the cut. However, something popped up out of the hull about a dozen feet in front of him, causing him to freeze in place and look at it. What he saw was a round disk about 3 to 5 inches in diameter, sitting on what he could only describe as a tiny gun barrel. A second later, the end of the barrel glowed blue then a bolt hit the man standing next to him, only for nothing to visually happen to the outside of his suit. The barrel, undeterred by this, continued to shoot its little light until half of the marines on the hull were hit by it. When it turned, he managed to take a step back before the light hit him in the chest, time seemed to just freeze for him. The barrel did not move away from him, and he found he couldn''t speak or move. His mind was beginning to become sluggish, like he couldn''t think properly, and his vision was beginning to dim. He had a weird thought that maybe he had died, and his body was slowly shutting down. ¡®What an odd way to go¡¯ he thought as his vision went black and he stopped.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. ******* My mouth fell open when the command table produced a window stating all hostile personal on the hull had been successfully put into stasis mode and could be revived once collected and placed inside the station''s prison. Then it recommended I start construction of the prison. I also saw a cannon had risen out of the hull and was pointed at their rocket, it was broadcasting a message on repeat as it counted down roughly every thirty seconds. Blossoming Terranova Orbital Station Defence Network has been activated, please remove your craft from Orbital Station Territory. You are in violation of Orbital Station Proximity laws if you do not begin the removal of your craft in five minutes, under Galactic Law you will be fired upon until only scrap remains. You have four minutes remaining. Have a nice day! ¡°Daaamn, this defence network is badass!¡± I declared to the room as I smiled mischievously. A knock on the door, caused me to shift my attention away from the count-down. I slowly walked over to the door, opening it to give my cousin on the other side a confused look. ¡°Uh, sorry to disturb you, Kenna, but I found a huge room and there was a kiosk that gave me this card and said I needed the Game Overseer or a Guild Officer to activate it. I don''t know if we have a game overseer, to be honest I don''t even know what game it is referring to, but you are the only Guild Officer I know about, so I brought it to you¡± I took the card from my cousin and turned it over a few times, looking at the silver metallic item that had the words ¡®Guild Image Here¡¯ on one side and the other had ¡®Inactive Game Card¡¯. As I was looking at this side of the card, a little screen appeared next to it. ¡®Activate card. Y/N¡¯ I mentally clicked yes and watched the surface of the card ripple as it changed from metallic silver to a metallic gold. The front of the card had new words on it ¡®Guild Scion¡¯ and under those was my cousin''s name. ¡®Ashley Mackenzie¡¯ I flipped the card over and was surprised to see the star hawk logo on the back of the card. Ashley snatched it from my hand as she danced on the spot, excitedly looking the card over. ¡°O.M.G! I have to see what will happen when I plug this card in!¡± she screamed and turned, running off through the guild hall towards a metallic gold door on the west wall. Curious, I decided to follow her. I stepped through the door and froze. I was standing in a room about the size of a football stadium, and in the middle was a large pillar going up to the ceiling. Around the pillar was a huge ornate ramp with bridges off it towards each of the eight floors. On each floor was what looked like over a thousand frosted glass doors. The sound of a door sliding closed drew my attention, causing me to turn to the door next to me as it rippled and changed from the frosted glass to a matte black. The words ¡®IN USE¡¯ appeared on the door in a bright red colour, under that was the star hawk emblem and ¡®ASHLEY MACKENZIE¡¯ was underneath. I stepped towards the door, only for a window to appear over the emblem. ¡®Access Denied, rig occupied.¡¯ CHAPTER 36: INTERLUDE 1! Commander Lucas Winch was sitting in his office going over FLT Kenna Mackenzie''s file he felt bad for what he had done to the star hawk team, but he had no choice. He could not afford to offend any of them. The file in front of him was amazing, full of so many recommendations it made his own file look like it was somehow lacking. However, there were also complaints that tarnished it slightly, the video file attached to the biggest complaint made the complaint obvious bull dung. Since she had left boot camp, more had been added from officers in the Twiddles'' clan, stating that FLT Kenna Mackenzie had incited a war in their territories. This was a way to get back at a Sergeant Eloana Twiddles from their clan. This was for some perceived slight that Kenna had taken as an unreasonable attack against herself. Personally, he hoped she actually was, the level of disrespect the Celestial Count clan was showing towards someone that was meant to be in a Celestial Marquess-Tak clan was shocking. On the other hand, one''s military service and your clan were meant to be kept separate. The complaints went on to warn future commanding officers of Kenna Mackenzie to be careful when bringing Kenna into their command. This is why none of his officers had wanted to take the risk, forcing him to assign her to one of his own drop carriers for her to ferry drop-ships into the atmosphere. He was pissed at the Twiddles'' clan for doing this to Kenna. He had originally wanted the star hawk team to build a drop-ship squadron or perhaps an entire platoon, removing the drop pilots from the ground forces command chain and creating a new command chain with the Star hawks leading it. However, because none of his officers had wanted her, he was forced to put on a dog and show pony interview for her. In hopes that she would accept that there was nothing that could be done about her team splitting up. He had even used the celestial Emperor in the speech, hoping this would alleviate some of the fall-out that the Celestial clans were going to throw his way. Lucas had indeed shortly after received a great deal of complaints and you better explain yourself messages from those celestial clans. He had to explain why he had done it and send them copies of the complaints the Twiddles'' clan had attached to Kenna¡¯s file. He let out a loud sigh as he closed the file and looked at the holographic screen in front of him. The screen was displaying the estimated time of arrival for Terance exit from subspace at a combat zone Solar System where he had been ordered to drop players onto a bug planet. A second carrier was also on its way, and they were meant to arrive at the same time. They were carrying the other team of players that was meant to fight his players for ownership of the planet. He knew towns and stuff would be set up and all sorts of player shenanigans were going to happen, turning the entire planet into a sort of pvpve type scenario. That would last centuries.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. ¡°I hope they wipe the Twiddles clan out soon and purge the complaints from Kenna¡¯s file so I can get her star hawk team back together. Then I will be able to train my drop pilots to be better at their jobs. Hopefully before this land grab mission is complete, or the planet is destroyed. Maybe after I have my pilots trained up a bit more, I will have an easier time coming out on top in the future.¡± ******* Ashley Mackenzie was so excited when the card turned gold that she had done a dance of excitement right there before snatching the card and running for the rig. She had in her excitement left the door open while she ran around the long arm that descended from the ceiling into the middle of the pod shaped room. It ended In a flat piece of metal with a slot in the centre just big enough for the card. Ashley quickly inserted the card and heard the door close. But she didn''t pay any attention to that, her excitement at what she thought this card would do was blinding her to all else. A transparent window with blue fire licking the borders appeared in front of the panel. Guild Scion Ashley Mackenzie do you wish to log in? Yes/No ¡°Yes!¡± She squealed Excitedly. The next thing she knew, she was standing in a grassy field that stretched as far as the eye could see. However, in front of her stood herself staring back at her. She thought she looked rather beautiful with her straight ginger hair falling down her back, she had freckles across the bridge of her cute button nose. She smiled, but the her in front of herself did not smile back. This caused her to frown in confusion. Was this not a mirror of herself, perhaps it was another person that just looked like her, trying to creep her out. She discarded that thought quickly, because if it had been true, then they would have yelled boo or something by now. Ashley could not figure out what was going on until she had the thought that the her she was staring at would look cuter as an elf. This thought had led the woman standing in front of her to morph, becoming taller and a bit thinner. Her skin shifted, losing its blemishes and freckles. The tips of her ears extended into points and within three seconds an elf version of herself was standing in front of her staring down at her. A tattoo showing a weird symbol slowly appeared on the left side of her neck. It was placed discreetly so as not to draw attention. A line sprouted off it into a holographic screen with the symbol on the screen. It quickly started spinning and morphing until it was in English. ¡®Player.¡¯ ¡°Holy mother, flapping figgy pudding! I love it!¡± she squealed in delight. The woman vanished, leaving behind only the screen that now read. ¡®Character Accepted. Character customisation complete. Logging In!¡¯ The world around her vanished and in its place was a hall as she turned her head looking around at all the little shops surrounding the hall. She could see one with guns on the walls, another had what looked like white plastic armour in the window. There were also dozens of people, dressed in green camo, walking through it. ¡°Where am I?¡± Ashley turned around to look behind her, spotting a huge sign that read ¡®First Time? Come inside and learn about the game¡¯ she quickly walked over to the desk by the sign looking at the man sitting behind it as he stared at a screen in the desk. He looked up at her approach and smiled to her. ¡°Welcome to the game, player! How can I help you today? Or perhaps you would like me to answer that question you asked? Yea? You, my dear new player, are on board the Galactic Federation Carrier Terance.¡± CHAPTER 37: THE FOUR CARRIERS ARRIVAL! ¡°Well, that is annoying, what is this thing?¡± I asked as I turned, looking around myself. I spotted the kiosk by the door and walked over to it. It looked like a pedestal, so I placed my hand on top of it and as I did, it flashed a white light for a second then a metallic Silver card half slid out the Top into my hand. I pulled the card out and turned it over a few times between my fingers as I looked the kiosk over again. I turned and headed towards the door next to the one Ashley used. I looked down at the card as I walked, and it had the words ¡®Guild Image Here¡¯ on one side and the other had ¡®Inactive Game Card¡¯ it was the same as Ashley''s card before I activated it. As I was looking at the inactive game card side, a little screen appeared next to it. ¡®Activate card. Y/N¡¯ I mentally clicked yes and watched the surface of the card ripple as it changed from metallic silver to a pitch black. I raised an eyebrow as I thought, ¡®that is not the gold colour of Ashley¡¯s active card¡¯. I pushed the door open as I reached it and looked inside to see a small room with an arm reaching down from the ceiling. ¡°Interesting, what do you do?¡± I mumbled as I walked around the arm to see the plate on the other side, with the small slot in it. ¡°Yea, I''m not touching that¡± I muttered as I turned around only to hear an alarm blaring around the room as speakers located who knows where started screaming ¡°Alert!¡± over and over again. Ashley''s door suddenly changed as she was thrown out of it by some sort of force. ¡°What do they mean? Imminent danger detected?¡± ¡°Ashley?¡± ¡°Kenna? Did you kick me out of the game server?¡± ¡°No? What game server? ¡°Uh, I''m not sure, but it was really cool, I got to play as an elf. Can you believe that? I was a member of a mythical race. It seemed like it was very realistic and definitely felt like I was actually there. Oh, and I was on some Galactic Federation Carrier. I actually had a conversation with a NPC. It blew my mind how good the AI for that game was. Anyway, the welcome guy said I was on some ship called the Terance and I could walk around, learn to use weapons and train to fight. I could even join a company and fight for merit and renown. Or start my own company if I wanted to, but I would need a guild to back my company with resources and credits.¡± ¡°What do you mean by company? And what benefits would it bring the guild?¡± ¡°I''m not sure, I got booted out before I could investigate it properly, but I think it''s some sort of mercenary company, maybe?¡± If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°Oookay, we will have to circle back to that later, but first we should probably find out what that alarm is about¡± She nodded to me as we started walking towards the exit. I smiled softly as I thought about what she had said for a few seconds before hurrying over to the command table, noticing we had reached the command room. I glanced at the resource list on the table under the huge holographic image of the station and surrounding solar system. I was a little surprised to see there were three times more resources than I expected to be in my warehouse. That was when I noticed the six large freight ships heading away from the orbital station. ¡°Ah, that make sense, leaving their agreed upon amount of resources behind on their way out. But I doubt that was the alert¡­¡± I looked around the hologram, trying to find something that would cause an alert big enough to shut down the rigs. It took me a bit, but I did find the four carriers floating on the perimeter of the solar system. ¡°What''s going on out there?¡± I asked the table curiously. I of course was not expecting a response, so the ping alert I got from the table informing me someone was trying to call took me by surprise. I was about to reach out and answer it when the table seemed to answer it for me. The hologram of the solar system vanished and was replaced be a woman in uniform standing on my command table. ¡°Guild Mistress Kenna Mackenzie, I captain Jessica Biko humbly and respectfully request immediate permission to come aboard and set up the Galactic Federation office. We have already departed the carrier, and are currently waiting in orbit around the station. Please give permission immediately!¡± ¡°Oh, uh, yes, of course.¡± I tried to smile as I looked at the pushy woman who nodded to me and then disconnected the call from her end. The station reappeared, and I noticed a small ship near it starting to head towards a docking bay. I watched it enter the dock before the table pinged again with another call. I frowned, muttering something about being popular today. I sighed and pressed the answer button. The hologram of the solar system vanished again and was replaced be a man in a navy uniform standing on my command table. ¡°I am Commander Leositori Twiddles, I am the selected spoke person for the other three Carriers entering this solar system, to whom have I established contact with and under what authority do you prohibit our entry to this solar system?¡± ******* Captain Jessica Biko let out a sigh of relief as the C250 skiff landed on the decking in the hanger. She smiled softly, they were finally at the orbital station and could get to work, the sitting around and waiting was over! She turned to look at the cargo hold of the skiff. There she saw her husband and the guild members he had formed into a new company in order to take up the position of Galactic Federation Law Enforcement and Orbital Station Security. She stood and moved towards the exit as the company quickly disembarked, she spotted them outside a port window running across the hanger hurrying to the Orbital Stations Guild Hall. Furthermore, she knew they needed to set up a guild hall for their own guild to bring in more members. Her husband, as the Guild Master, would need to establish a proper and authentic contract with the young Miss Kenna Mackenzie for their company to establish themselves as the official Law enforcement and Security of this Orbital Station. She let out a loud sigh as an alarm started blaring. She turned and ran across the hanger, the other captain running behind her, a look of confusion on his face. ¡°Jess, why would four carriers arrive at this solar system at its four cardinal directions?¡± ¡°If you are going to ask me, then who am I going to ask?¡± ¡°Uh-¡± ¡°Exactly, now, shut up and run!¡± She nearly tripped over in shock when she saw the city missing from the habitat, only a couple of buildings were there, but on the bright side it looked like one was being built. She turned her attention to the guild hall in the middle and focused on getting to the young guild mistress, as she ran across the empty city. CHAPTER 38: TWIDDLES ATTACK! I stared at the man standing on the table, he was staring back at me with his arms by his side. I was trying to quickly piece together what the implications of this man being a Twiddle and in charge of four carriers here in my solar system were. ¡°I am Guild Mistress Kenna Mackenzie of the blossoming Terranova, owner of MWOA254, this solar system and-¡± ¡°Lies! I have filed a complaint against you, Kenna Mackenzie, any future and current employers will now know you lied to a Galactic Federation Commander today, now let''s try this again, who are you and under what authority do you prohibit our entry, by armed force, to this solar system?¡± ¡°Uh, as I just said, I am Guild Mistress Kenna Mackenzie of the Blossoming Terranov-¡± ¡°Insubordination! I have ordered you to identify yourself and your authority, twice, not spout the same garbage! I have just filed a second complaint against you, Kenna Mackenzie. Furthermore, I will have you know I have been in contact with a Mr Washington, leader of the Planetary Baron Washington Clan, who resides on the planet below. He has informed me that this planet is the only inhabited planet in this solar system. This is backed up by my ship''s sensors. He has also declared that the planet does not have a planetary king. There is no way for me to confirm that, but the few other clans I have managed to contact on the surface have informed me that it is true. Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that you do not represent the planet below. I have also reached a transactional agreement with Mr Washington and will need to enter the solar system to deliver his newly purchased shuttle.¡± He turned to look away, and his mouth moved, but I could not hear what he was saying, he turned to look back at me and smiled softly. ¡°My XO has informed me that the clerical error that occurred has been fixed, and this solar system has been classified as a combat zone once more, naturally the Twiddles Clan immediately filed for ownership of the combat zone to harvest its resources, according to the agreement made with Mr Washington the planet known as Earth will be spared. In exchange for us to harvest everything else, he will receive the fore mentioned shuttle as well as a healthy sum of credits and one orbital station.¡± He stopped to glare at me, I could see the anger and hatred in his eyes. I was about to respond when he continued. ¡°Now, to make sure we are on the same page. Here are the facts as I see them. First, I know this solar system is a combat zone. Second, I know that the Twiddles Clan has filed a claim of ownership of this combat zone with the Galactic Federation Planetary Combat Law Enforcement Departments. Third and lastly, I know any ship that attempts to defend this combat zone from my Twiddles Clan is an enemy combatant and may be fired upon. So, Flight Lieutenant Kenna Mackenzie, who holds no authority to prevent myself or any Galactic Federation ship from entering this solar system. If you are done talking out your ass, then I would like to get to harvesting this solar system''s resources. Oh, before I forget, I have also announced to the surrounding Galactic Federation Alliance ships to stand down or under galactic law article 73 subsections 24. I, Commander Leositori Twiddles, move to defend my clan''s claim!¡± ¡°Uh, wait, that isn''t-¡± He vanished before I could tell him how wrong he was. The hologram changed, showing the solar system again. After a few Minutes of stunned confusion, an alarm started blaring as I watched in horror, the Galactic Federation Alliance ships defending the system began moving into defence positions as they started flying backwards towards the orbital station. As they did that, the four carriers had started sending all its ships out of their hangars, and they were attacking the nearest Galactic Federation Alliance ships. I watched half a dozen missiles flying between the smaller ships. My eyes were drawn to where two carriers were fighting each other. I could see the several dozen missiles being fired from one and intercepted by missiles from the other, in some cases they got close enough for the laser defences to stop them. And when those failed to stop the missiles, I watched pieces of the ship fly off into space. The hologram was so detailed that I even saw the poor unfortunate people that were blown into space float away from their ships. The overwhelming force quickly whittled all the ships defending the parameter down to scrap and salvage. Before spreading themselves out to take up defence of the area they had conquered. They then shuffled around to free up a carrier and its ships, who all started heading in towards the Orbital Station. I damn near jumped out of my skin when I heard a knocking on the command room''s door. I hesitated before walking over and opening the door to see Ashley standing there. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. ¡°You okay Ash? ¡°Oh, uh, yes, I was just wondering if you could unlock the game room yet?¡± ¡°A carrier is on its way to the orbital station after defeating our protection, so now probably isn¡¯t the best time¡± ¡°Oh, that''s not good, what are we going to do?¡± ¡°Activate defences and then think of what to do next.¡± ¡°Will that be enough?¡± ¡°We will have to hope so¡± I mumbled as I turned back and walked over to the command table, watching the ships approaching. I placed my hands on the edge of the table and started mentally moving through the menus and activated any of the defences I could find. ¡°Oh god, a second one of those big ships is turning towards us!¡± ¡°What?¡± I asked as I looked up at the hologram. All the ships were shifting around again as a second and third carrier began moving towards the orbital station, all of their ships pulling away from the perimeter to follow the carriers in. ¡°I guess that means an orbital station can handle a single carrier?¡± ¡°Yea, and now they are sending two more towards us¡± ¡°I''m not worried¡± I lied as I quickly moved through the menus again trying to find something to help when I noticed out of the corner of my eye something leave the orbital station at high speeds. I looked up at the hologram to see it intercede a screening ship and turn it into shrapnel. ¡°What the?¡± ¡°What was that?¡± I watched as the orbital station fired again and again from guns popping up all over the station and targeting the ships. Watching them turn into shrapnel, some of that shrapnel hit other ships, creating holes and damage for my stations guns to exploit. The screening ships were all gone by the time the fleet made it halfway across and into range of guns that seemed to be designed to hit the smaller ones. They immediately began to fire upon them. The bigger gun had already begun to fire upon the carrier. I looked past them to the second wave, I couldn''t help but flinch at the thought of all those poor people. ¡°Oh, shit! Kenna, they are firing back!¡± I winced at the idea of the orbital station being hit by something. However, small shaped discs popped out of the hull and a blue shimmer surrounded it. ¡°What the? Did I do that?¡± ¡°I hope so, or someone else is controlling the defences¡± ¡°Wouldn''t that be nice, someone helping save our bacon¡± ¡°I don''t know, maybe the table is just intuitive.¡± I turned back to the hologram as I saw the missiles slam into the blue, shimmering field. The destruction washing over it, leaving the hull unharmed. I breathed out a sigh of relief until I noticed the shield emitters power level indicator on the side of the command table drop from 100 to 90 percent. ¡°Okay, I now know what that is.¡± ¡°Not funny, Kenna, I''m trying not to wet myself in fear over here.¡± ¡°Sorry¡± I looked away from Ashley just in time to watch more missiles flying towards the station. ¡°Oh, that can''t be good¡± I whispered, I quickly shifted my attention back to the table, trying to run through all the menus to find something, anything to save my ass and my cousins. CHAPTER 39: THE DEFENCE! I let out a scream of frustration as I came up with nothing, I had activated everything I could and short of taking control of a gun myself there was nothing more I could do. I watched the missiles flying towards the station, the laser emitters taking out most of them, until a few dozen made it through to splash over the shimmering field. It caused me to wince as the power levels dropped to 60 percent. I glanced at the carrier just in time to see a shot hit it somewhere in the rear, near the thrusters, causing an explosion that splintered the ship into multiple pieces. The volley of missiles launched before the ship went dark. I quickly scanned the area, seeing only debris and wrecked ships, my eyes quickly moved back to the missiles coming. The orbital stations defences put up the best fight they could, but a dozen missiles made it through, splashing against the shimmering field. ¡°Oh, we are down to fifty percent, that''s not good.¡± ¡°That explains why two more carriers are heading in. However, I think the first one is a sacrifice, so the second one can pound our unprotected hull.¡± ¡°That is an expensive sacrifice, and all those lives lost. What is wrong with these Twiddles people?¡± ¡°Uh, well, maybe we should abandon the station and take that ship in the dry dock back to earth?¡± ¡°We can''t, it is only half built, the engine isn''t even in it yet, and it won''t be finished in time to get us out of here, besides even if we did run onboard that ship back to earth, they would just have an easier time shooting us.¡± ¡°Oh, yea, that is a good point, Kenna.¡± ¡°¡­Oh crap, I don''t think the second one is a sacrifice, the third one is moving faster than the second, I think they plan to hit us at the same time.¡± ¡°Damn, damn, damn! Alright, alright, uh, take control of a long range gun and target the carriers, they spit out the most missiles, I don''t know why, in all honesty they shouldn''t have any missiles but let''s make sure they don''t get close enough to use any of them!¡± ¡°Right, I can do that¡­ I think, hey, um, Kenna, How do I take control of a long gun?¡± ¡°I have just been resting on the table and thinking about what I want to do, it sort of works.¡± ¡°Sort of?¡± ¡°Yea, well, sometimes it works and other times it brings up a menu for me to navigate until I find what I want.¡± Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. ¡°That''s just great, there better be a manual for this¡± she muttered as she walked over to the table and placed her hands on it. I thought about taking control of a long range gun, and the next second I was staring out into space with a targeting reticle in front of my vision. It felt like my feet were glued to the hull, and the piece of metal under me would swivel as I tried to turn. After a few seconds of frantically searching the area, I spotted the two carriers. I moved the targeting reticle until the leading carrier was in the middle, and somehow I instantly knew that it was with in my range to hit it, so I mentally pulled the trigger. My head jerked back slightly as blue plasma shot out of my face and raced away. In that second, I winced from the shock and lost connection to the long range gun and stumbled away from the table, falling onto my ass. I looked up at the hologram above the table in shock as I watched the blue line streak across space and hit a screening ship that had moved to intercept it, blasting the screening ship into shrapnel. Ashley suddenly began to scream as blue lines began flying away from the orbital station towards the other carrier that was slightly further away from us than the one I had tried to hit was. After a minute, I noticed the blue lines were roughly ten seconds apart, indicating the gun took ten seconds to reload before it could fire again. I scrambled back to my feet and as I took those few steps back to the table I mentally prepared myself for the gun I was about to use again. My fingers hesitated before they touched the table, and a mental thought found me back on the hull of the station with that targeting reticle. I lined it up with the closer carrier and mentally pulled the trigger. Holding it down, I started to scream, now understanding it was Ashley''s way of coping with the continued head jerking and weird experience of blue plasma flying out of my face. I don''t know how long I had been firing the gun for, watching screening ships move into the line of fire as they attempted to defend themselves against it, only to be destroyed. The two carriers had at some point had begun to change course, evading the shots fired at them, but I did notice the click and that nothing happened after it, the gun didn''t fire. A message window appeared between me and the targeting reticle. ¡®Long range weapon has overheated. Cooldown timer 2 minutes¡¯ the timer instantly began counting down. As my eyes focused on the space ahead of the gun, I noticed that all the screening ships were gone and one of the carriers was turning away from the station with a hole in its side, heading back to the perimeter. I let out a sigh of relief as I let the connection to the long range gun go and stumbled back from the table again to watch the hologram images of the ships. I damn near jumped out of my skin again when the room was suddenly flooded with people, most of them carrying weapons. But, my eyes focused on the woman that ran straight to the command table and placed her hands on it. A holographic screen appeared in front of her, and she inputted some code into it before it vanished and was replaced with a command table menu. She then manoeuvred through the menu, inputting her code again and again until the screen vanished, and she sagged slightly before announcing to the room. ¡°Okay, I have done it, the protected neutral zone is restored, and I have changed the targeting parameters to defence only instead of neutralise and defend.¡± Everyone in the room instantly left the room, and I noticed through the door they were spreading out and taking up defence positioning throughout the guild hall. My eyes shifted back to the woman, who was now opening a new menu screen and tapped a few buttons before it vanished, and a holographic microphone appeared in front of her. ¡°Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is Blossoming Terranova orbital station to any Galactic Federation Alliance ships that can hear this transmission, we are under attack, inside a protected neutral zone! Our gateway is open, we are requesting reinforcements and aid to help in repelling this invader! I repeat. Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is Blossoming Terranova orbital station to any Galactic Federation Alliance ships that can hear this transmission, we are under attack, inside a protected neutral zone! Our gateway is open, we are requesting reinforcements and aid to help in repelling this invader! Please send aid.¡± The microphone vanished, and she let go of the table and turned to face me before she spoke again. ¡°Greetings, Guild Mistress Kenna Mackenzie, I am Captain Jessica Biko from the Galactic Federation Headquarters, and I have been sent here to establish your galactic Legitimacy and aid you in any way I can with the Galactic Federations Interests within your Solar System.¡± CHAPTER 40: REINFORCEMENTS ARRIVE! ¡°I, uh¡­ hello¡± I stammered out as I stared at this woman that I would have sworn came from Bougainville or somewhere close to that. ¡°Hello¡± she replied as she turned to look at a man that was standing near the doorway still. ¡°This is Captain Luscious Rivers, who will be helping you during my downtime rotation. And the man next to him is my Husband, he is here to establish a defence contract with yourself for the Orbital Station, as well as set up a guild hall. However, there is something you must do first.¡± She focused on her hud for a bit for swiping what ever it was towards me, and before I could open it to read what it had said, she continued speaking. ¡°You will need to read this to the surrounding ships for legal reasons, I suggest you do it quickly to get them to stop shooting.¡± Just as she finished talking, the hologram behind her suddenly lit up brightly as missiles splashed over the blue shimmering field, and I watched the power level plummet to 10 percent. I quickly moved to the command table, placing my hands on it as I thought about activating a broadcast channel to all ships in the Solar System. ¡°ALERT, ALERT! To all ships surrounding the Blossoming Terranova Orbital Station, cease fire, I repeat cease fire! Immediately! The protected neutral zone has been restored under galactic federation asset protection laws! A distress signal has been broadcasted requesting reinforcements and aide.¡± I nodded as I stepped back to see if everyone stopped shooting. Out of the corner of my eye, Jessica swiped something at me, and a message popped up on my hud informing me to read out a second bit to all the surrounding ships. I then glanced at Jessica before moving and placing my hands on the table again as the microphone reappeared. ¡°ALERT, ALERT! Blossoming Terranova Guild, claims all salvage rights pertaining to all ships and debris left by the Orbital Station while it was defending itself. Please collect any survivors and exit the solar system.¡± I saw ships start moving towards the bigger wrecks and snatching what was registering on my map as life banks. But other ships were still moving towards the orbital station. Suddenly, a blue line shot from the orbital station and tore through the hull, venting a couple cabins of a ship that was docked with a wreck. The command table displayed a microphone as it spoke in a monotone robotic voice. ¡°WARNING! The blossoming Terranova guild owns all rights to salvage, under Galactic Federation salvage rights, theft will not be tolerated!¡± Jessica moved towards the table and placed her hands on it, navigating through some menus using that code of hers to get access as she opened the microphone and made an announcement of her own. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. ¡°Captain Jessica Biko of Galactic Federation Headquarters, hailing Commanding Officer of the invading force, I repeat. I am Captain Jessica Biko of Galactic Federation Headquarters, hailing Commanding Officer of the invading Twiddles Clan force. Any further attempts to have this Solar System reclassified as a combat zone after I have already classified it as a protected neutral zone will result in punishment from his imperil highness Command Chief of all Galactic Federation Military and Clan Leader of the Empire Federation Clan!¡± She then stepped back and moved to the side as she started manipulating her hud, I assumed she was monitoring what she had just claimed. And I couldn''t help thinking ¡®better not piss her off anymore than I have¡¯ as I quickly went back to watching the ships, most had started heading for the perimeter. However, five ships had not. One freight cruiser, two battlecruisers and three destroyers, were moving in the direction of earth. ¡°Hey, what are these five up to?¡± I asked. ¡°No idea, why don''t we ask them, cousin?¡± I reached up and tapped the freight cruiser as I thought about hailing them. After a few moments a man appear standing on the edge of the table in front of me but not in the way of the map. ¡°Greetings Blossoming Terranova Orbital Station, I am a humble freight captain on my way to earth with a cargo delivery, how may I help you today?¡± ¡°You do not have permission to enter this Solar System, therefore I must ask you to turn back and leave, you may return once you have proper clearance!¡± ¡°I am afraid that won''t work for me, you see I have a delivery to complete, and I am under contract to complete it.¡± A message suddenly popped up on my hud and after quickly reading it, I turned my eyes back to the man. ¡°You are a member of the invading twiddle clans force, you will turn back at once, or you will be recognised as enemy combatants attempting to reach a hospitable planet to cause destruction and harm to the local populace. I warn you one last time, turn back, or you will be fired upon!¡± I noticed past him, ships had begun to dock with the carriers as they reached the perimeter, but the man in front of me had not changed course or even spoken. I had watched the carriers in curiosity until I felt Jessica tap my shoulder and whisper ¡°fire¡± to me. I immediately looked at the freight cruiser which was still approaching the planet and instructed a long range gun to fire, which it did, sending a blue plasma bolt straight at the freight cruiser the reaction was immediate. The man started screaming silently at his bridge crew, and the ship altered course, moving away from the planet towards the perimeter. The three destroyers moved to cover its retreat, attempting to shoot the blue plasma bolt before it reached them. The two battlecruisers had also moved to cover the freight cruiser escorting it away. ¡°Blossoming Terranova Orbital Station, you have fired upon a merchant vessel attempting a delivery, this will be remembered and when I reach a civilised orbital station complaints will be filed!¡± He then vanished from my command table, having ended the call. The next second, a dreadnought surfaced out of subspace, hurtling at rapid speed into the solar system as it broadcasted its identifier as Celestial Duke Arthur Cilterian flagship: the Arbinger. A few seconds later, more and more ships began surfacing from subspace as they hurtled into the solar system, broadcasting their own identifiers. They stated they came from Celestial duke Cilterian Clan, Celestial Marquess Walker Clan, Celestial Count Johnson Clan and Celestial Viscount Ripter Clan. Including the flagship from each. Ships broadcasting all sorts of other identifiers were also surfacing as they hurtled into the solar system, all while moving to defend the orbital station. I noticed the five ships that had turned away from earth. They were trying to get to The closest Twiddles carrier as fast as their engines would let them, even to the point of abandoning the freight cruiser who was lagging behind. The reason became clear when the carrier closest to the dreadnought Suddenly started sinking into subspace, leaving the Solar System. I turned to look at Ashley and smiled At her, ¡°five pounds says they shit their pants and leave at least one of these five ships behind¡± ¡°Ha, only a fool would take that bet!¡± CHAPTER 41: CLEANING UP! I watched the map as ships docked with the carriers who had turned and were beginning to fly out of the Solar System. The dreadnought from the celestial duke clan got a little closer to a carrier as they traded shots. The carrier ended up taking damage and had a huge hole in its side when the carrier suddenly lurched forwards as it sank downward, the next second the map registered it as entering subspace and then it vanished. A few moments later, the dreadnought lurched and followed the carrier into subspace, vanishing from my map. I turned, glancing at Jessica who just stood there smiling before I looked at the other two carriers, one had a huge hole in the side of it and only half of its thrusters operational. I watched a ship dock with it and a few moments later it lurched forward only for something near the rear to explode. A few moments after that, ships began to pour out of it as they attempted to run for the last carrier, many of the ships that had come to defend the orbital station immediately engaged them, picking them off. Not all made it unscathed, as the ships did fire back and a few of the defenders were blown apart. Only three shuttles and a frigate made it to the carrier. The frigate did not even have time to dock before the carrier lurched forward, sinking into subspace as it ran from the overwhelming force that had followed the frigate. Without anywhere to run to, the frigate immediately surrendered. The five ships that still had not made it to a carrier found themselves with no way out of the system and decided to turn back towards earth. I watched the map as many other ships began lurching and sinking into subspace as they either followed or went somewhere else. Leaving only a dozen ships still in system, Ashley suddenly stepped forwards, placing her hands on the command table as she glared up at the Five ships that had turned back to earth. A microphone appeared in front of her, and she screamed into it. ¡°Surrender or you will be fired upon for failing to head the Blossoming Terranova Orbital Station''s warning!¡± After receiving no response and the ships did not change course, Ashley gave the order and the orbital station began firing on the five ships. The battlecruisers moved to defend the freight cruiser as the destroys lurked in between them, trying to add their own firepower to the defence of the freight cruiser. Moments later, a battlecruiser took a plasma bolt to its engines and died, it ejected what my map registered as a life bank. A destroyer managed to collect before moving to rejoin, only for it to fail to defend itself and went down, ejecting two life banks. ¡°What are these life banks?¡± I asked curiously as I watched the last three ships getting near a planet. I watched as the freighter and last destroyer suddenly change course and head towards the planet''s surface. ¡°Hmm? Oh, it is the stored consciousness of all those that were onboard the ship. There should only be a skeleton crew of necessary personal on it, the rest would have transferred themselves to a carriers'' life bank, that left the system or to one already out of the system if they could afford the long transfer fee.¡± Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. ¡°And if they couldn''t and went down with the two carriers that didn''t make it out?¡± ¡°Then they are stored on the carrier''s life bank, awaiting your mercy.¡± ¡°Can the host body die? If I show no mercy?¡± I asked as I watched the battlecruiser eject its life bank. ¡°No, they will be forcibly ejected, and the system will delete everything they had including credits, they will have to start all over again.¡± ¡°What should I do if I decide to show them mercy?¡± I asked curiously as I watched the freight cruiser reach what my command table''s map said was the atmosphere of Mars. A few moments later the last destroyer took a shot and I watched its life bank fly out into space. ¡°Well then you would collect up all the life banks and store them, the host body can connect and disconnect from it while they wait for your decision but while they are connected they will be sitting in a military version of a day spa being pampered and looked after. But they are completely cut off from the rest of the universe while there. My recommendation would be to begin construction on your prison while you collect the life banks.¡± I nodded my head as I brought up the orbital stations construction menu, discovering nothing was currently being built I manoeuvred over to the prison and found I had enough credits and resources for its construction and immediately selected it. As I glanced up at the map, I noticed most of the remaining ships were registering on my map as salvage ships, and they were salvaging the wreckage and debris that were still floating away from my solar system. I was about to turn to Jessica and ask for an explanation when the Command table alerted me that it had an incoming call. I mentally clicked answer, only for a familiar face to appear standing on the edge of my table, grinning at me. ¡°What the hell, Kenna? I leave you alone for five minutes, and you get into a fight?¡± I laughed and shook my head before replying. ¡±It''s not my fault, Zeo, I was just sitting here minding my own business when they showed up, making all sorts of demands and statements, they even filed complaints against me for disagreeing.¡± ¡°Yes, well my clan is already investigating that but in the meantime I have loaned you a dozen of my salvage ships with pilots, they will haul all the wreckage and debris into a hangar for your people to sort out at a later time, they will even collect the life banks for you to place in your prison. Can we agree on a fee of no charge for the next three ore shipments?¡± ¡°You want to take the entire shipment instead of paying me a percentage?¡± ¡°It is a lot of wreckage, you could use it to build a carrier and fill it will all the required ships. The wreckage is worth way more than what the ore charge is.¡± ¡°Fine, I suppose that is fair.¡± ¡°Okay, it''s a deal, well I got to run now, dads already throwing a fit and wanting to go on a Twiddles hunt. See ya around.¡± She smiled to me then waved before vanishing. A ship on the map near the edge of the solar system suddenly lurched forwards and vanished into subspace. I let out a sigh and made sure the map was still tracking that freight cruiser, now resting on the surface of Mars. Before sighing and turning to face the man, who presumably had the same last name as Jessica Biko. ¡°So, you want to open a guild hall on my Orbital Station?¡± ¡°Yes please, Ma¡¯am. I have prepared a guild hall rental contract that I think you would find agreeable.¡± He moved his hand from where I presumed his hud was and flicked it towards me. My hud pinged, and I looked at the contract that he had sent me. ANNOUNCMENT! I have officially completed the one-month marathon! aaah, that was a lot! Hahaha, from now on I will be reducing the speed in which chapters are released, as those on patreon have almost caught up to the end of my stock piled chapters. Sorry, I wish I could write a chapter a day, but I can''t, I have a family to look after and obligations to do. And I am simply not that talented :( On the bright side, from chapter 55 the chapters have been extended to over, 25000 words a chapter, but that quickly tapers off to 2000 words a chapter after a couple of chapters so they are a bit bigger and will stay over 2000 words a chapter. As I write this on the 22 of February, I have completed 63 and a half chapters and plan to declare the first book finished at chapter 100!! This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. I will immediately start book 2 and keep writing, so you don''t have to worry about any chapter delays when book one ends :D after today I am going to aim for two-three chapters a week, wish me luck! And thank you very much for your support, I really really appreciate it! CHAPTER 42: CONTRACTS AND BUILDINGS! The Shadow Knights Guild wishes to form a rental contract between themselves and The Blossoming Terranova Guild. The contract is as follows: Do you Guild Mistress of the Blossoming Terranova Guild accept this contract as stated above? It seemed fair, and I was not using any of the rooms down on the first floor anyway, so I mentally accepted. Congratulations! You have rented your first guild hall and received a small perk fragment, collect four of these to combine them into a small perk! Both screens vanished, and the man bowed slightly to me before flicking something from his hud to me again. The Shadow Knights Guild Funded company wishes to form a Contract between themselves and the Blossoming Terranova Guild MWOA254 Orbital Station. The contract is as follows: Do you Guild Mistress of the Blossoming Terranova Guild and owner of the Blossoming Terranova MWOA254 Orbital Station accept this contract as stated above? I nodded my head slowly as I carefully read it over, coming to the conclusion all it would cost me is the resources to build a police department. In exchange, I would gain five thousand credits a week instead of ten thousand. I thought it was a good deal. I mentally accepted it, watching the screen vanish and the man bow to me again before turning and leaving. ¡°I will have to ask your forgiveness, my husband, he becomes a man of few words once he gets overly excited.¡± I smiled and nodded politely before turning to look at the map, watching the salvage ships drag the wreckage towards the orbital station for a few minutes. I then glanced at the construction menu to see the prison was five percent complete. I then turned to look at Ashley. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. ¡°The gaming hall should be open again now that no one is trying to blow us up¡± ¡°Oh, yea!¡± she squealed in delight as she went to run out of the room, but she paused at the door ¡°Kenna, the shields protecting the hull will recover, right?¡± I quickly turned to the command table to check on the protection force field and saw that the power level had moved back up to fifteen percent. ¡°Yes, Ashley. It is slowly recovering. I believe we will be at max shields in about twelve hours.¡± ¡°Awesome! Well, I''m off to play on the game hall.¡± she waved as she disappeared through the door. ¡°I am guessing you are waiting to ask me to construct an office building of some kind so you can set up the Galactic Federation Branch office in it?¡± I asked Jessica after I had turned my head to look at her. ¡°Indeed, I would appreciate having a galactic federation branch building to work in, perhaps you would be willing to add it to the Construction queue?¡± I smiled, trying to hide the oh duh of course you can queue stuff look that I felt. I quickly turned away from Jessica and placed my hands on the command table once again. After a little navigating, I found Police Station Headquarters. It was fascinating because it also had an info window on itself telling me this was a once off purchase for the police station. Any further police station branches needed would be funded and paid for by the Chief of Police on their own command table inside the police station headquarters chief''s office. I smiled and checked to make sure I could afford its cost and resources before click build. It immediately disappeared from the list of buildings that I could purchase. I smiled happily and continued on down the list and after a few moments, I managed to find a building that looked like it would fit what Jessica wanted. It was a military outpost building, if the description was to be believed, then it was basically an office building for the military. It was used for coordinating military personnel and assets in the Solar system and on the orbital station. I turned to Jessica and asked. ¡°Will this building do?¡± ¡°That is the building we use, so yes, I would appreciate its purchase and construction, so I may get to work.¡± I nodded my head and turned back to the table and checked I had enough resources. When I got to the price tag, I winced as I noticed that I barely had enough credits to cover it, so I purchased it and watched it disappear from the list. ¡°It will be constructed after the police station h.q.¡± I told Jessica as I closed the construction menu. ¡°Thank you, Kenna, while I wait, I think I will go help my husband set up our guild if you will excuse me.¡± She turned and left the command office, and I let out a sigh before turning back to the map, watching the salvage ships approach the station. ¡°Why do I feel like chaos is raining down around me, and it''s only going to get more chaotic?¡± I reached into my pocket and pulled out the black game card that I had thrown in there when all this mess began, and a smile slowly spread across my face. ¡°Well, the salvage is being collected, all enemies have left the system, the ship to get my clan from earth is still under construction and there is a queue of buildings. I guess I am not needed for a while and can finally find out what game you unlock.¡± I left my office and walked back to that golden game hall door, passing through it and into the huge hall. I noticed the first door was closed with those occupied warning words on it and Ashley''s name. I felt an amused smile cross my face before I turned and walked over to the second door, passing into the room and moving around the arm to the flat panel and held up my card to it. ¡°Here goes nothing, show me what you got!¡± I declared as I slid the card into its slot. CHAPTER 43: WHAT THE HELL! I found myself in a hangar, tiny people were running all around me and I could hear the sounds of construction like they were building something. I thought about the gun I was connected to on the hull of my orbital station and attempted to disconnect from the camera I was looking through in the same way, only for it to remain. But suddenly I was very aware of hundreds of other cameras that I could see through all at the same time. I flinched back trying to pull away from it and failing to do so caused me to panic, and I began trying harder, even using that disconnect thought again to escape all that information. I did notice all the tiny people in the cameras were running away from what ever they had been doing. The next second I felt a pulse run through my body and my vision was narrowed down to a single camera overseeing what looked like a ramp. And a single man who stood on the ramp looking up at my camera. I also noticed I sort of felt like I was disconnected from my body, like when they numb your gums at the dentist, and you know it''s there but can''t feel a thing. In his hand was a glass screen, and I noticed he was glaring at the camera. ¡°Only Flight Lieutenant Kenna Mackenzie has access to this ship, therefore you must be her¡­. You are a week early, we have not finished the construction of the drop carrier, so do you mind explaining to me, flight lieutenant, what in the frost bitten fuck are you doing!¡± ¡°I wanted to play the game in the game hall¡± I stammered as I glanced around trying to see more than what the camera was pointed at. I watched his mouth slowly fall open and stare at the camera for a full minute before he snapped out of it and started typing away on the glass screen in his hand. The next second my view changed to a small room and I felt human again for a split second before I realised I still couldn''t move. A few moments later, the slicked back black haired man wearing a navy camouflage jumpsuit walked in, still looking down at the glass screen in his hands. ¡°Okay, you should be connected to the maintenance droid now. It has vocal speakers allowing you to speak and will be less disorientating while you ease yourself into your first log in. Now tell me, what made you think a void login card would allow you to play the game on a secure connection isolation life pod also known as the upload rig?¡± ¡°Uh, well my cousin had a gold one, and she said it the game pod let her experience an amazing world, and I wanted to play with her, I just figured it was black because I was the guild mistress.¡± He spluttered for a few moments before he let out a loud sigh, then tapped the glass screen in his hand until a holographic microphone appeared above it. ¡°Alright, all of you, get back to work, I have found the problem and isolated it.¡± He then tapped away on the screen again before folding it up and sliding into a pocket in his pants, then looked down at my face. ¡°I was supposed to explain this to you next week when you logged in for the first time, but what the hell, I¡¯ll do it now, and I¡¯ll throw in some free rig education too, okay?¡± Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. I tried to nod my head, only to find it wouldn''t move an inch, so I had to resort to speaking to the man that was starting to scare me a little. ¡°Okay¡± ¡°Alright, let''s start with the rig you just uploaded from, there are two ways to upload that is the void subsystem using the mental connection, it can be done from anywhere, but it leaves your body exposed and vulnerable to nefarious individuals. The second is using the upload rig this way isolates your body so no one can get near it without rescue codes.¡± He pulled something out of his other pocket and began fiddling with it as he looked at me and muttered something to himself. I heard a word sounding like ¡®synthetic¡¯ and something about mapping proper movements. He then looked back up at my face and continued talking. ¡°Rescue codes are system locked into a rescue worker''s rescue subsystem, and they can''t actually access them, it just does it automatically. This means they can''t give those codes to anyone, and the system monitors them like a freaking overprotective helicopter parent that wants everything done exactly. So they can''t misuse them even if they wanted to. All this makes the rig the safest place in the universe to upload from.¡± He made a tsk sound and shoved the item back into his pocket. ¡°The upload rig''s proper name is the secure connection isolation life pod. This is because it is the securest place to connect from. It is completely isolated, only those rescue codes can open it. It is a life pod, so if anything were to happen like the ship or station you are on getting destroyed, it will eject you out into space and activate the life pod systems.¡± He narrowed his eyes for a few seconds as his eyes roved over his hud. ¡°This turns it into a cryogenic hibernation pod until you can be rescued. It also sends out a distress call to all nearby ships. Yes, it does ignore the ones shooting at the station or ship you just came from. It also has limited thruster manoeuvrability and warp drives so that it can jump to another solar system where it would be safer for you to be discovered. Still with me?¡± ¡°Uh, yes.¡± ¡°Good, now I''ll tell you why¡­ Did you say cousin? Anyway, why they are playing a game with a gold card, and you are here at work. Basically, the rig was invented for a secure and safe way for those with the void subsystems to connect and safely work without endangering their real bodies. However, those that did not get the class void something, started getting upset that they couldn''t be a part of it.¡± He suddenly reached forward and pulled something out of the droid I was inhabiting and looked it over before pulling a rag out and wiping it clean before sticking it back in. ¡°So the gaming system was invented where you could use those game cards to log in. You have the void subsystem, so your game card turns black and allows you to safely upload to work. Your cousin, by the sounds of it, is not a member of the void.¡± He suddenly poked at something in the droids stomach before frowning and continuing. ¡°Therefore, her game card turns gold. She gets to join a randomly appointed carrier ship where she can build a company or join one and invite other people from your guild hall game room to join her. That''s usually how companies are formed, the leader finds a carrier and invites the other clan members to it so they can work together. From there, they have fun blowing stuff up and completing tasks and gain some small amount of credits and renown. The ones that are fantastic and do it for a living have a way, that they keep to themselves, of using their companies to bring in large amounts of credits. They then pay everyone in the company a wage with it. Does that make sense?¡± ¡°Sure¡­¡± ¡°Great, now if you are ready to learn about why you are here locked into the computer of this maintenance droid instead of a flesh clone body, though I do have to admit, you have a pretty cool job. But then there is a lot of information your brain has to process¡­ well, all I can do is tell you about it and hope you can do your job effectively enough to not get resigned to¡­ well, I shudder to think about what that could be.¡± CHAPTER 44: THE ALLIANCE OF A COMPANY? ¡°Yea, okay, but why am I in a maintenance droid?¡± ¡°Oh, well that''s because a drop carrier doesn''t have a pilot, what it does have is an onboard computer that controls the ship and uses maintenance droids to walk about and do loads of tasks on the ship including fix the ship when it gets shot up.¡± He grinned at me for a second before shrugging. ¡°It''s a job for those that have excellent flying skills and a bit of know how on repairing and maintaining a ship. They are only deployed towards planets with active weapons fire in space. Their job is to get the eight drop-ships onboard to the planets'' atmosphere without being shot, they then have to deploy on the surface and act as a clone birthing hangar where anyone that dies is respawned. Players with those gold cards love it.¡± ¡°Well, that seems a little boring, get shot at for a bit, then land and hibernate for frickity knows how long.¡± He opened Then Closed his mouth before letting out a soft chuckle as he shook his head slowly. ¡°Aah Haha, yes, I suppose that would be boring. That would also be why the drop carrier pilot is allowed to spawn themselves into a clone body once planet side and participate In the gold cards tasks and games. This is also where the fun part comes in. Did you know they participate for ownership of land.¡± He stared at me for a bit, but all I could do was stare back, not sure what he was looking for. ¡°Once, secured it becomes property of your clans'' territory, but this is where it gets interesting. Because it is game won or void won in your case, you are required to operate it like you would your orbital station, and by that I mean build Shit on It and rent it out for profits. Ya know, get paid like all the big clans¡­ Ya know, that''s probably how they bring In the big creds.¡± ¡°Uh huh, while that does sound good And fun, I can''t help but notice you said secured, are you implying someone can take it?¡± ¡°Well, yes we Would be fighting in an active combat zone so while you get quests to take a player from, who knows where else could get a quest to liberate it or something like that and take it for themselves.¡± ¡°Are you saying I have to be wary of every single person?¡± ¡°What? No! Okay I will simplify this, we are on the Terance let''s call that Blue team in a week and a couple of days we will be arriving at a planet. About the same time the carrier Wilta does, we will call them red team, now you claim land from some quest or task and then someone on the red team will get a liberation and claim mission for that piece of land, and they complete it by taking the land from you. From there you might receive a mission to take it back or someone else on the blue team might receive a liberation and claim mission for it, allowing it to continually change hands.¡± Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Then how do you secure anything if it''s always Changing hands?¡± ¡°For you to secure land, your blue team would have to push the red team off the continent, allowing you to secure it for the blue team! That''s when people start building defences and an architect comes in and starts creating cities and all sorts of stuff, and you get paid for your lands use in all that.¡± ¡°Okay, so it''s A toss up on how much land and individual can secure, while it''s easier for a company to secure land because there are more members Working together.¡± ¡°Yep, you got it now.¡± ¡°What if the blue team gets pushed off?¡± ¡°Well then you better hope the blue team manages to secure another continent because if they fail to secure any then they get nothing and have to try again on the next planet. And that will upset a lot of people. Oh, and your drop carrier is destroyed, so you''re out of the game and back up here waiting for a new one to be constructed.¡± I winced slightly When his voice raised to the tone of someone that was getting annoyed. I slowly looked around the room wishing I could move my head before I looked back at him, having not noticed anything particularly interesting. ¡°Okay that sounds fun I guess, my cousin said she was playing on the Terance So I could link up with her, and we could work together to get more land for our clans'' territory.¡± ¡°Yes you certainly could, I would also recommend she starts a company and asks your guild leader to fund it, if they manage to secure land the returns will outweigh the initial costs. And of course, have her invite more of your guild members to join her. I don''t know what a level one company''s member cap is, but it shouldn''t be less than a couple of squads, or maybe it''s a platoon¡­ I don''t remember, but it''s not bigger than what a drop-ship can carry.¡± ¡°Okay, and so my maybe platoon sized company is out there on its own trying to collect enough land to make it worth being out there, what about clone bodies and other stuff?¡± ¡°Hmm, oh, players have to pay for their clone''s body just like you do. That''s why you don''t see crazy people running out into the middle of the street and getting shot to shit before they can pull a dumb crazy stunt¡­ Well, not often at least, some crazy newbies go broke fast or learn not to do it. As for the alone statement, well, you don''t have to be alone. Company''s have the ability to form alliances and agreements, just like guilds and clans.¡± ¡°Wait, how do the players get paid to be able to afford bodies and equipment each time they die if the guild funding them is poor?¡± ¡°Oh, uh, well there are shops and stuff around the starting locations and if a player was to loot enemy troops or capture Enemy assets like a skiff, skud or even a drop-ship then they could sell all that to the shops to earn credits to pay for upgrades or clone bodies. Now if you''re done asking questions, I need to get back to work and will see you next week at your allotted log in time where we will run through familiarising you with your new body and no we can''t do it now since it''s still in pieces.¡± At that, he turned on his heel and walked out of the room. After A bit of thought and testing, I managed to flick to a camera outside the ship and watched the hangar crew busying themselves with the contribution for a few minutes. Before I started thinking about Ashley and the company we needed to make. A few seconds after that, I started running through options on how to disconnect from the rig¡­ log out Should Have been obvious, but for some reason I kept thinking it was some variation Of disconnect. I blinked rapidly as my eyes adjusted to the different light in the uplink rig, and it took me a few minutes before I stumbled out of the pod and turned to see Ashley''s door still closed. I glanced around the huge hall with its eight floors and hallways leading off deeper into the place and decided I didn''t want to know how many rigs there were. Instead, I walked over to Ashley''s rig door and knocked, after a moment a window appeared in front of the door. Would you like to call the occupant? Announcement 2 I have some bad news for every one, I''m really sorry, but I am going to have to put my family first, Earlier today I was told that my wife is booked in for major abdominal surgery in three weeks and will be resting in bed for up to 10 weeks after the surgery, this will cause me to become very busy and most likely sleep-deprived, this means that the likelihood of me being able to write will be majorly reduced, I am not even sure if I will be able to get out a chapter let alone one every third day. I will post another announcement the day before to help remind everyone that it is about to happen, and I''m really sorry The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. but worry not!! I am not giving up on this book, I will finish it! And then I will write book two! I am looking forward to that one, It''s going to be so much fun. I am hoping that we can all weather through this turbulent times and reach the other side safely. Thank you for your understanding and continued support! I love and appreciate all of you :D oh, one last thing, to keep patreon fair and to show appreciation for those that have paid to read ahead, I will ensure that during my time on hiatus, patreon will remain ahead, and therefore if you wish to read the chapters that I will start releasing to royalroad after I get back, then I suggest you join my patreon and read ahead :D :P