I finally let the unhappy mask slip from my face and smiled happily:
“Actually I rented the freight-passenger shuttle myself to transport equipment for the planetary shield generator from nearby space stations. So the starship will take off only when my business partner Uline Tar gives the go-ahead!”
A satisfied smile also appeared on Alexander Antipov ‘s face:
“To be honest, knowing you, I’m not the least bit surprised. I bet your frigate is doing just fine too. But you don’t have to say anything.”
I tried to communicate mentally, but he averted his gaze. He knew perfectly well about my psionic “mind games” and didn’t exactly have a burning desire to find out what it felt like to have his thoughts read. Okay then, he had that right. I briefly glanced at the closed door into Lozovsky’s office and, lowering my voice to a whisper, admitted:
“The starship is fine. There were a few losses right after landing, but we dealt with it. And we made out like bandits. But we probably won’t be able to do any selling without my business partner Uline – I don’t have any connections among the traders on Kasti-Utsh III or any other stations for that matter. And popping by the pirate station Medu-Ro IV would be akin to suicide because the Pride of the Bushy Shadow has it out for me.”
So why did I decide to be open with the security director? First of all, he would have found out soon enough no matter what. Second, I now had a vague suspicion that the winds of power under the Dome were shifting. Ivan Lozovsky was just too sour and constantly lashing out. It wasn’t the usually cautious diplomat’s style at all. It was as if he didn’t care anymore. And Alexander Antipov was acting too independent. It seemed like he knew something.
And by the looks of things, I was right. He also lowered his voice to a whisper:
“What can I say, Gnat? Honesty for honesty. Today was the day of our regular report to the curators on the state of affairs in the Human-3 Faction. It was a special session, given how much has been going on recently. But the curators didn’t want to let Lozovsky come. The official reason: the still-active quarantine of the Dome made Lozovsky a potential carrier of a deadly disease, so he still had to steer clear of densely-populated Moscow. But everyone knows perfectly well that it’s nothing but a flimsy formal excuse. After all, they could have arranged for the report to be given remotely via video conference or by some other method.”
The fed fell silent, giving me time to think over what he said. Then I looked over to the leader’s closed door just in case and continued:
“The negotiations with the Dark Faction have shown clearly that our Diplomat no longer holds effective decision-making power. And that he is utterly impotent when it comes to obtaining new technologies. For a long time now, all new acquisitions have come through you. And Lozovsky’s main trump card – his close relationship with the Diplomat of our suzerains – has also faded recently. I mean, Kosta Dykhsh talks more with you and your furry friend Uline. Well, and the obvious screw up when our faction violated a treaty and was fined by the suzerains also did not work in our Diplomat’s favor. And neither did his close relationship with Anna the traitor. Put it all together and draw your own conclusions.”
All that pointed to the idea that Ivan Lozovsky had made too many mistakes as faction leader and fell into disfavor. Okay then, I’d keep that in mind. I thanked him for the interesting and useful information. After that, mulling the conversation over, I started to make for the exit but the fed stopped me again and continued:
“And there’s something else you should know. We received confirmation of something you told us before: there might soon be inaccessible territories in the real world. Four days ago, a satellite over Antarctica discovered an area that looks very similar to the Geckho space port – just as you warned. There is another inaccessible zone of ten by twenty miles that appeared yesterday just forty miles from Novosibirsk. The spatial distortion is only apparent from significant elevation. On the ground, the anomaly cannot be observed. People simply pass right through it without noticing, travelling dozens of miles in the blink of an eye. But it’s also causing errors in nearby navigation systems, so the Novosibirsk airport has been temporarily closed even though it’s the largest in Siberia. And the people have been making a big stink. Sooner or later, that’s bound to catch the eye of our country’s leadership. I have heard top-secret whispers that the curators will want to have a talk with you in a few days. And your main job is going to be finding the cause of these spatial anomalies, Leng Gnat!”
I thanked him again and, pointing at the pack of papers in my hands, said:
“I’ll need around and hour to skim through this list. I only want the best of the best. After that, the people I choose must be informed and immediately brought into the game. If they cannot reach the Geckho spaceport on their own, have them say so. I’ll send a Sio-Mi-Dori to pick them up. Space suits, weapons and equipment are all preferable, but not required. I can provide everything my team will need. And I’ll mark a couple more combat characters than needed. Dark Faction Shocktroop Gerd T’yu-Pan will make the final selection at the spaceport. He also respawned in the space port along with the rest and, given that he is in charge of my boarding team, I say let him pick the hardest and most dangerous killers, the kind whose mere mention will one day make the Universe shiver!”
Chapter Five. A Requested Stop
I WAS AWOKEN by an insistent scratching at my door, as if a cat were asking to be let back in after coming back from a prowl through the neighborhood. It took a few seconds to finally wake up and get my bearings. So, I was in the game, and I fell asleep in my captain’s bunk. I saw no sense in going into the real world to rest. First of all, this was space, a “red zone” and my character wasn’t going to be disappearing regardless. And second, with Tamara transferred into the parallel magocratic world, my room under the Dome felt somehow empty and dreary.
But why so quiet? The strange silence shook me from my slumber and made me jump out of bed instantly. You see, a starship flying through hyperspace is never supposed to be silent. It’s always making some noise or another: the measured hum of the engines, the barely perceptible buzz of the power unit, the crackle of the gravity compensators. Sometimes you can even hear the fuselage creaking under strain. But there was none of that now, and that had me very afraid!
I heard the scratching again and opened the door. In the doorway was the Miyelonian Translator Gerd Ayni. The orange kitty’s hair was standing on end, and she looked worried:
“Captain Gnat, you’re needed on the bridge. Something strange has happened.”
With a brisk gait, I headed for the bridge. Everyone who was left after the asteroid was already there. Even Vaa the Morphian came to catch a glimpse of the unusual scene. And it really was a sight to behold: there were three plasma clouds spinning unhurried circles around our frigate in the vast expanse of space. Satellites?! And a whole three!!! Had anyone ever seen something like this before? And by the way, why was the starship in normal space, not hyper? I asked the last question out loud.
Ayukh the Navigator tore himself from the external camera monitor and commented:
“Captain, the Symbiotes appeared suddenly, and three of them at once. Right after that, our hyperdrive turned off and the frigate got spat out into normal space. Then a bit later, our defensive shield also got cut. Before the shield was turned off, there was an attempt to attach an ‘external device’ to our power unit, and it succeeded. We had given a satellite access to our power source before, so it figured it was entitled to do so again. But as it stands, the situation is not great: the Symbiotes have taken over our power and are distributing it as they see fit, siphoning it to themselves while keeping all our laser cannons and thrusters switched off. And without a qualified Engineer, I’m afraid that we’ll have no way of taking back control.”
“There is also a nonstop stream of weird symbols on that screen,” the orange Ayni pointed a clawed paw at my workstation’s flickering monitor. “Ayukh called me to
figure it out, but I have never seen symbols like them before and the framerate is too high for Miyelonian eyes.”
I saw the little blotches as soon as I came in, but I figured the monitor was just malfunctioning. Hrm... Problem. But my Danger Sense wasn’t making a peep, so there was also no immediate threat. We had simply been stopped for investigation.
“So, what is this place?” I asked, sitting at my workstation and trying to fire up my instruments.
The Navigator looked confused. It seemed like he hadn’t even asked himself that question yet. The Geckho typed some commands into the console and a detailed answer came back ten seconds later:
“The H9051/WD system. Or to be more accurate, the very edge of it. The ‘juncture’ with the neighboring K0987/AA system, so to speak. Three uninhabitable planets – a roasting hot sphere by the star and two gas giants. According to the guide, this system is considered unstable and, in seventy million tongs, the two large planets will collide. The neighboring system is a white dwarf with no planets. Overall, nothing of interest. A random point where we got spat out of a hyperspace tunnel.”
“Random? Then what is that?” I sent the Navigator some data from the ship’s locator:
Distance: 670 miles. Debris from starship of unknown design.
Distance: 3597 miles. Debris from starship of unknown design.
Distance: 12508 miles. Unknown ship. Signature not found in database. Most likely belongs to class “long-distance scout ship” or “assault cruiser.”
Distance: 17863 miles. Debris from Trillian research probe.
Distance: 20788 miles. Debris from starship of unknown design.
A true ship graveyard... It must not have been a coincidence that we were yanked out of hyperspace in this very spot. Something peculiar was going on here. Ominous even. And it wasn’t just the dark unresponsive starship twelve thousand miles away. I tried to use the frigate’s scanning equipment to take a closer look at the mysterious “assault cruiser,” but the screen immediately went dark. The Symbiotes didn’t like what I was trying to do, and cut power to the starship’s scanning devices. Those rats!
The Navigator then stroked his nose with his paw thoughtfully and agreed that this location was not merely random:
“Yes captain. This is the boundary between star systems and seemingly a gravity rift, a weak point in the fabric of space. For that reason, many routes in hyperspace pass through this point in some way or another. And there’s something else I find strange: we have flown this way before, yet this is the first time the Symbiotes have taken an interest in us.”
I was reminded of a system warning I got when choosing the name of my new Relict Faction. It said the name had its own history, which might lead to unexpected allies and enemies. Seemingly, we were now observing a consequence of that very ancient history. Okay, but that was all empty conjecture. What to do right here and now?
Seemingly, the only way out was to establish contact with our captors. The three Symbiotes could have destroyed our frigate long ago, but they hadn’t and were waiting for something. But what? It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out, given they’d flooded our communications system with messages. Like it or not, we’d have to figure them out. I turned my attention to the flickering screen. Hrm... I couldn’t make head or tail of it, and to my eye there was no real way to do so.
I tried to put it on pause or take a screenshot. That made things a bit better, but there was also precious little to be happy about – the screen was displaying columns of vertical dashes and slanted lines which seemed impossible to assemble into sensible text. Was that really the language of the Precursors?
“Kirsan, you’re needed on the bridge!” I mentally called the mechanoid repair bot.
And why not? The repair bot was around back in the times of the great war between the ancient races and perhaps would be able to understand the language of the Mechanoids’ archnemesis. Thankfully, it only took a couple seconds for the white-painted flat metallic millipede to poke its head out of the ventilation and gracefully descend the vertical wall to the floor.
When I asked about the writing on the screen, Kirsan asked the Jarg to lend him his Universal Translator and answered:
“Situation to understand. Ancient enemy. Aggression. Question. Wait for answer. Countdown. Then attack.”
Well, well! So the symbols on screen weren’t simply a rendering of disjointed signals. The satellites, as it turned out, were asking us a question and now waiting for an answer. I asked Kirsan what exactly the satellites wanted to know, and how much time we had to answer.
“Question. Who are you? Answer. Forty-seven seconds. Forty-six. Forty-five... “
What??? I became the very definition of the word “overwhelmed.” My heart grew tight in anxiety and fear. My arms and legs turned to cotton. The panic stopped me from concentrating or thinking rationally. I can’t say why my danger-warning skill was still silent, but now the game algorithms were spewing forth double-time:
Danger Sense skill increased to level sixty-five!
Danger Sense skill increased to level sixty-six!
Forty seconds. Thirty-nine. I had a momentary thought that I should spend all my free skill points right now because some of them were from more than a day earlier and would get burned up if my character died, which was now quite probable. But I didn’t do that just yet. My frigate was too important. I had to try and use the time I had left to save my starship.
“Leng Gnat, human!” I said my aloud, but the Symbiotes didn’t react in any way. Kirsan was still counting down the remaining seconds before the ship would be destroyed.
“They don’t understand Geckho!” the wise Vaa kindly hinted, though I had already figured out myself that the Precursors must have vanished long before the first Geckho or any other modern race made it into space.
I needed to answer the Symbiotes in the Relict language. But how? The frigate’s computer system didn’t support it. I could only enter commands vocally or mentally in Geckho and Miyelonian. Well and in theory I could also use Meleyephatian, though I hadn’t ever tried. But Relict? I hadn’t even ever spoken it before. My only experience with it was in written form. I didn’t even know the proper way to pronounce all the symbols.
“Leng Gnat, human!” I turned away from the instrument panel and tried to use my Listener Energy Armor to send the message.
Kirsan’s relentless countdown took a pause. Did it really work? As it turned out, no. After a few moments of silence, the repair bot answered dispassionately:
“Relict weapon. Relict armor. Relict drone. Relict class. Relict alliance. Information false. Lie. Twenty-three. Twenty-two. Twenty-one...”
Danger Sense skill increased to level sixty-seven!
So they think I’m a Relict! As a matter of fact, what else would the Symbiotes think after seeing so many obvious references to their ancient enemy on my character?! I realized it was absolutely pointless to argue.
“Relict Gnat, level-87 Listener!” I instantly corrected my message and, while the plasma clouds figured out how to respond, I hurried to add: “Specialist in the second rung of the Relict Pyramid. I have earned the gratitude of the hierarchs for the large amount of data I transmitted to the Pyramid. As a sign of thanks, I was issued an additional drone. I have also been given permission to use level-two modifications in my Energy Armor!”
Authority increased to 65!
Fame increased to 76.
This time, the silence lasted a lot longer. Around a minute at least. Finally, Kirsan relayed the response:
“Important Relict. We observe long time. Were not sure. Now sure. No reason to kill. Will respawn. Negotiations better. Information. Why here? Why is your body not Relict? Why bad, primitive starship?”
After the end of the long message, I spent a few seconds waiting in great trepidation, but the countdown did not resume. My feeling of worry also completely evaporated. The Symbiotes had changed their mind about killing me – “no reason, will respawn.” Instead the Precurs
ors, or perhaps automated systems of theirs, decided to take advantage of the very rare chance for a chat with an ancient enemy so they could perhaps learn something new.
I had known the Symbiotes were interested in me for a while – maybe starting from the exact moment they first saw me wearing the ancient Listener Energy Armor. But they “were not sure,” as the Symbiotes themselves told me. Then I got the Annihilator, changed class to “Listener,” got the Small Relict Guard Drone and took over the Relict Faction. After all those changes, the “automated Precursor systems,” as my Small Guard Drone called the plasma clouds, had made up their minds, which is why they decided to stop me for an interview.
“I answer one question, you answer one question,” I suggested because I had a whole wagonload of questions for these satellites, plus a little cart’s worth to boot.
“Agreement. First Relict answer. Why here?”
The message came directly to me, displayed on the inner surface of my Listener Energy Armor helmet rather than the Meleyephatian frigate’s communications systems. The Symbiotes must have figured this was a faster and more convenient way to communicate. And I understood right away that any attempt to answer something like “just passing through, didn’t mean to ruffle any feathers” was not gonna fly. The Symbiotes wouldn’t believe I came upon this strange location at random. I had to improvise:
“Communication with the Pyramid is encumbered. Main communication channels have been blocked due to military activity. I have been using emergency channels. The Hierarchs used them to send me coordinates for where to go to get my reward. But I couldn’t make it...”
It was of course nonsense, but nothing more plausible was coming to mind. And technically it wasn’t such a massive lie. I really had worked out the coordinates of the Small Relict Guard Drone and was planning to fly off to get it soon. And funnily enough, my answer was accepted!
“You’ve come to the right place. The Relict Hierarch’s ship is here. It’s been here a long time. The siege has been underway for fifteen thousand tongs. There’s no way to pierce through the energy barrier. You have come to its call. Exactly right.”
A Jump into the Unknown (Reality Benders Book #5) LitRPG Series Page 7
