Start the Game (Galactogon: Book #1)

by Vasily Mahanenko

  I didn’t bother searching the Qualian’s body—it would do no good against the guy in the mech suit and the money would vanish upon deletion anyway. So I got out the second pacifier and returned to the hall with the flight simulators. As I recalled, the ceilings were much higher there.

  After a little while, I confirmed a very important fact—you really can’t destroy other players in the Training Sector. I didn’t disrupt anyone’s training, but whenever a player emerged from his “box,” smiling triumphantly, I’d lift him 20 feet into the air and let him plummet. It took only two such flights to bring the recruits down to 1% health, but that was it. I couldn’t finish them off beyond that. Laying around the floor and cursing at me, the players now looked unable to get back up—it seemed they needed medical assistance. This only made me happy, as now they couldn’t get in my way.

  “Drop the pacifier!” came the booming command. The hall’s vaulted roof parted and a marine in a mech suit, accompanied by much dust and gravel, came flying in. Performing a pretty bank and thereby demonstrating his tight control of the jet engine strapped to his back, the marine stopped, hovering a few yards before me. Well, that’s an end to my spree, I guess. The pacifier is useless against the active resistance attribute and isn’t much of a weapon to begin with, seeing as how it’s designed to lift things and…Hold on! Lift things?!

  “I’m dropping it,” I burbled, pointing the beam at one of the big simulator crates. Ample in its dimensions, this piece of equipment would weigh in at about a ton if not more. If the pacifier could do nothing against the active resistance, then we could try a different approach…

  “I’m counting to five! One! Two! Three!”

  A hit!

  One pacifier was not capable of lifting an emulator. I established that much right away. Then again, I also established quite quickly that two pacifiers work wonderfully swell in tandem, allowing you to lift what one cannot.

  A hit!

  New level reached: Your B-class pacifier has reached level 13. Durability, number of charges and energy have been restored by 30%.

  It took a while to pound the marine into the floor—about a minute—and this pleasure cost me two simulators, the first breaking in half without having done any damage worth mentioning. I was lucky in that each blow would stun the marine for a few moments, allowing me time to lift the second simulator before he could point his weapon at me.

  You have earned a new title: “Maniac.” You have reached Rank III of the “Enemy of the Empire” and “Murderer” Achievements, without having left the Training Sector. The shadow guilds of Galactogon are now aware of you.

  Smiling to myself, I dismissed the notification—quite a dubious achievement, or rather title. It’ll sound very pretty along with my name—“Maniac Surgeon.” Quite a ring to it! Having sent several other guards and instructors, who came running into the hall, to flight, I paused and waited, not wishing to leave such an advantageous place. If another marine shows up, I’ll have several other compelling arguments for him in the form of simulators…as long as they show up one at a time and once a minute, otherwise…

  Master, I’d like to inform you that news of your actions in the Training Sector has triggered a wave of outrage among the new players. The fora already bristle with demands to the administrators to get involved in the ongoing conflict and punish the perpetrator. That is, you. I will continue to monitor the news…

  My desire to delete this character and forget this nightmare ever happened was so great that it took all my willpower to take ahold of myself and approach the vanquished marine—my personal satisfaction indicator was not quite there yet. Bending over the pile of wreckage, once a handsome and self-assured Qualian, I touched the barrel of some black rifle when…

  Qualian Marine Armor. Weight: 212. Durability: 23%. Item class: D-44. Resistance to all attacks: 112. Maximum weight to carried items: +400.

  Qualian Assault Blaster. Weight: 12. Durability: 23%. Item class: D-44. Damage dealt: 60 (Radiation). Charges: 98 of 100.

  Acquired credits: 588 GC.

  Your Rapport with the Qualian Empire has decreased. Current Rapport: -43.

  It took only a moment for me to realize that my fun was just beginning! One or two hours won’t change the things much and I’m morally compelled to try out such a miracle gift fallen from the heavens. Qualian Marine Armor plus a blaster with 98 shots…What could be better for a player who is consciously heading toward resurrection?

  “I wrote down your name! You’re dead meat! I’ll find you IRL!” the players went on frothing helplessly. I paid them no attention, however. The suit of armor was much more important to me. Coming to grips with the realization that I had no idea how to pilot this piece of equipment and that I might cause harm to myself doing so (by the way, what kind of injuries can a character suffer?) I pushed the “Engage” button. Let’s see what happens…

  The nice thing about the suit was that I didn’t have to put it on piecemeal. It instantly embraced me, helpfully showing me its control interface. Crap! Once more, I found myself facing a bunch of buttons with strange inscriptions. Though, this time I wasn’t hampered by the emulator’s limitations and so, leaving the somatic interface, switched into Third Person mode.

  “Master, I continue to receive messages about…”

  “Don’t panic! Stan, I need complete and, simultaneously, concise information about how to pilot Qualian Marine Armor. You have ten seconds, get on with it!”

  “I have collected the requested information and sent it to your PDA. Master, I strongly advise you cease your aggression towards the Qualian Empire and…”

  Stan’s further advice remained a secret, as I switched back into First Person mode. Nothing had happened while I was gone. The players continued to strew the floor in a cursing heap. Marine reinforcements had not yet shown up and the guards and instructors were either dead or had decided that they had no business being there. Smart of them!

  In Runlustia, I was used to the mechanic that even if the player hadn’t the requisite skill to wear full plate armor, he could still don a steel cuirass and calmly head into the fray. Sure, he wouldn’t benefit from the cuirass’s special attributes—say, stat bonuses or magic resistance— but defense against physical attacks was enabled automatically. In Galactogon, this aspect turned out both more complicated and basic at the same time.

  First of all, the player can use any item he finds in Galactogon’s vastness, as long as this item doesn’t require multiple players to control it at once.

  Second of all, to use this stumbled-upon item, the player must know the correct combination of buttons to press—for, in Galactogon everything has buttons.

  And third of all…The correct combination of button presses can be found in real life just as in the game—which is what I decided to do now.

  The Qualian Marine Armor turned out to be a pretty interesting device. It was about eight feet long and made of some kind of alloy which fully covered the player, while moving him along the ground on two legs supported by powerful and clingy little paws. Judging by it all, a marine could even move vertically without much difficulty—as long as he could find places for the paws to cling to. The player’s legs only reached down to the suit’s hips, so losing an appendage did not actually hurt the player. The same applied to the arms. I could see several screens which showed everything that was happening around me. But even if the cameras were damaged, the cockpit surrounding me was transparent. This was probably to help you understand where you needed to flee to if it came to that…

  According to the information Stan sent over, the instrumentation panel before me could be controlled with my eyes, allowing my arms and legs to focus on controlling the armor’s movements. It followed that if I wanted to walk, I just needed to walk inside the suit—though only after finding a way to turn it on. And precisely this was what they spent four days of training on.

  Red-green-blue-red—the armor vibrated palpably. This sequence activated the suit, allowing the
player to start inputting commands. The screens went pitifully red, indicating that my suit’s Durability was critically low, but at the moment this was meaningless—I only needed it for a few hours. Next, I needed to transfer control to my arms and legs in order to move…Activate vision…Microphone…Stabilizer…Shields…

  Who cooked all this up?! To make the first step, I had to enter twenty different commands in sequence, adjusting the suit of armor to my body. Nevertheless, I persevered and got through the lot of them, knowing that next time this would be much easier. In fact, it was already clear what I had to do.

  “Stan, I need instructions for how to use and reload a Qualian Assault Blaster!”

  It took me about five minutes to absorb the principles behind the suit’s operation and to get a handle on how to keep my balance without cracking up the crowd of fallen newbies around me. These were five minutes which were gifted to me by the instructors’ and guards’ unwillingness to disturb me with their presence. Aiming the primed blaster at the mess of newbies, I turned on the PA and said, “Nothing personal, you guys. This is just target practice.”

  I pulled the trigger. So I’ll waste one shot—at least I’ll be certain that the blaster works…

  You have earned a new title: “Destroyer.” You have destroyed another player in the Training Sector. The shadow guilds of Galactogon are now curious about you. This title is logged and tracked officially. Number of players who have this title: 388.

  The lights went out in the hall, submerging us in darkness. A single beam of light sliced through the opening above. The siren, which I had already become accustomed to, fell quiet for a moment and then erupted so loudly that the newbies on the floor began writhing, trying to stop their ears. Oh so this is how they want to play! An attempt to break my will with sound? How will the developers explain their use of this sonic weapon to the other players?

  “Surgeon!” came a deafening roar, stifling the newbs’ moans. “Put down your weapons and come out with your hands up! You have five minutes to make up your mind!”

  What, am I no longer considered a recruit? Well, well…

  The siren fell silent along with the other players’ moans and, as I watched astounded, basically all of the recruits turned transparent and then vanished entirely. I’d guess they simply logged off into the real world—though a few remained.

  “Hey, Surgeon, can you hear me? Wave your hand if you can!”

  Waving my blaster at the remaining player to tell him to leave me alone, I continued to watch the doors with interest. I was wondering whether the assault would come through the roof or through the doors. I was still extremely insecure about my ability to pilot this craft—I sure wouldn’t have tried to fly the way that marine had done it—so I knew that I needed to be prepared to resist without the benefit of maneuverability.

  “Perfect,” the prone recruit went on. “My name is Lestran. I’m a repairman but I also just passed the piloting exam. If you take me with you, I’ll help you get off this planet! Better think fast—pretty soon you’ll have no time for me.”

  “Getting out of here isn’t possible! And even if we do, the Empire is closed to us,” I replied neutrally, as if everything was under control and I knew exactly what I was doing.

  “You don’t trust me? Fine, but I know all about the pirates—if you doubt my abilities, check my status—I even won a local tournament. Do you even know how to get to it?”

  “Through the jail with the guard who has the thingy on his sleeve,” I ventured, growing more curious about this player. “Big deal…I’ve gotten myself a suit of armor—but you don’t see me bragging about it—whereas you keep going on about some tourney…”

  “Listen, I enrolled in training on purpose, so that I could get to the pirates. You, as I understand it, have already basically done it—but without my help, you’ll never get off this planet! I spent seven months finding a way out of here. Without me, you’re not going anywhere for at least as long! So make up your mind: Either you’re about to delete and restart, in which case everyone is already pissed at you anyway, or you can trust me and take me with you. You got three minutes left!”

  What else could I do? Trusting my experience, I made my decision: This player needed something and I could use that to my advantage. Anyway, as long as the current events didn’t take up too much of my time, I could allow myself to go on playing. I could always delete Surgeon, but I was still curious what the Qualians would do and how Lestran wanted to escape the Training Sector.

  “The armor has a medkit—first, you’ll need to heal me. The button combination is gel-pax-pax-glar-kree.”

  “Let’s speak human, okay? Qualian may as well be Greek to me.”

  “So how’d you manage to start the suit?” Lestran asked surprised.

  “The buttons are color-coded—blue, red and so on.”

  “Bunch of nonsense…Alright, hang on a second…The medkit is blue-red-red-orange-green. I can’t believe I’m even doing this…If anyone finds out, they’ll laugh their…”

  “If it works, it works,” I replied, bending down over Lestran and putting my arm beside him. Barely had I entered the necessary combination when a needle extended from my suit’s index finger and punctured the recruit’s body. His health began to rise.

  “Okay, now stay on my heels! We’ve got two minutes before they come!” yelled Lestran, jumping to his feet and running toward the doors. “Move it! We need to descend to the lower levels.”

  Lestran ran out of the hall so confidently that I had no other choice but to follow him.

  “Shoot it,” I took thirty or so heavy, metal-clanging steps, when I almost ran into him, standing still and pointing with his hand at a niche in the wall. “You need to knock that down with your blaster.”

  “Knock what down?”

  “The wall! What are you waiting for? The passage to the levels we need are on the other side!”

  I didn’t bother to ask how this player could be so sure of himself. Instead, I pressed myself to the opposite wall, aimed the weapon at the wall and pulled the trigger. Instantly, I hoped that Lestran had managed to dart behind a corner. Fragments of rubble flew everywhere, reducing the Durability of my armor by 1%. This was followed by my temporary ally’s invective:

  “You dingbat! You couldn’t wait until I took cover? What are you standing around for? Heal me!”

  Before I could administer another dose of the healing injection, I had to remove two large boulders that had pinned Lestran to the floor. The wall’s demolition had turned out very realistic—there was so much dust that I even thought I was back in real life for a second. Typically, most games try to avoid taxing the capsule’s system resources on rendering such insignificant details.

  Bit by bit, the outlines of a passage began to flicker through the dust. Opening the instructions I had received from Stan, I entered the command to turn on the floodlights. Two bright beams split the murk and our eyes encountered a steep winding staircase, running both up and down.

  “This way!” Lestran ordered joyously and deftly squeezed through the opening in the wall. “We need to go down!”

  “One second,” I replied, squeezing through the opening with some difficulty, after which I stuck my arm and blaster back through it and took several shots at the walls and ceiling of the hallway we had come from. In a few minutes, the assault would commence and I didn’t want to leave an obvious trace of where we had gone. Let them suffer a bit removing the boulders, while I got to be Maniac for a bit longer. I needed to find out after all, how Lestran had learned about this secret passage.

  “Right on!” the player agreed with me, descending several steps lower. “No one knows that you can bust through there and since it’s all buried now, they’ll think of looking in the hangar last of all.”

  “Do you know what’s up there?” I pointed up the staircase.

  “Sure. General Trank’s office—he’s in charge of all of Training Sector Alpha-332. I managed to find this stairwell during my l
ast life, but they caught me in the office and sent me to jail—and boy did my imperial Rapport suffer a hit. So I had to start all over…Otherwise, this is a very curious building, which I’ve managed to dig around in quite sufficiently by now…”

  “So what’s the deal? Do you think they’ll look for us there?” I asked Lestran, pausing my descent. “Is it very far up?”

  “Look for us?” Lestran also halted his descent and even climbed a few steps back toward me. “Doubt it. The office is three floors up and…Wait, don’t tell me you want to go take a look?”

  “Well what do you think would be better: If we approach the pirates with data we’ve stolen from the computer of the executive officer of the Training Sector or simply show up willy nilly saying ‘take us as we are—we’re so cute, after all?’” I said, applying pressure to Lestran’s sore point. Why was he so set on getting in with the pirates? And why wouldn’t I use that fact to my advantage? From my time in Runlustia, I could safely say that the offices of commanders typically had something worth stealing. At the very least, there would be some nice items up there.

  “Let’s go,” Lestran made up his mind, squeezed past me and began to ascend. “Though, on second thought, wait here. If there’s anyone in the office, we won’t go in—we can’t let them know where we are. If there’s no one in there…I gotta say, I’m damn lucky to have met you! What’s your guild anyway?”

  “Let’s do that later—the loot’s getting cold!”

  Lestran merely smiled and began climb the stairs.

  Just then, a menacing and mighty voice shook the entire building: “Surgeon! You refuse to listen to reason and will therefore be placed under arrest until the investigation has been completed! Commence the assault!”