Start the Game (Galactogon: Book #1)

by Vasily Mahanenko

  “I need to see Hilvar,” said the girl, completely ignoring the Precian rolling around at her feet. She was looking somewhere ceilingward, as if that was where the local boss was.

  “What does the Corsican wish with Hilvar?” inquired a creaky voice. The gloom at the ceiling began to roil with something. My suit’s motion sensors outlined a barrel-shaped silhouette of a torso. Then my infrared sensors kicked in and I made out the five foot tall body of a Precian. He held a piece of fried meat that resembled a chicken leg in one hand and was aiming a blaster at us with his other hand. Despite the fact that it would take a minute for a C-class blaster to penetrate an A-class suit of marine armor—a length of time sufficient for us to kill everything in a hundred yard radius—finding oneself facing the business end of a blaster did not feel like a warm welcome.

  “Relax, Hilvar,” smirked Marina. “I am here only as a go-between. Geez, by the time anyone even gets to you, they’ll have thought better of being a pirate three hundred times. My job is to introduce you to Surgeon and his people. After that, I’ll wash my hands of this whole thing. There is nothing of interest to me on this planet.”

  Having said that, Marina turned to me and added, “Once you become a pirate, I will be happy to welcome you on board my ship as an independent attaché. Our plans for an alliance between our ships remain standing. You’ll get the information you requested tomorrow—it only needs to be collated into one file. How about that document from the safe, then?”

  “Here,” I got the sheets from my inventory and handed them to the captain of Alexandria. I had made sure to make copies of them earlier. “Don’t forget about that Precian.”

  “My people are looking for him already,” replied Marina, placing the papers in her inventory. “Give me your comm number. Once I get the information, I’ll call you. And don’t hesitate to call me if you stumble on something interesting. Do you know what I mean?”

  “It’s hard not to,” I smiled as she entered my number into her PDA. I made a mental note of adding my crew’s comm numbers too. For some reason I hadn’t thought of that. These things had been much simpler in Runlustia.

  “In that case, best of luck to you!” Marina and her three bodyguards turned around and left us alone with Hilvar who had been patiently waiting for the players to finish their conversation. Convenient thing that—and one that’s implemented in all games: You never see NPCs whine about how we’re wasting their time and how they have better things to do than to stand around while we jabber on. I wish real life were like that.

  “So it is you who wishes to see Hilvar?” the Precian addressed me. “With Marina’s help, I see you’ve skipped all the preliminaries. Now here you are. What do you want?”

  “I want to become a mighty pirate,” I replied, not discouraged that Hilvar wasn’t exactly welcoming me with open arms. “I escaped the Training Sector, stealing a frigate in the process, and then got into a battle with some scouts who gave chase to us. That’s how I met Marina. She helped me get here, skipping, as you pointed out, all the typical barriers.”

  “So you want to be a pirate?” creaked Hilvar, pensively scratching his jaw. “I heard of your escape, yup, heard of it I did. But of course, destroying a couple scouts with a frigate is no great feat. Escaping the Sector, sure—that makes you interesting enough for me to give you audience. But scouts…downing a few scouts is nothing to brag about around here.”

  “How many then do I need to kill to attract your interest?” I asked, understanding what the Precian was getting at.

  “Two cruisers, or ten frigates, or thirty scouts.” Hilvar rubbed his hands murderously. “Doesn’t matter which Alliance they belong to—only the killcount matters. Even other pirates are fair game. Once you can prove your mettle, we can talk about the other things, yes we can. My assistant will take you to the Spirit—I can see that you still haven’t chosen a homeplanet. As a sign of good will, I will pay for your binding procedure—for a future pirate brethren, so to say…Gamadan!” the Precian yelled into the depths of the building. “Take Surgeon to the Spirit!”

  The first Anorxian I’d ever seen emerged from the depths of the building: a robot that floated lightly in the air despite his great weight. How this creature managed to move horizontally remained a great mystery, since he did not seem to be equipped with engines or propellers or any other similar methods of conveyance. I made a note to read more about this wondrous race.

  “Please follow me,” Gamadan said in a metallic voice, flitting freely among me and my crew. “The Spirit of Qirlats resides in the neighboring building.”

  “Is there really no other way?” I managed to ask Hilvar before he rose too high to hear me. “Is the spirit of space piracy really just destroying ships? Doesn’t Galactogon have hidden treasures, unplumbed mysteries or at least pirate hunters to kill? Does the whole point of piracy really come down to destroying ordinary ships?”

  Hilvar froze in his ascent. Having hung in the air for about ten seconds, he slowly turned around to face us, without descending however.

  “Treasures?” he almost hissed, turning into one giant lump of anger. What had I said to elicit such a reaction? “Unplumbed mysteries? You think that just because you’ve wheedled an audience with me, you’ve grabbed a god by his beard? You are no one—you have no name! I hereby double the required killcount for your ship. Now you have to destroy twice as many ships as before.”

  “I’ll destroy five times as many ships as you originally assigned,” I said, drawing a gasp from my crew, “but you’ll give me an extra mission. I don’t care what it entails—treasures, mysteries, pirate hunters—as long as it falls into the spirit of our brotherhood.”

  “YOU ARE NO BROTHER TO US!” roared Hilvar and instantly appeared right before me, his blaster pointed at my head.

  “I’m no sister to you either!” I replied, drawing my own blaster in the blink of an eye and pointing it at Hilvar. The space around us began to roil—columns rose upward bearing formidable cannons, robots appeared from nowhere, taking aim at us. A force field flashed to life around Hilvar, separating him from his enemies—but, since my blaster was flush with his forehead, I found myself inside of it as well. A pretty uncommon NPC, this one. I’d never have thought that a simple conversation could have turned into such a crisis. I didn’t doubt for a second that I was doing the right thing—the logic of the conversation had brought me to this point, not my personal ambitions, so I knew that I was acting within the rules of the scenario. I wish I knew what those rules were though. “If you’re not willing to treat me like a brother, I propose you think of me as a distant relative from Brazil, where there are many three-headed monkeys!”

  “Where is this planet Brazil?” asked Hilvar, frowning and momentarily forgetting his anger. “And what is a monkey?”

  “Forget it. Look, Hilvar—I just don’t understand why you’re so irate,” I said, without lowering my blaster from the Precian’s face. “I’m sure that you have nothing to gain from me destroying a bunch of the alliances’ ships. That’s too simple. I’d like a bigger challenge. But your reaction surprises me. Let’s start again—my name is Surgeon and I want to become a mighty pirate. Will you help me or not? Here, I’m putting my blaster away.”

  Carefully, without any extra movements, I moved my weapon away from Hilvar, noting in the process that my crew was already strewn about the floor, overpowered by some energy net against which even Marina’s A-class armor could do no good.

  “Ten cruisers or fifty frigates or 150 scouts,” the Precian said calmly, accepting my offer of a fivefold increase in the killcount and lowering his blaster as well. “That is the mandatory requirement for receiving a pirate’s patent. As soon as you get it, you may go meet your Corsican.”

  “He’s not mine and I have nothing to do with him,” I parried. It seemed that there was some kind of trouble between Hilvar and the Pirate King. Our appearance in Marina’s company had spoiled Hilvar’s attitude to us somehow. I wondered whether the girl had
known about this or not. “I met Marina in space, helped her and she helped me in exchange—to meet you, that is. I don’t know who the Corsican is or how I’m supposedly related to him. I doubt very much that he’s even ever heard of me.”

  “He’s not lying, boss,” came Gamadan’s metallic voice. “In any case, he believes what he says.”

  “So you aren’t one of the Corsican’s men?” asked Hilvar, narrowing his eyes incredulously. “What about your people there?”

  “I’m not willing to vouch for them right this moment,” I replied, shrugging. “Marina gave me four of them and I haven’t checked their backgrounds. The fifth one, Lestran, is someone I trust completely. But you’ll deal with me, not with them.” I bent down to the Precian and whispered, “My crew doesn’t have to know anything about the business between you and me.”

  “You mean—if there will be any business between you and me,” Hilvar whispered back and moved aside. “I need time to consider your proposal, Surgeon. I won’t change the killcount requirement. You’ll get your pirate’s patent only after you’ve provided evidence of having destroyed the required number of enemy ships. As for additional missions, I do have a small task for you. If you manage it, we’ll talk further. I need you to go to the planet Daphark and locate a local named Trid. Give him this envelope and do the missions that he gives you. After that, come back to me and we’ll discuss any further business we may have. Go on—you need to bind yourself to the Planetary Spirit. Release his men!”

  Your Rapport with Hilvar has improved. Current Rapport: 3.

  The two bettors, the president and the mogul, had claimed that only a few locals knew where the planet with the check was located. For some reason, I had decided that the Corsican would be one of them. However, the current situation suggested that the pirates had some bad blood between them. Maybe I would meet the Pirate King in some distant future, but Hilvar could help me here and now. My opinion, therefore, was that I needed to exploit this relationship to its utmost.

  Unlike the Qirlats’ shadow administration, the abode of its Planetary Spirit corresponded to its status. The whiskered sentries alone, armed with pike, suggested plenty. Wearing steel, A-class cuirasses, they were holding a fairly whimsical variation on a blaster, disguised as a pike, in their hands. Each of the sentries was also surrounded by a personal force field, which offered slightly better protection than mere armor. Meanwhile, the proud and independent looks on their faces spoke to their happiness with their work. Even locals, after all, were capable of affecting negative emotions. Nothing of the kind, however, was to be seen on the sentries’ faces.

  “State the purpose of your visit,” one of the sentries said in a deep voice, obstructing my way with his pike’s spearhead.

  “They come to bind themselves to this planet,” replied Gamadan for me. “We wish to bring these six adventurers to the Spirit. Hilvar has offered to pay their fees.”

  “You may pass,” the pikes moved aside, granting us passage.

  “You must go on by yourselves now,” Gamadan said. “Only newcomers are allowed to see the Spirit.”

  The procedure of binding ourselves to our new homeworld turned out to be both interesting and boring. We entered a large auditorium, about thirty yards in diameter, most of which was occupied by a hovering and transparent sphere about ten yards in diameter. A think thread or tentacle coiled out towards each player. As soon as it touched him, a message appeared asking whether we wished Qirlats to become our new homeworld. I pushed the “Accept” button and received the following notification:

  You have earned the “Homeworld Sweet Homeworld” Achievement. Future binding fees decreased by 5%.

  From here on out, Qirlats would be my home…

  “Ten cruisers?” exclaimed Lestran as soon as we returned to our ship. I had to hand it to my crew: While the negotiations were underway and after, during our binding, no one had said a single thing about what had happened. Now, however, left on our own, the people began to revolt. The first, unsurprisingly, was Lestran: “Maybe we should just reset right now?”

  “Considering what The Space Cucumber has become, I see nothing impossible in getting that killcount,” said Wally. “But I do have one issue—I won’t fight Marina. If that Hilvar turns out to be an enemy of the Corsican and consequently, of Marina, then I’ll have to pass right now.”

  “Me too.”

  “And me!”

  All four of my hired guns had their say. Then Wally spoke up again: “I understand that you see us all as Kiddo’s men, but we’d be better off discussing what our plans are while we’re still ashore.”

  “That’s fair,” I nodded. “I suggest the following: Until tomorrow, we’ll say that you are all still The Space Cucumber’s crew. Later today I’ll discuss the situation with Marina. If she has no objections to some of us having positive Rapport with Hilvar and perhaps negative ones with the Corsican, then you all stay. Otherwise, you can return to her. Forcing anyone against their will is the last thing I want. Furthermore, I still want you to look over the ship to see what other improvements can be made, considering her current condition. My proposed budget for upgrades remains the same.”

  “Surgeon, let’s decide on a schedule then,” Haggis spoke up. “What time do we sign in, what time do we sign out, how many times a week, what our days off are and what our salaries will be? I don’t want to play this thing 24/7, 365. We need time to rest too—especially since many of us have families.”

  “Salary?” I asked astonished, hearing a word I’d never expected a gamer to utter (or, rather, a word that was rare for a gamer wishing to prove himself). “Guys, I have no money to pay you with. You can have any loot we get from piracy…but a salary? Why do you want a salary all of a sudden?”

  “Because, if things don’t work out, there won’t even be any loot,” Miloš replied. “You call all the shots, but we’re the ones that have to do the grunt work. In my last guild I got twenty thousand GCs a month, which were taken out of my loot. In a good month, no one even saw my salary. But if the captain went off into reality, I’d be sure to get some kind of compensation. It’s only fair that way.”

  “So twenty thousand credits a month will be enough for everyone?” I looked at my crew, waiting for a response. In theory, there was some sense to what Miloš was saying, and I actually wholly agreed with it. But the amount astonished me—a mere twenty thousand. That’s a pittance for a Galactogon player. The planetary binding alone would have cost us thirty grand each if Hilvar hadn’t covered it. It wasn’t super profitable to change one’s homeworld.

  “Sure,” Tristan, who had stayed quiet until now, nodded his assent. “Twenty is a standard salary for a soldier. It doesn’t make sense to pay more. Or less. What about the work schedule?”

  “Five days a week. From 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., with a break for lunch. If we need to linger in-game to finish something, then you’ll get one-and-a-half times your share of loot. We’ll try to resolve any issues during working hours. Mondays and Tuesdays will be our days off, since that’s when the least number of players are online anyway.”

  “That’ll do,” decided Wally. “I’m down. Figure out the Corsican thing with Marina and then we can get on with some cosmic buccaneering.”

  “We’ll meet tomorrow at ten then.” As soon as all five of the players agreed to the schedule and we signed some preliminary contracts, stipulating the chief terms of their employment, I leaned back wearily in my chair and pushed the “Sign Out” button. Before that, I had spoken with Marina and received her assurances that our Rapport with various locals wouldn’t affect her and the Corsican in the least—so we could work with Hilvar as much as our hearts desired. The important thing to keep in mind, she said, was to make sure that the head of the Jolly Roger didn’t see me as an enemy. In that case, any alliance between The Space Cucumber and Alexandria would become impossible. While she was at it, Marina also asked me to send her the video of our negotiations, since Hilvar’s negative attitude toward her boss str
uck her as extremely surprising. I had to say no, however, because if Hilvar found out, then all my efforts would have been in vain. I thought I’d sounded convincing enough, though I could feel Marina’s displeasure over the comm.

  “Greetings Master,” Stan offered his standard greeting as soon as the cocoon’s lid slid aside. “Shower, mail, dinner?” added my smart home, reciting his standard script.

  “All of the above,” I slipped out of the cocoon, stretching wearily. “I need you to find me everything there is about an NPC named Hilvar. I want to know all there is to know about him. What’d you find out about Rrgord?”

  “Unfortunately, there is no information about this individual. My analysis of other search requests on the forums yields a probability of 80% that this NPC has been added recently to the game as part of some new mission sequence. He seems to be some kind of secret agent who goes by several names.”

  “Got it. What’s going on out here? Any news of note? Read me the newsfeed.”

  “Protests and civil disobedience stemming from the termination of Runlustia have seen the game’s former players express their unhappiness with its termination. Galactogon’s stock has grown by 10% and continues to maintain a steady growth. The authorities are investigating the death of one of Galactogon’s best players, after he flew his flyer into the Mayor’s office. The day after tomorrow, the band Meathook is scheduled to play a concert in…”

  “More about the previous story,” I interrupted Stan’s report, wondering why a Galactogon player would suddenly die IRL.

  “According to law enforcement sources, John Levin, the head of the Zarathustra Guild, crashed his flyer into the Mayor’s office. Considering that this gamer was one of the first flyer pilots and had been involved in developing flyer training software (some of which you yourself have used), the circumstances of his death have raised suspicions. The Gard-Series flyer, which Mr. Levin had been piloting, was equipped with an active collision avoidance system, making even willful collisions impossible. The former leader of Zarathustra managed to do so nonetheless. One circumstance stands out: According to law enforcement, Mr. Levin had recently relinquished his position as guild leader to his deputy and made an entirely new character in Galactogon, returning to the Training Sector to start from nothing. All of the Rapport he had accumulated was wiped clean. Investigators believe that the cause of Mr. Levin’s death was a dispute involving the deputy’s unwillingness to return his position to Mr. Levin. The investigation is currently still ongoing with…”