Hyperspace scanners and the disruptor beams required to yank a ship out of hyperspace could only be installed on a cruiser. Further, to pull off such a trick, you’d have to position specialized tracking beacons along the trajectory of the hyperjump. If you calculated the velocity of your target, you could capture it and yank it into a point of space of your choosing—for example, right in front of an entire armada. The type of vessel yanked out in this manner didn’t matter one bit. It could be a lowly harvester or a Grand Arbiter—the mechanics governing its ejection from hyperspace worked flawlessly every time. The only limitation was that you could only trap other players’ ships; the locals could travel without any problems, paying no attention to this aspect of the game.
One of the main sources of guild income in Galactogon was control over the hyperspace lanes between planets. With two or three cruisers in its fleet, a guild could comfortably announce a toll for the hyperlanes it controlled. It would hardly occur to their victims to try to fight, and the guilds yanked basically every vessel that passed through the lanes under their control. Of course all such tollgates had been identified long ago and the tolls themselves were well known. Players could save time by paying the toll ahead of time at the point of departure and thereby receiving an EZ Pass—a beacon which would send special signals in response to hyperscans. But again, all this was the case for well-known and well-traveled hyperlanes. Every once in a while the guilds would go to war over control of these routes, but such conflicts generally took place in alliance space. I had no idea why someone would erect a hyperspace trap between Qirlats and Daphrak—two Confederate backwaters. As far as I knew, there weren’t so many players who passed this way, so there was no way that maintaining such a trap would even pay for itself.
But the fact remained— The Space Cucumber began to decelerate and emerge from hyperspace.
“Shields are up!” said Wally as soon as the hyperdrive disengaged. “Four torpedoes straight ahead. We’re being targeted with EM cannons. They want to knock out our shields!”
“I’ve got a lock on the three closest torpedoes,” Tristan instantly added. “I’m taking them out in five, four, three…”
“Multiple bandits stern-side,” Haggis reported. “Four torpedoes…”
“Two cruisers straight ahead,” Wally managed to add before I could react to the situation. Practice all you want in simulators and training missions, until you’re used to real battles, you’ll find yourself constantly one step behind.
“Arm the flycatcher Tristan. Haggis, you take the rest of the torpedoes. Wally—don’t let them hit us. Here we go!”
“That’s Dauntless Warrior!” yelled Lestran, parsing the torrent of data scrolling down his screen. “Seven cruisers, thirty-two frigates and a hundred interceptors! It looks like the entire Cyanide fleet is here!”
I threw The Space Cucumber into a sharp ascent, showing Dauntless Warrior our bilge. It was the standard maneuver to capture torpedoes, but, no sooner had I reached my desired heading than yet another cruiser materialized in front of us and launched a spread of torpedoes. They really had us by the tail now…
“Tristan, launch torpedoes straight ahead. Take them out!” I ordered, making my decision instantly. Any adjustment to our trajectory would force The Space Cucumber to lose inertia, becoming a sitting duck for her enemies. I didn’t know about Galactogon, but in Runlustia, players who were on giant elephants felt themselves fully secure and tended to lose their vigilance and reflexes—which fact I had exploited more than once. This was no different. Common sense had it that, seeing another cruiser dead ahead of me, I should have banked sharply, avoiding a direct engagement. The cruiser’s flycatcher alone guaranteed her victory. I was sure that they’d want to capture us. There was no way they wouldn’t. Considering that a swarm of frigates and interceptors roiled above and to the sides of the cruiser, there would be no point in trying to break through there—the alluring emptiness under her bilge however…An inexperienced player would definitely try to pass beneath her, falling right for the flycatcher and making my enemy only happier.
“Just not under the bilge!” yelled Lestran, reading my move and deciding that I had gone utterly nuts.
“Three torpedoes down, one got through,” Tristan reported, ignoring everyone around him and focusing on his job. “We don’t have time to shoot it down.”
“Deflecting won’t work either,” Wally added. “Get ready—we’re about to take a hit.”
“Lestran—emergency repairs! Direct hit incoming…”
The Space Cucumber shuddered, the screens shut off for a moment—but then came back on.
“Hull Durability is down to 20%. Power is 40% below nominal. The hull’s beam absorbers have been wiped out. Our portside has been crumpled…I need ten minutes to repair half of the lost Durability.”
“Gunners, on the count of three launch torpedoes at that cruiser’s bay doors. Get ready! One…two…,” I ordered, ignoring Lestran’s report. We had survived a direct hit from a torpedo and continued on our course. There were no further missiles ahead of us, but I could see perfectly well how the cruiser’s bilge opened, releasing its flycatcher. It began to head toward us. The distance between The Space Cucumber and the cruiser grew smaller and smaller. Giving my enemy another second, I yelled, “Three!”
“We’ve been captured!” Wally said almost instantly, while all of the frigate’s instrument panels went dark. Having taken control of our ship, the cruiser’s captain wasted no time and simply cut off all of The Space Cucumber’s onboard systems, turning us into a giant hunk of metal.
“Thirty seconds until the torpedoes hit,” added Wally. “Us, that is. The ones that were coming up from behind…”
“Hey! My screen’s come back on,” Lestran said puzzled, as I squeezed whatever juice The Space Cucumber’s engines still had in them. The acceleration pressed us into our chairs, but I managed to note my two gunners launch one more torpedo apiece. A pretty little window popped up before me, reminding me that all of this was no more than a game:
“A Pirate I Was Meant To Be” Mission Progress: 1 of 10 cruisers destroyed.
You have earned the “It’s Not How Big It Is—It’s How You Use It” Achievement. You have destroyed a vessel larger than yours. Damage done to all ship types increased by 10%.
You have earned a new title: “Improbable.” Your ship has reached a new class! Current class: B-1. Two additional slots unlocked. Durability and Energy have been restored by 100%.
“Whoa—B-class?!” Miloš whistled from his observer’s seat. As a marine, he couldn’t do anything to help us so his job was simply to enjoy the show.
“Marina’s people leveled us up to C-99, so everything’s as it should be,” I said what everyone already knew and pressed the rejuvenated Space Cucumber to its max. The experience we gained for destroying the cruiser was distributed across all our equipment, but the ship itself received the biggest chunk of XP.
“We won’t get very far,” Haggis pointed out about a minute later, turning away from his tail turret. Fully repaired and conjoined with the aft EM cannon, the tail turret presented a compelling argument to the interceptors chasing us from keeping up their efforts. “The cruisers are turning to give chase. We’ve got two good engines of course, but we can’t compete with ten of the same type…As soon as they get some steam, we’ll be done for. They won’t offer us a second opportunity to shoot at their cruisers. They’ll knock us down from behind…”
“It’s too bad they’re all D-class,” muttered Wally. “If they were at least C-class, it wouldn’t feel so bad, but D…”
For a little while we were silent flying away from the armada, and only Haggis giggled spitefully, knocking yet another interceptor down to half its Durability. Without resorting to torpedoes, it was too hard to kill them, but damaging them enough to force them back to their cruiser was a task that my gunner managed perfectly well.
“They’re gaining,” said Wally, pointing at six bleeps on his screen. E
ven if they were still far away, the steady rate at which they were closing the distance…“ETA seven minutes. They won’t let us bounce to hyper, so…Maybe we should self destruct? We’ll come back as C-class, basically like we started…If they grab us with a flycatcher, the self-destruct will stop working too.”
“Asteroid belt dead ahead,” said Lestran. “We can go through it and gain several minutes. The cruisers won’t go straight through. The rocks are too big. We can slip through though. Even if we die, good luck finding our wreckage.”
All of a sudden a crazy idea entered my mind and began to scream: “Try me!” Giving in to its pernicious influence, I inquired, “Guys, what do we need to go into hyper again? I know it’s a dumb question, but I’d like to know for certain. I’ve got this idea.”
“To jump to hyperspace we need the destination coordinates,” began Wally. I had already noticed that he was very familiar with Galactogon’s technical details and was therefore a valuable hire. The main thing I had to keep in mind was that he was ultimately working for Marina. “And it’d be nice if those coordinates weren’t in fact the center of some star. Also, we’d need forty seconds of inaction while the hyperdrive initialized for the jump. Aside from that, the ship can’t be painted by a disrupter beam and…Well, that’s it. Those are the three main requirements; everything else is secondary.”
“How many of those can we do at the give moment?”
“Just the coordinates. We have several star systems straight ahead of us. We won’t even have to alter our heading. As for the rest, we don’t have a free second, let alone forty, and they’ll instantly hit us with their disrupter beams as soon as we try to initialize anyway.”
“How long until we reach the asteroid belt?”
“About two minutes,” Wally sounded doubtful. “Are you really considering going through it, Surgeon?”
“No,” I shook my head, causing my shieldsman to lower his shoulders in relief. “We won’t fly through the belt. We’re going to hide ourselves in it…”
“WHAT?!” All four players’ exclamation was so simultaneous that I couldn’t help but crack up. Only Miloš, relaxing in his chair, laughed with me. What else could you expect from a marine?
“We’ll be pulverized instantly!” Wally spoke up, as soon as I had adjusted our bearing. “Our shields aren’t powerful enough to withstand an asteroid impact and our beam cannons won’t destroy them. And using torpedoes will do nothing but clear the way for the guys chasing us. What’s the point of flying through?”
“Lestran, what’s the size of that belt?” I asked my partner, ignoring Wally.
“About one AU wide and one AU deep. I can’t get a length reading, so I’d say at least one hundred AUs in either direction…Listen Surgeon, I have to say I agree with Wally—this is madness.”
“You’re the one who brought up suicide,” I grinned. “It’s too late to take your words back.” I took a look at my crews’ closed helmets and couldn’t help but explain: “Look, I’m not going to try to fly through it! I don’t think I’m an ace or anything to try to pilot the ship by reflex alone. My plan is to fly into the belt and hide among the asteroids. If they can’t see us, they can’t use their disrupter beams on us. We’ll land on an asteroid and kill the engines while we initialize the hyperjump. Maybe we’ll have to take the asteroid with us, but the important thing is to skedaddle. You see what I’m saying?”
“The powercore might not handle it,” Wally replied after some thought, “if we tow the boulder with us. And we can’t kill the thrusters while inside the belt either—we’ll need to be able to dodge the asteroid…Damn! I would turn and take at least one frigate or several interceptors with us, but I have to say that your idea is doable…crazy but doable…I’ll try to get the most out of the shields. That’ll buy us some time.”
“In that case, battlestations! We’re going to pay a visit to the wandering rocks!”
“Hey jerk, where you think you’re going?” the ship’s comm suddenly came to life for the first time since the ambush. Nadeep, the captain of Dauntless Warrior, had decided to pay us a personal visit.
“We’re taking a field trip!” I parried, braking the ship. Entering an asteroid belt at full power would have been pure suicide. “Someone told me that they’re giving out donuts straight ahead, so I’ve decided to check it out! I’d love some donuts about now.”
“You think we don’t know how to flush you out of there? I’ll blast that damned belt to pieces!”
“Go ahead and blast it. I don’t have any plans for it anyway. Alright, no offense but I’ve got to go—more pressing matters to attend to.”
“I’ll…” Nadeep managed to begin before I cut the transmission. It would only be a distraction.
Lowering my speed to the minimal setting and thereby allowing six giant cruisers—as well as their attendant swarm of interceptors and frigates—to almost catch up with us, I took a deep breath and plunged The Space Cucumber into the asteroid belt. Tristan was blasting salvoes from the tail turret ceaselessly. Wally was deftly hanging and re-hanging the shields that the interceptors kept knocking down and simultaneously deflecting the smaller debris. Haggis was firing torpedo after torpedo at the asteroids we had passed to create a cloud of shrapnel four our enemies. Lestran was darting about like a singed cat, fixing different parts of the hull and complaining that he had already lost three of his repair bots. Miloš was giggling nervously in his seat and I was trying my best to avoid the larger boulders. The Space Cucumber was moving slowly but making progress into the asteroid belt all the same, finding her path through the chaos all around.
“Durability’s down to 70%,” moaned Lestran. “I don’t have time to fix everything! Try to be more careful, Surgeon!”
“If we keep going straight,” added Wally, “we won’t find the room to wait while the hyperdrive engages. Cyanide’s calculated our trajectory. They’re blasting their way with torpedoes into the heart of the belt. Those cruisers have plenty of them…We need to adjust our course to fly parallel to the belt.”
“A Pirate I Was Meant To Be” Mission Progress: 11 of 150 interceptors destroyed.
“I have a feeling that they won’t just let us waltz out of here,” smirked Tristan, sending another interceptor to meet its maker. Unlike in open space, it had become hard for the interceptors to get a safe distance away from The Space Cucumber and Tristan therefore now had time to finish off the little spacecraft.
“Two beam cannons down. We’re down to one!” Miloš reported happily a minute later. He was the only one who managed to keep track of the readouts on his screen. As soon as I adjusted our heading, everyone had to work harder. Even Haggis, who began to hammer the interceptors from the side cannons and torpedo launchers. I had it worst of all though—I was constantly letting boulders through to us, causing the hull to creak under the strain of the impacts. Lestran was cursing up a storm but repairing my errors all the same. Tristan started singing some kind of pirate ditty, as if he was some buccaneer running from the Royal Navy. Wally was muttering something incomprehensible to himself…The atmosphere in The Space Cucumber was a tense one indeed.
“We’ve lost our beam cannons!” Milos said after a minute.
“Torpedoes are done too,” smirked Haggis.
“But we don’t have any pursuers either,” Tristan added sadly. “I have no one to shoot at anymore. I think we lost them, for a bit at least.”
“Hull Durability is down to 15%, our powercore is down to 22%,” Wally reported. “We won’t get much further.”
“Then let’s land,” I decided, choosing the most promising looking boulder, “for example, right there!”
A humongous asteroid was turning lazily not far from The Space Cucumber. It was large enough to hide an entire cruiser. Huge craters formed by impacts with other asteroids, fissures, caves—it would have been difficult to find a more ideal place to secrete ourselves.
“Come on then—surprise us,” grinned Miloš when I did a flyby of this tiny
planetoid, unwilling to let any pursuers see where we had decided to land.
“Durability down to 5%. Powercore’s in the red at 12%,” Wally reported wearily once we had alighted on the asteroid. I should admit that I had plunked us down pretty hard. The asteroid was spinning ceaselessly, so after deciding on a landing spot in the shadow of an enormous mountain, I had tried my best to match its rotation and lost track of my surroundings—which instantly made themselves known with a powerful asteroid strike to our hull, finishing off what remained of our portside engine. We would need a full-fledged overhaul station to repair our ship now, and we still needed to get there somehow. Slamming down heavily onto the asteroid and stirring up a cloud of dust in the process, The Space Cucumber got lucky for the first time during the battle. The scout drone which Wally launched at the last possible moment revealed that we had fallen several dozen yards into a fissure and caused a landslide along the way, which covered us entirely with debris. Basically, The Space Cucumber had now dropped off the Cyanide Guild’s radar.
“…hell are you, you dweeb?” While Lestran and Wally busied themselves with emergency repairs (attempting to jump to hyperspace with 5% hull Durability was a very bad idea) I turned on the comm and instantly heard my friend Nadeep. “Anyone see their wreckage?” he asked his subordinates on the open channel.
“The only wreckage is from the ships we lost. Most likely they landed on an asteroid and went dark,” came the reply from one of the players, making me want to give him a pat on the back for his guesswork. “We can destroy every asteroid along their last known trajectory. They couldn’t have gotten far.”
Start the Game (Galactogon: Book #1) Page 15
