Start the Game (Galactogon: Book #1)

by Vasily Mahanenko

  “D’you hear that Surgeon? I know that you can hear me! We’re going to smoke you out, you son of a dweeb! You might as well blow yourself up now.”

  As soon as I found a moment, I called Marina. The nice thing about comms in Galactogon, compared to the ones IRL, was that even if the person you were calling was in another part of the universe, your conversation still took place in real time with no delays. In that sense, the in-game physics were very different from the real world.

  “I’m listening,” Marina answered.

  “Hey, this is Surgeon. You got a minute?”

  “Not really but what’s up? What’s going on?”

  “Well, here’s the situation…” I painted the girl a picture of our battle with the Cyanide Guild after they had ambushed us in hyperspace.

  “Okay…what do you want from me? You got yourself into this mess—now dig yourself out. If things come down to it, blow yourself up. We put a button on your ship.”

  “Eh, don’t worry. I’ll figure that out myself just fine. I want you to consider something else though: How would Nadeep know that we were going to Daphark? Even assuming that Hilvar sends every player that comes to him to that planet, how would Nadeep even know that we had gone to Qirlats? I definitely didn’t tell anyone about that. And when you were capturing The Space Cucumber, you hadn’t yet been ready to ally with me. Do you understand now why I’m calling you? I’m not complaining—I’m trying to warn you.”

  “Are you sure that none of your…” Marina began and instantly cut herself off. She had been the one who had supplied me with my crew after all. “Thanks for the heads up, Surgeon…If you’re right, I’ll owe you one. Where are you now?”

  “Asteroid belt in the Ramtil system, but we don’t need help. We’ll figure it out ourselves. We’ll just make some repairs and then be on our merry way. Just make sure to take care of your moles.”

  I hung up and leaned back in my chair. There was nothing else for me to do. The Cyanide Guild could only have plucked us out of hyperspace if they knew ahead of time that we were jumping between planet A and planet B. There was absolutely no way that Cyanide controlled that hyperlane normally. Consequently, this had to be a deliberately planned revenge for the money they’d lost. Moreover, Nadeep had clearly known that we were flying a wholly retrofitted frigate. Otherwise, he would’ve only brought his own cruiser. I wasn’t even sure what would have happened in that case. A stock D-class cruiser was comparable in strength to an upgraded C-class frigate. But when the cruiser brings an armada as backup…

  “They’ve begun to destroy the larger asteroids,” said Miloš, watching the feed from the scouting drone. “I’d guess that they’ll get to the one we’re on in ten minutes.”

  “Lestran, what do you have?”

  “We can try to get out of here in about two minutes. I can get the hull back up to 12%, but we simply don’t have enough repair materials to fix anything else.”

  “Wally?”

  “I need a couple minutes as well. I’m diverting power to the remaining engine. I think that’ll let us limp out of here. I’m just not so sure that we’ll be able to tow the asteroid with us. If that was possible, everyone would be doing it already.”

  “Who knows what we’ll actually tow with us. Maybe it won’t be the entire asteroid and just some part of it. Or maybe we won’t take any of it at all. Of course, maybe we won’t go anywhere at all either. Until we try it, we won’t know. But I can tell you one thing—I don’t much feel like blowing myself up. A class-B ship is quite a thing.”

  “I’m done!” Lestran reported. “Repairs are complete. Durability is at 11%. It’s slowly degrading due to the debris that’s pressing down on us.”

  “In that case, let’s get underway,” I said, seeing that Wally was ready as well. “Initializing hyperjump procedure…”

  “Alright then. So that’s why no one ever tries to jump right from a planet’s surface,” I muttered as soon as we reentered realspace and saw what had become of us. The jump to Daphark had taken no less than an hour, but there had been no way to tell whether the asteroid had come with us or not.

  The good news was that the asteroid, as such, had not in fact come with us. The bad news was that The Space Cucumber was now encased in a giant layer of rock about a hundred feet thick, which had effectively turned our ship into an enormous and smooth, boulder. We only managed to establish the thickness of this epic structure after Miloš busted through the external hatch and then used his blaster to drill into the rock.

  “We don’t have a hull anymore,” smirked Wally, checking the ship’s status. “Or, more precisely, our hull is now a giant boulder that’s fused with the ship. The engines won’t work, the sensors won’t work and we have no idea where we are now. I propose we exercise the self-destruct option.”

  “What’s with you and blowing ourselves up?” I grumbled. “Are we near Daphark or not?”

  “We should be, but there’s no way to tell now. The changes in the ship’s mass could have affected the jump. An hour in hyperspace is enough to toss us into literally any point of Galactogon. The only thing we can say for sure is that we’re not inside a star. Otherwise, Miloš would have been incinerated instantly.”

  “Alright, since there’s no other way out,” I replied after some thought, “we’ll reconvene tomorrow at ten and try to jump to Daphark in short hops instead of one long one. I want to thank all of you for today’s battle. It was sweet.” Having said that, I activated the self-destruct procedure and took a deep breath. I really didn’t want The Space Cucumber to go back to class-C.

  A second later, I took another breath and repeated the self-destruct procedure.

  After another ten seconds, I wasn’t taking breaths anymore, but simply hammering the self-destruct button sequence.

  “Something’s not working,” Miloš pointed out emphatically and then broke out in a fit of laughter. “We don’t have the power in the core left to activate the detonation. What an ‘epic fail,’ as the ancients used to say.”

  To say that I was surprised would have been an understatement. Finding oneself immured in a giant stone sarcophagus without a single exit, is quite a thing even for a computer game.

  “Hey Marina, this is Surgeon again. Got a minute?” I instantly called the girl. If we couldn’t destroy ourselves from within, then we had to destroy ourselves from without.

  “Only if you make it quick. How’s the battle?”

  “That’s what I’m calling you about. We managed to jump into hyperspace from an asteroid and…”

  “Say that again—you did what?” Marina interrupted. It sounded to me like she could barely contain her laughter. “Wait, wait, I’m going to put you on speakerphone…Alright, Surgeon, all the officers are here. Could you repeat what you just said?”

  “I can see now that I probably shouldn’t’ve done that, huh? By the way, partner, it’s not very nice of you to mock me like this. I’ve been in Galactogon like two months and haven’t yet had time to learn all the nuances. But since you want me to repeat it, I will. We jumped into hyperspace while still on the surface of an asteroid.”

  There was some tentative laughter despite what I’d said, but Marina instantly cut off the speakerphone.

  “Sorry,” she said calmly, “it’s just that any captain knows not to jump into hyperspace while even close to any kind of mass, much less on the surface of a planetoid. I lost a ship like that myself many years ago, so…How thick is whatever you’re encased in?”

  “One hundred feet of solid rock.”

  “Do you have enough power to blow yourself up?”

  “No. I don’t have anything at all at the moment—neither energy nor any idea of where we are, nor any means of returning back to…”

  “That’s precisely your biggest problem. You guys could be anywhere at the moment. Even in a different galaxy. The developers had some fun when they wrote the code for jumping with an unaccounted-for mass. Basically, you’ve been carried to some unknown reache
s of Galactogon. And that’ll happen every time. I tried it out several times by stuffing extra powercells and a nav comp into a scout. After the jump, we cut a way out through the rock and found ourselves on the map. And each time we’d be in an utter backwater. So if you want to know where you are at the moment, then finding your ship will be basically impossible.”

  “Is there really no solution?” I asked sadly.

  “Sorry, no. There isn’t. In your situation, I recommend you stuff your inventory with anything of value or importance, point the blaster at your head and pull the trigger with your toe. You can’t save your ship anymore, so at least save a part of your equipment. Read the forums. They do a good job of describing a jump from a planetary surface and its consequences. Later!”

  Marina disconnected, leaving me in utter shock. I didn’t even want to think that she was saying the truth, so I turned to my crew and issued new orders.

  “Guys, we have a small problem. We’ll meet again tomorrow at ten, as usual. Until then, I’d like you to study the question of jumping into hyperspace from some planetary surface as much as you can. Tomorrow we’ll decide how we’re gonna get out of here…”

  I waited to sign out until my crew had departed, leaving The Space Cucumber last like a true captain.

  “Greetings, Master,” Stan began to run through his customary script as soon as the cocoon’s lid slid aside. “Shower, mail, dinner?”

  “Cancel everything,” I replied, getting comfortable at my work desk. “I need everything you can find about hyperjumps.”

  “A jump through hyperspace is one of the most complicated processes in Galactogon, technically as well as mathematically. The jump initialization takes 60 seconds (this time may be decreased to 40 by equipping the ship with a more powerful navigation computer or engines), during which the onboard navigation computer calculates the jump vector, its duration and the point of egress. The calculation takes into account only the dimensions of the vessel; however, it is worth pointing out that in actual fact, the hyperdrive sends the space around the ship into hyperspace as well. The dimensions of the total actual space sent to hyperspace depends on the power of the vessel’s hyperdrive and may vary from between an offset of three feet for scouts, up to an offset of one hundred feet for cruisers. An imperative condition for performing a successful hyperjump is that the ship remain utterly uninfluenced by any outside force for the duration of the hyperdrive’s initialization. This includes beam attacks, collisions with other vessels’ hulls, close proximity to a foreign mass, and solar flares. The vessel should also not be painted by a space disrupter beam…The larger the difference between the real mass sent to hyperspace and the mass as calculated by the navigation computer, the larger will be the deviation at the point of egress.”

  Stan supplied me this excerpt from the official game manual, pointing out that this information was included in the mandatory training course for ship captains. I never imagined that my smart home would start giving me lip too. The above text was followed by real examples provided by other players—and here I was forced to really sink my head in despair: Everyone claimed in unison that the only way out was to abandon their ship. The cruisers fared worst of all—even a marine in a suit of armor couldn’t drill through one hundred feet of rock. I made a note to order Miloš to start trying to drill through first thing tomorrow anyway though. Despite the fact that 99.9% of all the posts on this topic ended with the scuttling of the ship and starting all over again, I found several mentions of a way out of this impasse. First it was necessary to break out to the surface of the ship. After that all the crew members could gather in one place wearing suits of armor, and setting their suits’ thrusters to full, slingshot the ship at the closest star. This process could take a while—distances in Galactogon were in no way small—but doing so would force your ship to be respawned. There were no other plausible options—only miracles like someone stumbling on our ship in the middle of nowhere. Every player said the same thing—jumping into hyperspace from a planetary surface was just not done. Where had they all been earlier?

  “Master, you have an incoming call from one of the members of your whitelist. Will you take it?”

  The panic mode, which I had never canceled, allowed only a few people to get in touch with me—more precisely just one: Alonso, my companion from my time in Runlustia.

  “Excellent! I see that you’re not bathing today?” he greeted me sarcastically. “What are you getting into?”

  “I just got out of Galactogon. Was going to go jog for a bit. Why? Got a better idea?”

  “Do you even need to ask? You owe me our wake in honor of Runlustia! It’s been a month already! You thought I forgot? While Lucy is battling it out in Galactogon, I propose we meet up and have a drink.”

  “Deal. What about you? Haven’t seen you IRL much lately. Doesn’t seem like you.”

  “Eh, I’m exhausted with all this studying I have to do—you know how much I hated being a monkey in Runlustia. All I do in Galactogon is study, study and study some more. I only have a week left in the Training Sector, but I just can’t keep ‘playing’ at the moment. I need some downtime. How about yourself?”

  “Well…Let’s meet up at the bar and I’ll tell you…”

  “Get out of here!” Alonso exclaimed after I told him my story with the pirates. Ordering another pint, he leaned forward to prop his head up on the bar and looked me up and down with half-sober eyes. “So you are the Surgeon?”

  “Yah, but again—not a word to anyone about that. I’d rather not run into Cyanide IRL.”

  “If all you say is true, I’d start looking for you myself. Dang! To get out of the Training Sector without even completing it! To destroy a cruiser of a guild and get away in one piece! I am just quivering with jealousy here! I still have to sweat it out in the Sector, like I told you. And then Lucy has another three weeks as well.”

  “Lucille is in the Training Sector?” I asked surprised. “I thought you said that she was the head of a guild or something.”

  “You can’t say a word about that to anyone either!” Alonso placed a finger to his lips conspiratorially. “She deleted her character a month ago and handed off her guild to her deputy. It’s only temporary of course, but now she’s an ordinary player like you or I…Although, I guess you’re doing better than just ordinary.”

  “Why would a guild leader reset her character?” I asked sounding puzzled and trying not to betray the adrenaline that had suddenly flooded me. Had Lucille too been brought into the bet?

  “Well, you see, Alexis…I can’t tell that to anyone, even you. Lucille will kill me if she finds out. She only spends seven hours in the game a day and always comes out unhappy and angry—so, forgive me, I can’t tell you about that.”

  “Not even a thing, Alonso,” I reassured my friend, clapping him on the shoulder. “I understand perfectly. As I recall it, you’re playing with the Vraxis?”

  “Uh-huh and boy am I sick of those chitinous mugs! You know, it was much more pleasant to look at elf girls than these bugs…Want to have another drink? Remember how we set off the Black Death?”

  Taking him up on his offer, I called over the bartender and ordered another round of beer. I wanted to show Alonso that I was still on the same wavelength as he. Meanwhile, a single thought occupied my mind—I had found one of the remaining ten players who were looking for the billion pounds with me. I had to find the other nine…

  “Master, I have prepared the information you requested,” Stan woke me early the next morning. My head felt like a hundred church bells had suddenly decided to play compositions of their own creation and which were in no way in harmony with one other. I was scared to even imagine what was going on inside my mouth, and here was Stan with his “information you requested”…Lemme sleep, you robot!

  “What you got?” I managed, forcing my tongue to move.

  “I have identified the two players pictured on your phone. Would you like to see their personal information?”


  “Come on then.”

  “Constantine Gauranga, age 29. Resided at…”

  “What do you mean by ‘resided?’ Why the past tense?” I interrupted Stan. Even through the fog of my hangover, the sentence set off alarm bells.

  “Mr. Gauranga passed away in an accident eight days ago,” replied Stan, taking my hangover right off. Constantine was dead?!

  “What about Eunice?”

  “Eunice Dormouse, age 30. Current place of residence unknown. Has lived here in this city for the past nine months. I found information about her contacts and her phone number on the web. I’d like to point out that it seems she too has turned engaged panic mode. I found her phone number only by parsing old logs in the game Draanmir. All newer data, from the past two years, were either deleted or are outdated. Neither her email, nor her phone, nor website is currently active. Would you like to contact Eunice?”

  “Not at the moment,” I shook my head, pushing away the encroaching weakness. “Give me something to help with my hangover and prepare the capsule. I need to get back into Galactogon. Although, wait—send her a message that I want to talk to her. You can add that at least two of the twelve are already dead.”

  “Your message has been sent. The capsule and the anti-hangover shot have been prepared. Do you wish to eat your breakfast?”

  Even thinking of that turned me inside out, so I said no and dove back into Galactogon, freeing my mind from the morning’s hangover.

  Chapter 7

  An Unexpected Encounter

  “That’s it. That’s the last of them,” said Miloš, hauling out the last powercell from the harvester. Our attempt to wire the harvester’s power supply into the contour running to The Space Cucumber’s self destruct mechanism had failed miserably, wiping out basically half of the Elo we had on board. Elo was the universal fuel in Galactogon, so we decided to move on to plan B, which consisted of drilling a hole in our stone egg. Like ancient lizards awoken by some cataclysm, we began to whittle away at the ossified egg—but it turned out that making a small opening was one thing and carving a full-sized passage through which we could get out to open space was something else entirely—not exactly the proper task for a simple combat blaster. Miloš melted away the rock piece by piece, while we ferried the melted piles to the cargo holds. Once the blaster’s powercell was finished, we wired it into the harvester’s powercells, but even those were eventually all but exhausted.