by Nick Cole
“I got the boat handled,” said MagnumPIrate over the growling charge of the tiny plane’s roar as they crashed out into the gentle surf, racing for takeoff.
A moment later, they were climbing over the incoming waves and out into the deep blue of the outer bay. Fish pulled back on the gaming yoke and begged his little digital plane to fly skyward. He checked in with himself from a distant part of his mind. He was frightened, fearful, and having a whole lot of fun. He was playing a game. His game. And it was good.
MagnumPIrate’s avatar produced a small device and pressed a red button. Fish recognized it as an in-game explosives detonator. The gunboat disappeared beneath them as they climbed toward the blazing hot tropical sun above. Either the detonator worked or they were about to be ripped to shreds by a voluminous amount of anti-aircraft fire.
Fish heard a distant, dull boom from beneath them.
He checked the instruments. The rate of climb. Airspeed. Engine oil pressure—which didn’t look good at all. And altitude. Then he banked and headed back toward the main island chain. Away from Pete’s Cove.
Far below, the tiny tramp freighter gunboat listed on its side, smoke pouring from a large hole near the water line where debris and flotsam fanned out across the sea.
“Get-outta-Dodge card,” said MagnumPIrate over the chat, and chuckled.
At that moment, Fish loved his game, and he knew the world would too. It worked, and it was fun to play. That was all a developer should ever really want, he told himself, hoping to believe it this time.
A moment later, the door to his office opened behind him.
He could hear Jackson woof in-game over the suite speakers.
“Mr. Fishbein,” said a pretty, young, business-suited girl with large oval glasses. “Carl says we have a problem at the front gate.” Embarrassed, or awkward, or filled with sudden self-loathing, she added, “Sorry. Peabody Case, your administrative assistant. It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Fishbein.”
In a corner of the room, a small red warning light pulsed. The words “EMERGENCY, STAY IN YOUR SUITE” were scrolling across the mint green desktop.
Chapter Nine
“It’s a trap!” screamed Captain Stefan “BlackDragon” Bolz of the Federation clan destroyer Berlin inside the StarFleet Empires game universe. “Starboard evasive! Stand by to fire portside phasers at will!”
On screen, the bridge shuddered as pulsed Romulan phaser shots raked the stark white saucer section of the ship and punched into the sleek warp drive nacelle far below. The other two destroyers, Des Moines and Calgary, began lobbing photon torpedoes with devastating effect at the massive Romulan light cruiser that had just de-cloaked right in the middle of the battle with three enemy warbirds attempting to run the Neutral Zone blockade.
Fifteen minutes before, BlackDragon had been jogging on a trail inside the Black Forest. It had been a long work week, and before watching movies and staying close to the computer in case of an in-game incident just like the one happening right now, Bolz had decided to go for a run. Instead, now he was scrambling to control the battle from his very expensive smartphone.
While jogging, he’d gotten an alert that Romulan clan warships were crossing into the old Neutral Zone. At first he’d been stoically surprised—but reacting quickly, he’d cut across a field while watching the ongoing incursion inside the game on his smartglasses. Three warbirds from the Romulan clan were on a direct intercept for the picket he was overseeing that weekend for the Federation fleet clan he and his ship were a part of. Basically, the clan had him on guard duty. Next week Berlin and the rest of the group would be rotating into the battle around Tholia, where the Romulans had preemptively invaded their neutral neighbors in a desperate bid to stay relevant within the StarFleet Empires game.
The warbirds were no match for the three state-of-the-art Federation destroyers. Thanks to a quick assessment from Science Officer Gunter Haltstead, whose avatar was a Vulcan named “SchwarzHalvock,” BlackDragon knew the warbirds were, at best, armed with the deadly but painstakingly slow Type R plasma torpedoes. At best. More than likely, they were using either refitted photon torpedo launchers captured in one of the numerous engagements since the invasion of Romulan space, or they were armed with illegally obtained Klingon disruptor arrays, either one of which was a poor armament for the last-gen warbirds. The old-school Romulan warships worked best with the Type R’s.
The Federation destroyers, on the other hand, were armed with massive forward shields, four photon torpedo launchers, and multiple phaser batteries. As long as they held formation and attacked the Romulans head on, they could wipe out just about anything in front of them.
Suddenly, the massive Red Witch, a Fire Hawk class light cruiser, de-cloaked portside aft just as they made their first attack formation run at Warhound, the lead Romulan warbird. The destroyer group’s opening salvo smashed Warhound’s forward shield, but now Berlin was forty-five seconds from a full torpedo reload. And Red Witch was firing into their portside aft shields with devastating effect.
“Damage report?” huffed BlackDragon breathlessly in the middle of a tranquil field within the quiet forest.
“Engineering reports casualties—main power still online!” shrieked Heidi Paulka, gamertag MangaAussenseiter, Berlin’s comm officer. Bolz knew she’d gotten all that from the automated systems status feed. Chief Engineer TodtSamurai still hadn’t logged in yet.
BlackDragon’s Friday run was turning into a nightmare.
“Group captains,” said Bolz into his smartphone. “Come about and prepare to engage Red Witch on my mark.” He hoped most of their crews were logged in, because he was sure they were about to eat a face full of Romulan plasma from the massive light cruiser Red Witch.
“Mark!” he screamed in German.
***
Twenty minutes earlier, Mara Bennett had been listening to the final operations briefing as the small Romulan attack force—composed of the three warbirds, plus Revenge, the battered light cruiser Red Witch, and Mara’s own ship, Cymbalum—entered the Neutral Zone at full impulse. She had watched from the command chair on her bridge as the other three warbirds de-cloaked ahead and Red Witch veered off from the main axis of the attack.
She ordered Lt. LizardofOz, her helmsman, to follow Red Witch in. LizardofOz was a Gorn player who had fought on the losing side of the Romulan invasion last year in the middle of the Gorn clans’ civil war—back when the Romulans had been a force to be reckoned with and the Fleet admirals all had big bucks to spend inside the Make. Cymbalum’s last helmsman was killed at Romulus when the Federation carriers broke through and overwhelmed the fleet. Mara’s ship was shot to hell and the crew barely managed to escape to warp once the general retreat was issued from the burning bridge of the Romulan dreadnought Imperator. Seconds later it had exploded, taking the Federation battlecruiser Ticonderoga with it.
The Gorn player’s EmoteWare gurgled a hiss, which translated via text feed at the bottom of Mara’s VR field to, “Aye aye, Captain. Following Tal’s red herring nice and slow. Cloaking device engaged. Reducing speed to one quarter impulse.” Mara watched a small power fluctuation on the weapons board and opened a channel to Scarpa, Cymbalum’s engineer.
“Portside phaser array still isn’t charging to full. Why?”
A moment later, Scarpa’s voice came back from his station back in engineering. Mara could hear the unsteady pulse of the warp core in the background. There was no disguising it: her ship was ancient. It had been old even when StarFleet Empires first went live five years ago. The warbirds were holdover ships from the game’s twenty-second century. They even predated original Star Trek canon, or what people called TOS, whereas the game was currently entering the final decade of the twenty-third century, which was just beyond the original series’ long movie run. Ships now came with better warp drives, as evidenced by the sleeker nacelles and advanced weapons packages. The Federation clan had even managed
to produce its fifth Excelsior class battlecruiser. The Romulans, on the other hand, were patching their ships together with digital baling wire and captured weapons systems. Very few Romulan vessels had any of the deadly Type R plasma torpedo launchers left. Cymbalum did, and for all intents and purposes, it was the only weapon the ship had, besides the two laughable phaser arrays, port and starboard.
“Hey!” Scarpa shouted emphatically. “She’s a doing the best she can, mi cap-i-tan!” Scarpa was an Italian kid from Rome who worked in a bakery. He always turned “Captain” into three separate words with his comically accented English. “It’s-a the main capacitor for that array. She’s-a real wonky. You getta me some parts and I make her like-a brand new for you. Until then… that’s-a the best you gonna get.” Then he added, “Cap-i-tan.”
Mara reminded herself again to keep the portside phasers away from the enemy if they ended up shooting at something. They weren’t supposed to do that. They were supposed to wait until Red Witch exploded and blinded everyone’s sensor arrays within the Neutral Zone before they snuck off into Federation space on their secret mission.
“Keep an eye on it please, Lieutenant Scarpa,” she said, gently reminding him that they should always keep up the role playing just in case they made it onto the network feed at the Twitch Channel. In which case they’d get a bonus in MakeCoins.
“Aye aye, my Cap-i-tan! I’m-a keepin’ both eyes on her. She’s-a no going to do bad today.”
An hour before the mission, Mara had texted the crew and asked them to log in. Everyone had immediately complied. If they made it through the weekend and completed the mission, there’d be big bucks for everyone who survived. She didn’t know them as much as she would have liked to—players kept getting killed and all—but she had confidence in them. In the short time they’d been together, they’d faced a few tight scrapes and come through mostly intact.
But the truth was, she’d didn’t really know any of them.
You don’t let them know you, she told herself. Except it was Mrs. Watson’s voice telling her. Telling her she was hiding behind her avatar. Hiding behind the beautiful and brilliant “normal” CaptainMara doll inside the Make.
They wouldn’t follow me if they knew I was blind and disabled.
That’s what you tell yourself, Mara. But it’s not the truth, said Mrs. Watson. It’s just a lie you want to believe.
Her eyes fell to her avatar as she clicked out to third person. Around her, the bridge was shadowed in green and blue. She could see LizardofOz in front of her, the massive reptile avatar wearing the shimmering orange battle dress of the Gorn. His leathery claw moved forward and made a small adjustment to impulse speed. Next to Lizard, as they called him for short, below her command chair, sat BattleBabe, Mara’s weapons officer. Ensign BattleBabe of the Imperial Romulan Navy clan.
Behind Mara, at the rear of the bridge, waited the strange and enigmatic Drex, motionless near the science station. The Drex were a captured star-faring race, playable by Romulan Navy characters. They were a fatalistic silicon-based AI who could only occupy science officer positions. So far, the player who’d decided to play this, one of the more difficult races, had done an excellent job of role playing the homicidal lunatic character.
The comm officer, Varek, whose real gamertag was TheOldManAndTheVoid, had been with Mara from the beginning. But they just called him Varek because it sounded Romulan, and saying TheOldManAndTheVoid was a mouthful. All she knew about him, as a player, was that he was a crusty old guy from Montana who didn’t seem to care much for her as captain of Cymbalum.
Mara allowed the camera to pan around as she studied the bridge personnel. But again and again her eyes fell back to her own avatar: a beautiful Romulan captain with commendations and decorations on her tunic, sitting in the command chair. Her face was heart-shaped, her eyes a depthless gray, her hair raven black.
They’ll follow her, Mara thought, staring at the perfect digital doll.
They’ll follow who they think I am.
Chapter Ten
“Take us in slow and easy, Lizard.”
Mara brought up the combat formation page on her command console. Cymbalum was trailing just below the massive Red Witch’s warp engines. The other three warbirds and Revenge were well ahead and de-cloaking to engage the oncoming Federation destroyers.
Six months ago it wouldn’t have been a fair fight. A Romulan command cruiser, a light cruiser, and four warbirds would have made short work of a lonely Federation destroyer group. But six months of battle and attrition had changed the game entirely. The Feds had state-of-the-art, fully repaired warships. The Romulans were shot to hell and breaking down every ten seconds. The weapons officer on Revenge had to unlock a torpedo firing solution mini-game every time he wanted to fire the one Type G plasma still operational. The photon mounts they’d installed after they’d captured a Federation frigate were tricky at best.
The warbirds were just as bad. But the light cruiser Red Witch verged on the pathetic. She was running a bare-minimum skeleton crew along with one working warp engine and one stasis-held torpedo that would destroy the launcher once it was fired.
Cymbalum was mostly battle ready, if not for a few tricky line items like the port-side phaser array and warp engines that would either burn like a banshee’s scream or break down without a whimper.
“Stand by to engage once they chase,” ordered TalGornicus over battlechat from the bridge of Revenge. Mara, along with the rest of the other captains, clicked “acknowledged” in their HUDs.
A moment later, the Federation destroyer squadron was turning to port as the three warbirds fired. Revenge, still cloaked, was closing right behind the warbirds. Mara briefly wondered if the weapons officer was having trouble getting the Type G plasma torpedo to arm and fire.
Warhound, one of the three warbirds, took the brunt of the Federation salvo. Her shields collapsed immediately and the starboard warp nacelle took a direct hit from one of the Federation torpedoes. It ruptured, bulged in almost slow motion, and then exploded along its axis, sending burning hull plating in every direction.
Mara knew Warhound was finished.
The destroyers pursued the warbirds, coming in on their number three shields.
This was the critical moment. Mara leaned forward in her chair, watching the tactical display on the bridge screen. The warbirds were “running” as Revenge broke off on another heading, de-cloaking. The choice for the Federation commander was to either to continue to run down the fleeing warbirds, or engage Revenge head-on.
Both made tempting targets.
A moment later, all was much clearer. The Fed destroyers were hell-bent on clearing out the escorts first. Then they could work the command cruiser Revenge over at leisure.
Mara suspected the Federation science officers had combed the battle logs, trying to ascertain just how many fights the big Romulan command cruiser had been in. Based on that intel, they were probably gambling that she was too shot up to be a threat.
That was when Tal’s bait, the light cruiser Red Witch, de-cloaked aft of the Federation destroyers, hurling hot burning-blue bolts of phased energy into their flanks.
“Drop out of cloak now, Mr. Lizard!”
“Targeting Calgary!” shrieked BattleBabe over the chat.
“Hold…” ordered Mara, trying to restrain the overzealousness that could streak through a crew with an easy firing solution.
A moment later, Red Witch unloaded her only torpedo into space. An overloaded Type R plasma running hot, straight, and true. The launcher had been stasis rigged, meaning it could hold one overloaded plasma torpedo. Firing would destroy the launcher, but the plan was for the ship to go up in a ball of nuclear flame and burning oxygen anyway, temporarily blinding everyone’s sensors.
“Detecting warp core overload building within Red Witch. Sixty seconds to a truly glorious detonation, Captain,” squealed
the synthesizer-voiced Drex.
The plasma torpedo from Red Witch left a fiery trail across the deep purple nepenthe of the Neutral Zone as it homed in on the running destroyer formation.
“Crew of Red Witch has beamed aboard Revenge, girly,” announced Varek, his almost constant contempt for her clear even in the heat of battle. She blocked it and checked Cymbalum’s weapons panel. The plasma torpedo launcher was still two minutes from loading.
“Stand by to cloak after she explodes.”
No one said anything. Mara knew they’d do it. There was no other option. No other way to get out of this battle without getting killed and sent all the way back to the make-a-new-character screen. No other way to get five thousand MakeCoins.
No other way to change their lives.
The massive plasma torpedo closed rapidly on the destroyer Calgary and eviscerated the number six shield. Internals were immediately evident as the Federation ship’s impulse engine exploded and a series of ruptures appeared across the command saucer.
“Calgary has been deliciously holed,” replied the Drex, who sounded more like a murderous sociopath represented by the EmoteWare of a genteel English butler spinning at an electronic music festival than a science officer on a Romulan clan warship. “Oh my, multiple player casualties on that one. That is very bad indeed, Captain, for them. But very good for us. Shall we continue to murder them?” The Drex smiled as it shook its crystalline fist in triumph and anger.
Mara could sense BattleBabe moving her hand toward the phaser array contact. A few short bursts through an open shield and they could knock out critical systems aboard Calgary.
Stay on the mission, thought Mara.
“Stand by to engage cloaking device. Let’s get out of here. Now.”
The last thing anyone saw before Red Witch exploded, momentarily blinding every ship’s sensors, was Warhound listing badly and trailing radiation from the remains of her ruptured starboard warp nacelle, Calgary on fire and firing into the fleeing warbirds—which were already disappearing back into cloak—and, of course, Revenge breaking off and attempting to get away.
