Countdown_LitRPG Series

by Michael Atamanov

  And, by the way, I was very surprised to see that the Geckho didn’t leave the game that bends reality to rest, seemingly ever. Before that, I honestly thought the small size of the shuttle bunks was because there was no need for more room. After all, an astronaut who grew tired and wanted a rest could exit the game into the real world, then their character would disappear and no longer take up any space. However, all three of my bunkmates were still logged on even when sleeping. That was strange, but there was probably some explanation. I made a mental note to ask my friends when possible.

  Unlike my bunkmates, I was in no mood to sleep. For a start, I looked carefully over my spoils from the battle in the Harpy Cliffs. Before that, I hadn’t had a chance.

  The Dark Faction laser pistol didn’t have any exorbitant stat requirements, but it did need the Pistols skill to work effectively. I turned the unusual weapon over in my hands and stashed it back in my backpack. It was not right for me. Minn-O La-Fin’s belt was nothing extraordinary on its own, just a common wide belt made of artificial leather with two small cases for storing little trinkets. Inside one of the cases, I found a folding fork and spoon and a spool of surprisingly resilient thread. The second contained a replacement laser pistol battery. But the chameleon cloak had me intrigued:

  Dark Faction camouflage cloak

  Character detection distance while in motion -23%

  Character detection distance while immobile -77%

  Battery life: 18 hours.

  Statistic requirements: Agility 18, Intelligence 15

  Skill requirements: Stealth 16, Electronics 16

  Attention! Your character has insufficient Agility to use this object.

  Attention! Your character lacks the Stealth skill, which is required to use this object.

  Conclusion: a fairly useful item, but not right for my Gnat. Sure, I could take the Stealth skill when my character reached level 25 but raising Agility by three points... that would take at least half a year of intensive training.

  Placing it back into my inventory with pity, I gave a heavy sigh and tried to distract myself, getting back to studying Geckho writing. Thankfully, there was plenty of incomprehensible scribbling on the monitor, and every little lever, access door and panel on the ceiling and walls of my bunk.

  I also had many questions about my scanner’s settings. It was possible to change them, but I didn’t risk experimenting any more on the Shiamiru. I was too afraid to mess up again and ruin my reputation both among my crew and faction. I had already failed the mission Ivan Lozovsky gave me, to prove I was a qualified Prospector. In fact, I had given them cause to doubt the intellectual abilities of the whole human race.

  My self-castigation was interrupted by an abrupt repeating signal that rolled through the shuttle. Accident? Danger? But my roommates, although they awoke, did not demonstrate any alarm or panic. It very quickly became apparent that it was just a wake-up alarm. Our shuttle had arrived at the destination, and the crew was going to have to work.

  We suddenly saw captain Uraz Tukhsh in the shuttle doors. Throwing a long attentive gaze over my bunk, he stopped on the Trader:

  “Uline, look after our newbie. Make sure he doesn’t forget to put on his space suit or fill his air tanks or something. Show him how to use the airlock, set up his radio, and just keep him on a short leash. After the wasted analyzer, I don’t know what to expect from Gnat. He might push off too hard and fly off into open space. After all, the gravity on this asteroid is practically nil. It wouldn’t really be a problem if he just flew off and died. No huge loss, but he has our expensive equipment, and losing that would be a real pity.”

  All three of my neighbors started rumbling through their clenched tusks in satisfaction, cackling at the captain’s joke. I just bore it in silence, not wanting to argue or curse. I would have to prove the opposite by my actions and, right now, the facts were not in my favor. Finally, the captain turned to me:

  “Gnat, your mission, while we unload and unfold the automatic processor is to find valuable minerals on the asteroid. The ship's detectors show the presence of heavy metals and even elevated background radiation. But it’s weak and indistinct, as if the deposits are at quite some depth. So, your mission is to determine the location of these ores. I have a good feeling about this!”

  Uraz Tukhsh, could already taste the high-value minerals, started rumbling in satisfaction, turned around and walked back to the bridge. As soon as the captain was out of earshot, Uline Tar voiced her doubts:

  “Every time I heard Uraz Tukhsh say he had a good feeling, we ran into trouble. Either our price got undercut at auction, competitors squeezed us out of a good route, or pirates took all our cargo. So, I don’t have much trust in our captain’s intuition!”

  Nevertheless, Uline didn’t contradict her boss, or argue with his orders. She demanded I take out my space suit and fill it with air. I have to admit, without the help of the much more experienced Geckho lady, I might have had trouble activating the built-in battery with the valves and pumps and setting up my radio. But Uline helped me figure it all out. The radio was working, the air pump hummed to life, and the gauge on my metal satchel showed increasing pressure in my tank. At the same time, I checked the gauge on Angel Dust and discovered that my PCP gun could stand a bit more air.

  “Do you really not have anything more modern, just that ancient air rifle?” Basha Tushihh asked in surprise when he saw me filling the tank with a hand pump. Meanwhile, his twin brother justly asked who I thought I’d be fighting on the asteroid.

  Nevertheless, despite all the taunting, I loaded Angel Dust with air, and checked the battery in my laser pistol. Sure, I didn’t have the right skills, and the scatter circle was huge. The game rules baffled me here though. How could a laser beam have scatter??? But the battery was full, and I could at least fire it, so it was perfectly serviceable as a backup.

  There was no viewport in our bunk, so I could only tell we’d landed by the change in tonality of the Shiamiru’s thrusters, and a sharp vertical impact a few seconds later. We landed so hard I fell onto the floor. My Geckho neighbors had more foresight and, as soon as they heard the changed sound from the thrusters, they grabbed for the side handles. Immediately after we landed, all my roommates had helmets on their heads, and the Geckho spent some time looking and listening in alarm. But there were no signs of emergency, and everyone sighed in relief. Uline swore elaborately, then started grumbling again as usual:

  “Uraz Tukhsh doesn’t have the skills or experience, so he should have done the professional thing and hired a decent pilot! As it is, every landing tests the structure of the shuttle and my nerves! I'm telling you, this is the last time I'm flying with him! I’ve had enough rough landings!”

  The eternally displeased trader was interrupted by an alarm signal and order from the captain:

  “Lead crew roll out tech! Fasten down the shuttle and open the cargo bay! After that, haulers activate cargo arms! Gnat and Uline last. You take the third levitator and buzz the hell off at least two thousand steps from the Shiamiru before scanning! Gnat, got that?”

  “Yes, captain, understood,” I confirmed shortly, again trying not to take his mistrust to heart.

  Four minutes passed before both twin brothers left down the corridor to the nose of the shuttle. I couldn’t hold back and even stuck my helmeted head out the door to see the two giants slip through the narrow corridor. They did it with surprising grace, clearly evidence of their past experience on the Shiamiru.

  “Gnat, our turn!” Uline's voice rang out in my headphones.

  I started fitfully for the exit, but was stopped by an armored hand packed into a space suit:

  “Wait! First attach this to your carbine strap.”

  With huge effort, I suppressed a stream of curse words. I felt like a dog on a leash being taken out for a walk! Plus, the Geckho lady was much larger than me, which only reinforced that sensation. Despite this being my first spacewalk, my mood was ruined. However, all my negative emot
ions left me as soon as Uline and I passed through the airlock and found ourselves outside the Shiamiru.

  Eagle Eye skill increased to level thirty-two!

  Cartography skill increased to level thirty-five!

  Wow! The scenery was just as fantastic as it was unearthly. The brownish and bright-red surface was dappled with craters and sharp peaks. Meanwhile, there was a black sky up above with millions of stars stretching into infinity. Apparently, we were on the dark side of a very large iron and stone asteroid. The main sources of light were bright spotlights from the Shiamiru, and other lights on an enormous cylindrical object one hundred and fifty feet from our shuttle. Clearly this was the automatic ore processor.

  The thermometer on my sleeve showed minus one hundred twenty-six degrees Fahrenheit, and that was next to the recently landed Shiamiru! I suspected that, further from the shuttle, things got even more extreme. The barometer screen also on my sleeve was showing pressure of less than one point five Pascals. Although this was no deep vacuum, it was close enough. I wasn’t even surprised the instruments on my spacesuit, made by an unknown race, displayed in units familiar to me. I suspected the bars and numbers were actually totally different, but the game system was translating all the information into a form I could understand.

  Probably, I would have spent a long time at the gangway with my jaw hanging down in astonishment as I admired the unearthly beauty of space, but I was checked by Uline. The trader pointed at a flat metal object in some way reminiscent of a surfboard, just crescent shaped:

  “Gnat, get on the levitator and make sure your boots are clipped in. As soon as we get away from the Shiamiru, the artificial gravitation will abruptly drop off!”

  I obeyed the Geckho's sage advice and, standing on the flying board, clipped my soles into the special bindings. Uline did the same, then asked:

  “So, where are we going? Where will you conduct your scan?”

  Her strange way of putting the question left me hesitating. I have to admit, until that point, I figured I would simply be shown where to scan for minerals. But it turned out that the rest of the crew was relying on me to know. What could I say...? I pointed confidently at some sharp peaks in the distance. That way!

  The Geckho lady slightly inclined the levitator, and it smoothly and gently moved from place, gradually increasing speed. It was a lot like riding a skateboard but hovering around four feet off the surface. As soon as we got fifty feet from the Shiamiru, I no longer felt any gravity. The only thing holding me to the board now was the bindings. Uline, steering the levitator, commented:

  “It’s not true weightlessness, because the asteroid under us is fairly large, but the gravitation here is hundreds of times lower than on your earth. I adore this feeling!”

  And just then, she sharply increased our speed, pushing it to that of a Formula-One race car. To the left and right I saw the steep cliffs flickering past, sometimes just an outstretched arm away. It started reminding me of yesterday’s race on Zheltov's starship. We probably didn’t have to go on such a dangerous ride, but I didn’t stop Uline. She was clearly enjoying the thrill.

  We flew confidently over deep crevasses and doubled around outcroppings. At the very end, we hit our top speed and flew right at a stone spire that shot up into the starry sky. When I was sure we would die by smacking into the cliff, Uline sharply angled the board back, aiming the levitator practically vertically up. The microphone in my helmet gave a satisfied rumble from the Geckho lady, then an elated scream:

  “Whoo, hell yeah!!! You have to agree, Gnat, this feels awesome!”

  A few seconds later, the trader stopped the flying board on the very end of the spire of protuberated rock, and from the peak we had a view of the whole unevenly shaped asteroid, and the blindingly bright sun.

  Eagle Eye skill increased to level thirty-three!

  Cartography skill increased to level thirty-six!

  You have reached level twenty-three!

  You have received three skill points! (total points accumulated: eight)

  I finally managed to look around. The asteroid was twenty miles in length and around eight across, with a slightly curved shape like a kidney bean. It was all pocked with craters, cracks and peaks of the most monstrous forms. Three miles behind us, I could make out the tiny Shiamiru, but even my Eagle Eye skill and high Perception didn’t allow me to see any crew members.

  Carefully unclipping from the levitator hovering a foot and a half over the rock, I smoothly lowered my boots onto the asteroid surface. Uline was a bit alarmed and even grabbed for the line connecting us, as if I might fly away from her into open space. But I reassured my partner and started looking over the side of the cliff.

  It was about what I was expecting to see. Pallasite with fragments of olivine — the most common composition of iron meteorites that fell to the surface of Earth. To put it more plainly, iron and nickel with deposits of iron silicates and magnesium. This asteroid was composed primarily of pallasite, but there was plenty of iron and nickel here as well. I approximated the size of the asteroid... Around eight hundred billion tons of iron and one hundred fifty-two billion tons of nickel. On the one hand, it sounds like a huge amount but, considering the cost and difficulty of getting it anywhere, it wasn’t financially justified.

  The olivine was similar. It was close to the mineral composition of chrysolite, a semi-precious stone, but all the crystals were microscopic, and had no value to any jeweler.

  Mineralogy skill increased to level twelve.

  Mineralogy skill increased to level thirteen.

  So, it looked to be nothing on first glance. Uraz Tukhsh had mined nickel and iron on this asteroid before, so I didn’t see anything new. On the other hand, the captain mentioned something about heavy metals and radioactivity, and that was more interesting.

  “This is a spike of rock from the very depths of the asteroid, so let’s do a scan here,” I suggested to my partner, and Uline Tar didn’t argue.

  The Geckho lady pressed a row of keys on her space suit belt and confidently got off the board. I suspect that her armor suit had, among other things, magnetic soles. Very convenient for walking on magnetic asteroids. Unfortunately, my light space suit lacked that function.

  I opened my scanner and asked Uline to translate the setting panel. The trader readily read the scribbles next to the variously-positioned sliders:

  “General metal search. That is also for metals, but it searches by nuclear gamma resonance. That is also for metals, search by gravitational response. That is for superheavy materials. Search by temperature differential. Neutron scanner. Beta-radiation search. Nuclear-magnetic resonance search for non-protein organics. Empty space detector. Motion detector. Heuristic method. Echolocation. Structural analysis. Electromagnetic field search...”

  Astrolinguistics skill increased to level twenty-six.

  I have to admit; her explanations didn’t make it any easier. In fact, my head was spinning from the fearfully complicated words. I tried increasing metal search intensity to maximum, but that made the other sliders go down. Clearly you couldn’t just search for everything at once. Well alright, I was only interested in valuable metals anyway.

  Seeing me get out a tripod, Uline hurried to turn off her levitator. She must have been afraid of the EMP. This time, I carefully unfolded the tripod legs and, after hearing a click, pressed the geological analyzer into the surface of the asteroid.

  Scanning skill increased to level twenty-six.

  As soon as my computer had processed the information, I took a look at the results. Very high peaks for iron, nickel, magnesium and silicon — these elements were literally everywhere. A bit less cobalt and aluminum, but also on the order of hundreds of millions of tons. There was also some antimony and bismuth — a small local vein a quarter mile from the cliff base. Germanium was present as well, and some copper and even gold in trace amounts. Many traces of other metals, but it was all a bit vague and uncertain.

  “Nothing to write home
about,” Uline confirmed my conclusions. “Gnat, let's fly over to the other side of the asteroid. I saw another peak over there!”

  But I refused and suggested we try another way. This time, I was interested not in protuberated outcroppings, but craters or very deep crevasses. I wanted to try to reach the very depths of the massive stone hurtling through the cosmos. And sure, maybe it wouldn’t be to the very depths (with scanning radius 5250 feet I wouldn’t reach the core), but still as deep as possible.

  “Three miles from here, there is a huge crack on the sunny side of the asteroid,” I said, pointing at the distant crevasse. “Let’s fly there and try to go down!”

  My partner turned on the levitator, placed me on it and clipped in my bindings. This time, Uline didn’t go as fast, and was behaving fairly cautiously. Either the sun was blinding her, or her spirits had fallen.

  Right before the crevasse, Uline gracefully turned the flying board parallel to it and started riding to the bottom. She switched on her powerful helmet flashlight, and we smoothly descended the 900-foot vertical wall, which was glittering in the light of her headlamp.

  “Get going, but faster this time,,” she said, agitated for some reason. “If the asteroid collides with something, this crevasse will cave in on top of us...”

  “Come on! It just seems like the asteroid belt is packed with flying rocks. You yourself saw that there are thousands of miles between us and anything dangerous. Everything that could have collided with this thing has already hit it in the past millions of years. So don’t chicken out, we’ll be fine!”

  After saying that, I grew afraid that my new Geckho acquaintance may not like my tone. But Uline Tar didn’t react, too wrapped up in her worrying. Did she have claustrophobia? That would be strange for a character who spent so much time cooped up in a spaceship where even I found it cramped.