by G. R. Cooper
“Or the big bad wolf sent him to find out what Duncan’s rail gun noise was,” suggested Matt.
While talking, he was also looking over his character sheet. After the mission, Clive had notified him that he had some skill points to spend. He was looking through the Combat Arms section.
“Do I need to spend some points on Sniper training?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t,” said Clancey, “That’s usually helpful in giving you a better indication of target range and in judging wind speed and direction through the scope. With a regular rifle and scope. With that scope, that doesn’t really matter. It will calculate all of that based on environmental factors as well as your slug loadout. Just target, point and shoot with that thing.”
“Yeah,” said Vince “If I was you, I’d drop everything into getting a heavy armor certification. You’ll need that before you’re allowed to rent any, and if you don’t have the cert, your insurance for armor you buy would be stupidly expensive.”
“Do any of you want to use the rail gun?” Duncan asked, a bit overwhelmed by all of this newfound power.
The others shook their heads.
“Nah,” said Clancey, “we specialize in the fast in and fast out, hit-and-run raid.”
“The old in-out, in-out,” said Shannon, thrusting her right index finger through a circle made by the index finger and thumb of her left hand.
Vince laughed, “Long missions eat into our drinking time. Sniping isn’t really much needed the way we play.”
“You should sell it and buy a full set of kick ass equipment,” added Shannon.
Matt had been sitting, quietly. Now he spoke up.
“Who wants to hear about the loot?” They all turned to him. “First off, the mission had two parts. It turns out we not only needed to find out why comms from the colony had been lost, namely the werewolves, but we also got a bonus for colonists rescued. I’m going to give my share to mister first timer.”
The rest of his friends gave their assent as well.
“Ok then,” continued Matt, “that means that Taipan gets about ten thousand credits.”
“Is that a lot?”
Clancey responded, “It’s a really good start for a newbie. Almost enough for a starter set of power armor. You can probably get an OK outfit with that, but I’d wait. Especially if you’re going to focus on sniping …”
“Camper!” yelled Vince.
“ … in which case go on some more missions, do some camping, uhm sniping that is, and get enough for a really kick ass set of armor.”
“Or,” added Shannon, “sell it, like I said.”
“But yeah,” said Vince, “that is a lot for a single mission.”
“I’m not done,” grinned Matt. “In addition to the bonus for the colonists, that big bad wolf that Duncan wasted had a bounty on his head. He wasn’t just a non-player character, Duncan, he was an AI, which is what we call NPC’s that have a character arc. He’d done a lot of colony hits, and as he fought, and lived, his skills grew. He was a really bad dude. If Duncan hadn’t splashed him, he would’ve given the three of us a really nasty fight.”
“Sweet,” said Shannon
Matt continued, “yeah, and he dropped some interesting loot as well.” A dialog box popped up in Duncan’s view, he accepted it and examined the item.
Cowl of the Wolf. Won by Duncan Sheriden August 27, 2021
He put it on. His friends laughed.
“You look like some kind of shaman!” hooted Shannon.
Duncan opened his character screen. His head was now shrouded in fur, the wolf’s head staring over the top of his eyebrows. Red eyes glaring, fangs bared, ears pointing upward. The fur extended down over his shoulders into a short cape. He brought up the object information.
Cowl of the Wolf. Provides visual camouflage in similarly colored environments, as well as infra-red cover in all environments. Reduces species aggression from Canis Arcturus to neutral.
That explains why the big bad wolf didn’t show up on the infra-red scan, Duncan realized.
Meanwhile, his friends had also been reading the description.
“What does neutral aggression mean?” asked Shannon.
“I’m not sure,” said Vince, ”but it sounds like if he’s wearing that, they won’t automatically attack.”
“I’m checking the wiki now,” said Clancey, “and Vince is right. Apparently, if he was wearing that cowl, or anything with that species’ neutral aggression tag, he could even land on the werewolf home planet and not be attacked.”
“I haven’t been able to find a record of a Cowl of the Wolf in any of the wikis or player auction house,” said Matt, “and the neutral aggression bit is really rare on any items.”
“What’s Arcturus”, asked Duncan. A display popped up, centered on his view. It showed a starmap with the Sun and Arcturus highlighted. Arcturus wasn’t all that far, relatively speaking, from the Earth.
The others were obviously studying as well. Vince responded.
“A star about thirty seven light years from Earth, or about six hundred light years from this station.”
“The werewolves,” added Shannon, “aren’t actually from Arcturus. Their home planet is around a star about three light years from there. Called Eta Bootis.” She started singing, “I like Eta Bootis and I cannot lie, you other brothers can’t deny!”
“And with that,” said Matt,”I need a beer.”
“Stoofoo! I’m a great singer!”
“Are you going to pass around some virtual drinks or something?” asked Duncan.
“We could,” answered Matt, “Or we could log off, head to the bar and take advantage of Shannon’s employee discount. You in?”
“Sure.” said Duncan.
“I get an employee discount?”
Duncan took off his helmet, got up from his couch and walked into the kitchen. His apartment wasn’t large, but it was well appointed. Someone had taken an old, early twentieth century, rail warehouse and converted it into lofts. Century old clay brick walls and rough hewn beam ceilings were accented by modern stainless steel appliances and shining wood floors. The only real drawback, apart from the price, was that the rail line still ran. Every few hours, freight trains pulled past, shaking the place. It had obviously been decided that the aesthetics of the apartments outweighed the need to add sound proofing. He’d gotten used to it fairly quickly, though.
He pulled open the refrigerator, grabbed some food and a beer, and walked back to the couch. Sitting, he turned on the TV and told it to switch to the computer input. He had a bit of time until his friends could get to the bar, which was only a half a block away from him. One of the reasons he wasn’t too off-put by the apartment’s high rent was that it was in the middle of downtown. Or, as Shannon put it, within stumbling distance of all the bars. He decided to use the extra time provided to read up on the game.
As he ate, he read through the various activities, called ‘Occupations’ in game. Everything his friends had described, and everything he had experienced so far, fell under the ‘Soldier’ umbrella of occupations. That was, however, only one of the branching pathways he could choose.
Matt had described the game progression as being based on activity, instead of “class” which was how many games defined gameplay pathways. The only limit to what you wanted to do was, in many cases, access to equipment. You could pilot spacecraft in combat, or as a miner. You could manage colonies, large or small. There were a substantial number of players who spent all of their time in one of the various space station casinos, gambling with game credits.
He switched to reading about the werewolves and their home planet. Not much was known, apart from the location. Their rabid xenophobia, as well as ravenous appetites, left little room for any exploration.
Finishing the last of his now warm beer, he sank back into the couch and started to think. The fundamentals of a plan formed. He knew, or at least thought he knew, how he was going to play this new game. As he reached for his
VR helmet, his phone buzzed. A text message had come through. It was Matt.
“You’re not coming are you?
Duncan looked at the time. He’d been reading for over an hour.
“Uh, no. Sorry.”
“I knew it! I told them you’d get sucked into the game again! First round is on you next time. Have fun!”
Duncan put back on the helmet, reentered the game world. The nascent plan had no firm path, but he knew one thing; it was going to be expensive. He left Matt’s place, and entered Mission Control and made his way to the manufactory, opening it. He took a deep breath, pulled the rail gun out of his inventory and placed it inside. He selected the “create blueprint” option on the control menu, confirmed the five hundred credit cost, and took the resulting plan from the slot.
Duncan then brought up the ‘Player Auctions’ menu, set the filter to sort from highest priced items to lowest. He didn’t bother to read what the highest priced item was, he just read the ‘Buy it now’ option. Five million credits. He decided to set that as his reserve price. If reserve wasn’t meant, he’d auction it off again with a lower one, but he wanted to be sure that he got every possible credit. It might not wind up making a difference, but he’d decided that his first foray into the player auction wasn’t going to result in some other player getting a bargain.
“Clive, setup an auction for the rail gun plans. Set the reserve price to be five million credits”
“Certainly, sir. Shall I set the auction to run for the default amount of time, forty eight hours? Do you want the auction under your name or shall I set it up to be anonymous?”
“Anonymous please, and two days is fine.”
He looked at the newly open slot in his inventory pack. “Well,” he thought, “that’s that. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
For the first time since entering the game, he began to look around the space station. The mission control room stretched out to the left and right, curving behind him as he looked toward the viewport. Dozens of other players, singly and in groups, were moving through the room. Some returning from missions, some leaving on them.
He pulled up a map of the station. The mission control room was a torus; he could walk in either direction and wind up where he began in the donut shaped room that circled the outside of the station. Inside of the ring was where the player homes, stores, bars, and everything else was located. They weren’t specifically located on the map, just listed. Walking into any of the portals dotted around the interior of the mission control room could take you to any of the other rooms in the station, so the actual layout of most of the station was irrelevant, with a few exceptions. Like Mission Control and the Hangar.
He turned around, walked through the door he had used to get in, and answered ‘Hangar’ when asked for his destination.
The hangar deck was at the top of the station, a dome. A wall about three meters high stretched around the base of the dome, with airlocks spaced evenly around the circumference. Above the wall, stretching to the top of the dome, was glass or carbon lattice or whatever. Beyond he could see ships of many sizes coming toward and moving away from the station.
His phone rang in his helmet, the notification across the top of his viewscreen said “Clancey”.
“Answer.” He paused, “What’s up?”
“You’re auctioning off the gun?” Duncan could hear sound of the bar in the background.
“How did you know?”
“Fuck texts me whenever there’s an auction started with certain keywords,” he answered.
“Fuck?”
“Yah,” laughed Clancey, “that’s what I named my in game assistant. That way, whenever I start cussing in game, it calls up my assistant instead of yelling it over the radio”
Duncan laughed, “Any bids?”
“It’s up to fifty thousand.”
Duncan’s heart fell. That wouldn’t get anywhere close to funding The Plan.
“But don’t worry about that. The auction control software won’t let you set up your auto-bids until you place at least one bid. Fifty K is actually pretty damn healthy for a new auction. The price will skyrocket at the end when the auto-bidding takes over.”
“God, you scared me for a second. I did set a reserve of five million, though.”
“I don’t doubt that’ll be met. Some Corp or Clan will buy it, and all of them will want it. What are you going to do with your newfound wealth?”
“You’ll see,” laughed Duncan.
They hung up and Duncan resumed walking toward the center of the dome.
Clive, bring up the ship purchase menu
He started reading, selecting options. He went back and forth a few times, trying to create something that he thought best suited the plan. When he thought he had what he needed, he had it configure the ship. The price was what he feared it would be. Astronomical. He began to see why individuals didn’t buy ships. They were used mainly by groups who could pool their resources to buy one. Large groups. He hoped Clancey was right about that auction.
Closing the menus, Duncan decided to begin exploring the station.
Chapter 6
Birmingham, West Midlands. UK.
Eric West paced in the computer room in his small, two bedroom flat. Six high resolution screens were arrayed in two rows of three, one over the other, on one wall. They provided the only light in the room. The center top screen showed a view of space dominated on one side by a hemisphere of a rocky planetoid; a shepherd moon in the ring around a gas giant. The rest of the monitors were divided among charts and instrument panels.
He stopped, leaned forward, and looked at the center bottom screen. It presented a three dimensional view of a star system. The star system that he’d been stalking all day. He touched and dragged on the screen, rotating the map to get a better view of the trade routes laid over it. The green lines cut through the system, converging as they approached the system’s fourth planet; the jump point for this system. All ships passing through this system in hyperspace had to pass that point. All systems had a jump point; nobody knew why they had to be used. All part of that silly, ‘lost tech’, Old Ones cover story the game used, he thought.
Bright red dots marked spots on the map that West’s research had identified as past pirate activity. As the cargo routes came together, the frequency of attacks increased, but falling off rapidly as the routes approached one astronomical unit from the fourth planet. He confirmed that his ship was still targeting this region with its passive sensors. Throughout the day, at irregular intervals, he’d tracked the bright green dots of cargo craft as they approached or left the system. The shields created for faster than light travel spread tachyons, faster than light particles, that were somehow detectable via the Old One technology. This allowed anyone with the requisite equipment to follow the progress of FTL ships through the various star systems. But there’d been no sign of his prey. There was one green dot at the edge of his detection range, approaching him.
“Number One, how often do attacks occur in this system and how long has it been.”
“Attacks average once every sixty-four hours,” answered his assistant. “It has been ninety-three hours since an attack.”
The last answer had increased by thirty minutes since the previous time he’d asked. He resumed pacing.
“Overlay sensor ranges”
Concentric rings, centered on his ship, appeared on the map. At each subsequently larger ring, the sensor range increased by one light minute. The seventh ring intersected the heaviest concentration of red dots. He was seven light minutes away, hiding in the shadow of the fourth planet’s moon. Unless a raider knew just where to look for him, he wouldn’t be found. He’d been silent all day. Nothing radiating. No chance of anyone picking him up passively. Behind him, the gas giant’s ring would probably prevent any active scan from picking him up as well. He waited. Watched.
Seven minutes after an attack, his sensors would detect the torpedo signature and he would instantly go t
o flank speed and the clock would begin to countdown the seven minutes until the pirate detected him. Six minutes after starting, he’d reach the L5 Lagrange point, an area of stable equilibrium between the gravity created by the pulls of the planet and its moon. At that point, effectively outside of the gravitational well of the planet, he’d be able to light off his jump drive, already set with the coordinates of the attack area. Thirteen minutes after it attacked, he’d jump in on top of the pirate, all of his weapon systems armed and primed: one full minute before the sensors on the pirate ship detected his sudden appearance near the moon. He fully intended for those detection systems to have been vaporized by that time.
Assuming it took longer than thirteen minutes for the pirate to loot the cargo ship, he’d have a kill. Assuming he managed to both prime his weapons and his shields on the six minute flight to the L5 point. Assuming that while doing that, he also had time to input the exact jump trajectory to the contact point. Assuming that he’d jumped close enough to the pirate to wipe him out with a single broadside, and didn’t get drawn into a running, gunning, fight.
His problems were manifold, but manageable. Assuming everything went well.
Ideally he’d have the rest of his crew online, managing the various stations and systems throughout the ship. Their advanced character skills, appropriate for each station, would greatly decrease the time it took to prepare the ship. They would also be able to work in parallel, unlike his AI crew. As it was, however, they’d become less and less agreeable to playing the waiting game required to land the big prey. He’d tried to explain it to them in those terms. The waiting was boring, yes, but the payoff could be huge. But they seemed more interested in jumping onto planets and shooting aliens. He’d enjoyed that too, and was happy to lead the group in doing so after they’d formed.
