Universe Online - Enter the Game: Complete Edition

by Ryan 'Viken' Henning

  I actually came to realize that it’s a bonus of the Searching and Scavenging Aptitudes. It causes a change in the way the game presents information to the user with them. Most of the others probably do the same.

  And they are now boosted by 10% by the Survivalist Aptitude I had gained just yesterday!

  I'm still a bit giddy about that, I'll admit.

  Work comes first though! This is a game, but it’s a game I treat as if my real life depended upon it!

  It’s the closest I've ever been to being 'normal'. To be able to run around and do things that other people take for granted. Even the meanest child has the ability to run around freely for as long as their legs will carry them. I was never able to experience that until I got into VR's.

  It’s why I'll never stop! I'll push forward with everything I have!

  It makes me sound like some two-bit hero or protagonist, but whatever!

  It’s the freedom that I crave. To go where I want, to do what I want. No one ever realizes what it’s like not to have that sort of freedom until it’s taken away. I simply learned it from a very young age. Not even able to walk by myself.

  Wars have been fought over that kind of thing. So what's so unusual about me being so passionate about it? Not a damned thing, that's what!

  Oh well. I calm myself and get back to the task at hand.

  All told, it’s basically much the same as what I'd already found. Spare parts, replacement materials, mechanical bits and electronic bobs. I do find several lights, the sort of high powered ones that you'd see on construction sites. And a few other things I keep tabs on.

  I even find an old, but really large battery stashed behind a bunch of half-smashed crates. It hasn't been touched, either. Lucky!

  Or perhaps it’s a reflection of my rather high Luck attribute?

  I have no real way to tell. Just like in any game, the Luck Attribute adds a bunch of different variables to the usual randomness of the game systems. Most of it is small things, things that are never noticed. But sometimes it can be very, very blatant. Like finding a battery more than eight times the size of my current power storage ability.

  To put it simply: I drag that darn thing out of there. But it’s really heavy, bulky, and has a surprising amount of mass. Ten feet long, four feet wide, and about two feet tall. It’s 80 feet cubed.

  It is worn though. I'll have to do some quick fixes to get it back into working order and make sure all the energy cells inside of it are good. But I cannot do that from where it was.

  So I use my strength and telekinesis to the best of my ability and slowly pull it out towards the capsule and my makeshift solar power system. Several times I have to stop and move crates out of the way.

  But finally I get the damned thing out to where I can hook it up and check it out. With the later option being first. I don't want it to blow up as soon as I start charging it.

  That'd be bad. Very, very bad.

  Survivalist Tip #... Whatever: ALWAYS CHECK YOUR SALVAGE BEFORE USING IT! DEATH IS ONLY THE BEGINNING...!

  Yep. Just like so.

  Or maybe it should be that death is always an option? Well, no matter.

  Once I get it to a good resting place, I pull out my multi-tool and go to work on it, removing panels and checking out everything I can see, reach, or remove.

  The insides are basically four rows of ten 1x1x1 foot battery cells, stacked two deep and interconnected to provide both balanced power storage and draw. So saying I'm thorough would be an understatement. I basically dismantle the entire battery and check everything.

  Good thing I did too.

  Several of the connections had corroded or rusted; but it is easy enough to fix. Some of the wiring had suffered degradation over the long term exposure to space. The cells themselves though are still in nearly pristine condition. But the built-in electronic controller is dead.

  It looks to have been smashed by an impact some time in the past.

  I click my tongue but can only shrug, pulling out the electronic guts and taking it with me back to the capsule. I'm heading to my equally makeshift computer, where I connect it up to see if anything can be retrieved from the memory. Even if it’s fragmented code, every bit helps.

  Even I'm not stupid enough to try to mess with the operating system of something that'll hold and transmit that much power, thank you very much.

  Long story short, I'm able to salvage the software code, and even optimize it a little bit with my Software Aptitude before rebuilding the system using the Hardware and Assembly Aptitudes. It takes a bit of time, cause it got down to being really finicky work.

  It comes out to be nearly twice as big a project as rebuilding the I/O system for the capsules computer console. But it is all worth it.

  Then I rebuild the thing, and weld it to the floor using some more of the metal braces. I don't weld the battery itself though. I may end up having to move it later, in which case it'd be a bitch and a half to break the welds to do so. Instead I just set the braces to hold it securely to the floor so it doesn't fly off should something happen.

  That done, I disconnect the second external battery that's almost fully charged and use it as a starter test for its really big brethren. Or maybe I'll start calling it the Big Uncle Battery. Heh. The BUB, or Bub. Yeah, there we go.

  Anyway, I connect the smaller battery into Bub, turn it on and watch closely as the controller information flashes across my HUD. Just like with the capsule computer, there isn't a usable monitor around, so I have to do it through my helmet.

  But it looks good! The safety checks all come back green, and the battery cells start equally distributing the power received between them. No signs of faults or overloads! Hell yeah!

  I keep myself calm though and wait until Bub has completely drained the smaller battery before disconnecting it, letting it idle with its stored internal power. With the big battery now usable, I change the power supply distribution setup. Bub takes the full load from the Solar Array, and then sends it to one of the capsule batteries, which leads to the second which leads to the final one still inside the capsule.

  Heh. But the funny thing is that even with its full load of power, Bub is barely reading 1% charged. Well, perhaps it shouldn't be surprising. It has a whopping total of 80 battery cells, each of which is larger than the other three batteries; basically one foot cubed chunks of high density energy storage! Mwhahahaha.

  It’s already a great thing. Now I really won’t have to worry about power for a while. At only 10% charged, Bub could power the capsule at full draw for days. Not to mention the power requirements of my suit, too.

  I actually get the feeling that batteries like Bub are used for something like shield generators, or the stations weapon systems or power distribution nodes. But it works for this too.

  It finally ticks up to 2% charged while I watch it humming away happily.

  I float in a cross-legged position nearby and refill myself with a drink of water and another slurry meal of rations, calming down from my excitement high. My nerves are still tingling. I still have plenty of work to do today.

  That said, I finally pull up the map in my HUD, and look for what had interested me after my jaunt out of the station yesterday. It only takes me a minute to find what seems to be a bulge. Like a storage tank for water or fuel or the like. They're spaced evenly around not only the outer ring of the station, but also inwards toward the center as well.

  But the one closest to me is still about a mile away, far past anything I've explored. But regardless, there's another reason for wanting to check it out.

  The heavy machinery and pumps required to store a vast amount of liquid require constant maintenance. That means workshops and storage holds. As well as docking bays, or at least docking ports. Perfect places to gather supplies.

  I check my inventory, switch out a couple of empty air tanks with refilled ones from the capsule, and head out.

  It’s quite a long distance to travel in zero-g. Thankfully it seems that th
e corridor goes around the entire outer ring of the station. I don't have to deviate my path at all. I go ahead and skip all the rooms in-between. There will be time to check them later.

  Another bonus of zero-g is that once you get the hang of it, you can go at a pretty nice speed. It’s like floating. Because the outer ring of the station is so large, even the curve of the corridor feels like a straight line. I use the handrails that line either side of the corridor walls to basically bounce my way toward my destination, which I've pinged on my map. As I go, my map fills in the surrounding area, with each compartment or room I pass getting a closed door icon to show their positions. The rooms I've already checked have open door type icons instead. Really handy.

  But a mile in space is still a mile.

  Although I'm not even sure if 'miles' is the proper measurement of distance in space. I could use kilometers or the like, but I'm a US brat. I just feel more comfortable in thinking that way. And my HUD also represents distances like that too. The game most likely adjusts to each person’s preferences.

  I end up coming to a dead stop, though. In front of me, a massive emergency bulkhead had slammed shut across the corridor, cutting it off from the other side.

  “Of all the fucking... Shit.”

  I cannot help myself. I curse out loud. I hadn't been expecting something like this. Damn the Gods.

  Then I notice something. The bulkhead isn't locked down. It simply closed down over the corridor. Hm. A failure of the machinery that held it up, maybe?

  I move over to it, and anchor myself to the floor again before pushing my hands against it. It has quite a bit of mass, and it’s rusted a bit around the joints with the wall, but with a stronger shove it shifts.

  Yes!

  I quickly use my strength and telekinesis to push it back upwards, and with a slow groan that vibrates against my suit it finally opens. Or at least, it opens part way and then gets stuck for real. No matter how much I push I couldn't get it further open.

  Well, at least now I can get under it if I duck.

  Just another thing in the massively long list of repairs needed in order to make the station usable again.

  Well, technically the station could be used as is, so long as a couple of conjoined compartments are fixed up with localized power, atmosphere, water and gravity. It’s what I'm probably going to end up having to do. Simply to survive for myself. I'm getting dreadfully tired of the dark, anyway.

  Moving past the now jammed bulkhead, I reach my destination.

  As I had thought, it’s an area filled with storage tanks, and from what I could see it was used for water storage. Water is a precious thing in space, which can be used to make breathable air as well as fuel in the form of hydrogen. It just cannot be found in its liquid state, but instead can be pulled out of things like icy asteroids or mined from the surface of an ice-encased moon.

  All you gotta do is heat it and it turns back into liquid water. From there, put it through a filtration system and it’s good to go for whatever you need. Truly marvelous. You don’t want to have to deal with grey water though. Ugh.

  I go straight for the tanks without checking any of the equipment or the other rooms.

  And promptly start cursing again.

  The tanks are all empty. Entirely fucking empty.

  In my hate-rage, it takes me several minutes to figure out why they are empty, as well.

  Without power, the heavy pumping and storage machines used to keep the water from re-freezing and keep it fresh all went down at the same time. Over time the water turns back into ice in the cold conditions of zero-g without any insulation from an atmosphere, and ice made from water, expands. It ruptured either the tops of the tanks or the piping that had held the liquid water before.

  Then the ice basically sublimated into space over time. Just like water would evaporate from a puddle on a planet. And because the station is so large, it actually receives a fair amount of sunlight, and thus is heated to a temperature higher than the surrounding space. Energy always flows from heat to cold, so the ice had been lost.

  Probably hundreds of years ago.

  But it’s a bad situation for me. Really bad. If these tanks weren't strong enough to hold the pressure of expanded water ice, then things didn't look good for me finding any more water on the station. The place is probably as barren and dry as a desert by now.

  There isn't even any condensation on the walls. Without an intact hull to keep it all inside, it is all whisked off into space.

  I grind my teeth and look away from the tanks, scanning the rest of the large chamber. There's all sorts of machinery in here, and some of it even catches my attention. Especially those with working monitors. Most of it is pumping machines and heating coils and compressors. It’s really hard to put a large quantity of ice through processing into liquid without large, bulky machinery. It can be done on a smaller scale, but for large amounts of water you have to have proper infrastructure.

  As such, all the machines I check out are large. Taller than I am in most cases, and much bulkier than even Bub I'd just found earlier. The compartment itself is also open on both sides, cut in half by the corridor. One half holds the tanks, while the other holds the machinery. There's probably an airlock somewhere nearby where ice or liquid water was pumped in or out.

  Sadly, I have no way to move all of this machinery, so it'll just have to sit here for now. But getting back to my original purpose, I start searching the surrounding compartments. My intuition was right.

  There are several workshops, storage holds, and even a hangar bay within spitting distance of the tank compartment. I'll have to go through them all one by one to inventory what they all have. But I'm stopped dead in my tracks when I reach the hangar bay.

  It is a medium sized compartment, large enough to hold only a couple freighter-sized ships or tankers. Or a handful of smaller craft. It’s wide open and the large airlock out to the station hull is wide open. But what catches my attention are the bodies.

  I recognize those twisted, bulbous forms in matte black and gray armor.

  The Drex.

  I cannot help but shudder. Ever since they were introduced during the Beta Test briefing, they've seemed like things out a nightmare to me. Monsters in the depths of space.

  And here are the littered remains of over a hundred of them.

  An entire Drex pack.

  Not much is known about the Drex. No one knows where they come from, or what their intentions are. They refuse to speak with any other species. What is known is their command structure.

  The Drex are separated into packs. A hundred Drex units, and a few others of higher ranks that command them. It’s the minimum requirement of manning one of their raiding ships. From that, a grouping of five Drex ships and their interlocked command structure becomes a Clan.

  Drex Clans prowl the space lanes, often pirating and looting smaller convoys of trader ships or fighting station patrols. At that level, they might number 550 individuals. But you get more problems when two or more Clans come together.

  Legions. Drex Legions. Raiding armadas that'll come out of deep space to attack whole stations and ransack anything they can get a hold of. The attack on the mining station in the Beta Test was by a Legion of ten or more Drex Clans. Thousands of individuals hell bent on killing and pillaging.

  They make the Vikings from Old Earth look like friendly neighbors in comparison.

  The Drex also fight amongst themselves, and their position within the ranks is based upon the total number of battles won, enemies killed. They have no recognizable motivations beyond fighting. They don't even seem to build anything themselves. All Drex ships are those taken by force and then 'remodeled' for their own purposes.

  The armor of the Drex is some sort of biological secretion, and they use it to break down the hull of their ships and rebuild them. How their energy systems or weapons work is basically a mystery. For individual Drex, their weapons seem to be a part of their bodies. Molded from their own bulbous
flesh and armor.

  But they work just like lasers and projectile weapons the other races use. And the tentacles...

  Okay, I do shudder at that.

  During the Beta Test I saw a Drex grab a marine with tentacles that had sprouted from its back and tear the poor man apart limb by limb. It doesn't even make for an exciting erotic experience, either. The Drex seem utterly uninterested in taking captives, prisoners, or slaves. So no sex, as far as we've been able to figure out.

  Their culture is completely opaque to us. If they even have a culture.

  But thankfully the Drex require an atmosphere to survive just like the rest of us. Their natural armor also acts like a space suit, sealing them and their air inside. If punctured or destroyed in space-like conditions, they will die.