Universe Online - Enter the Game: Complete Edition

by Ryan 'Viken' Henning

  That appears to be the cause of the death of this pack in front of me.

  They are riddled with bullet holes and melted patches from laser fire, then the airlock was opened and they died from lack of air. It’s a horrible way to go, but I don't really pity them.

  From the looks of it, they've been dead for a long, long time, as well. Their armor is dried out and cracked, like the shell of a crab that's been left out in the sun far too long.

  I gingerly kick one, and it collapses into a fine spray of dust and frozen flesh. Hm. It seems the Drex have a higher water content than other species. There's actually less mass and flesh in their corpses than what a regular human-like person would have.

  It’s interesting, anyway.

  I get over my shock, and start my scavenger hunt of the bay. There aren't any ships, but it’s still a treasure trove of goodies. Hull plates and bulkheads stacked up against a wall for ship repairs. Unopened crates of specialized electronics and parts for systems. Overhead, there are several hanging cranes for moving stored goods and the like.

  I even find a couple of small drones. Their batteries are dead, so I cannot figure out what they were used for. But they're folded in on themselves about the size of basketballs, so I put them in my inventory to check out later.

  Also in the back of the bay I find two things that really catch my interests.

  I bounce over to them with a grin on my face. Once close enough, my HUD scans them and brings up the details for me to see.

  Tugs! Part mining craft, part loader/unloader. Basically two story tall bricks of metal with four arms mounted to the sides, a mining drill, and thruster engines in the back. They are twice the size of my escape capsule, and have all the systems required to let a two-man crew survive in space. Or an asteroid field!

  Hell yeah!

  One of them looks to be in fairly good condition, but the other one was in the process of being dismantled, probably for repairs or upgrades. I don't waste any time and go to check them out in detail.

  The dismantled one I check out first, peering into the open hull of it to look at all the parts and systems stuffed into the space. The insides seem similar to that of the capsule, except all the parts are bigger and older. Power core, storage tanks for air and fuel, gravity generators, atmospheric processors, thruster engines and tons of wiring and electronic control runs.

  I pop open its rear airlock manually and climb in, ready to check out the rest of the insides.

  The bottom floor of the tug is basically the living area. A bunk bed, washing closet, even a small kitchen with related storage. Well, it’s more like a galley you'd find on a small warship or the like, but it works. It even has several holo-monitors and a terminal connected to the on board computer.

  With the size of the various tanks and the storage compartment, which is accessible from both the inside and the outside, it’s cramped but definitely livable. There's also a hatch in the ceiling near the back, close to the airlock with a step ladder leading up. I head up there and find the space to be even more cramped.

  All that's on the top though is the cockpit and mining controls. The rest of the space is taken up by the engines and storage. Eight tons of compressed storage. Also the ship computer. Sadly, this one was taken apart, either for parts or for repair.

  But I do start up the control console in the cockpit, and am quite happy to say that it does have power, and the readouts still work on the monitor. Hm. No fuel, but its battery is 50% charged. Oooh! It seems that the tug can operate solely on battery power. Damn, it must be another Bub.

  I turn it off and make my way back down to the first floor, and start looting through the storage there. Hm. A couple of frozen bottles of water, more ration packs, air tanks. Even a space suit probably used by the old crew. An E-Cred stick and a data pad.

  I grab everything, and as soon as the credit stick is in my inventory it registers. 500 EC. Nice. Now I actually have some money on hand.

  The data pad really catches my interest though. In my hand, it connects to my suits power and flickers on.

  'Marish dearest,

  Things are getting tense up here. The rumors of the Drex coming are getting stronger every day. The mining crews are terrified, and the patrollers are all armed and on high alert for any reported sightings.

  Emergency repairs have been called for all ships capable of fighting, and the installation of the Imperial-class shield generator and its projectors in the control tower is being pushed forward ahead of scheduled.

  The entire station is being geared toward a long, hard fight and possibly a siege.

  For now I'm safe, so there's no need to worry over much. I'm simply a Class-2 Tug driver anyway. What use am I in a war, you know?

  Much love and well wishes, Protis.'

  I read the message, and blink away the sudden moisture that's welled up in my eyes. The message was never sent, still loaded into the out-going data queue. But it is dated. I have to pull up my HUD to check the current date.

  GDY 5450.

  Galactic Date Year 5450.

  The message in the data pad was at GDY 4909. Over five hundred years ago.

  Five hundred years ago this single message was left behind by a Tug driver who never got to send it or receive a reply. It’s likely that the fighting broke out almost as soon as he tried to send it.

  And like everyone else on the station, he died without even being able to send word to his love.

  It’s a rather sad tale.

  *DING*

  You have found a clue about the Derelict Space Station and its history which is shrouded in the depths of time.

  Obviously a military installation, the station was either still under construction or in the process of being refitted when it was attacked by the Drex. There is no way to tell how large the Drex Legion was.

  After five hundred years, there is no one left to send the message written by Protis to any more.

  But his last message will be with you always.

  You have gained:

  2 Psyche

  2 Awareness

  1 Clue (Active Quest)

  To say that I'm surprised at the messages that pop up before my eyes would be a lie. I expected something like it ever since I got done reading the message left behind.

  So the station was being geared up for a fight with the Drex.

  I'm not sure if saying that it was foolish or not is right. It’s obvious that the station lost the fight, and yet it’s still mostly intact and the Drex were never able to raid it.

  Maybe the station got reinforcements but was still forced to be abandoned?

  I simply have no way to know right now.

  Well, no matter. I turn off the pad and store it in my inventory, which has a special baggage compartment for 'Data Materials', including Data Pads, Data Crystals and other such things that I don't have access to right now. It basically allows me to read anything stored there through my HUD. It also doesn't have a weight limit.

  Getting back to business, I do another quick search through the Tug before exiting back out through the airlock, and head to the other one.

  The second Tug looks to be in much better condition than the first one, and with all of its parts intact. There are still signs of hasty maintenance though, so it was likely just finished up before everything went to hell in the Station.

  I do a quick check of its exterior before going through the airlock manually. What I find does surprise me though.

  There's atmosphere here, at a pressure high enough to breath in.

  Or rather, there's air, but no oxygen. It’s all CO2 and other mixed gases.

  It seems that the air wasn't pumped down before the Tug was powered down, so it maintained its pressure over time. It just wasn't breathable at the moment.

  But still, free air! Heh. I won't have to worry about finding enough to fill it up to use it.

  Just like the other Tug, the bottom floor of this one is used as a living space, while the upper floor has the equipment
and controls and computer. I make sure to do another search of the living area, but I don't find any personal belongings. Only more rations, water and two space suits. I stuff all of it into my inventory before going up.

  Ah! Pristine! A computer that actually still works! Hehehe.

  I activate the console and check the fuel tanks and other readouts, and am happy to note that there's about half a tank of fuel. Nice. But the battery is almost dead. Damn. But there's still enough power to turn on the ship's computer, and I do so.

  Hm. Login information? Damn.

  It’s asking for user identification. I don't have anything like that though. I do a quick combination of Protis and Marish, but it comes up as no good.

  Fuck. I'm going to have to hack it. Which is actually something I haven't done before. Hm. I hesitate for a moment, and then pull up my Aspect Web and rearrange the Aspects connected to the Software Aptitude. I add in several of the boosting Aspects and the the efficiency/maximization Aspects, as well as the Fast Aspect.

  Part of it comes out looking something like this: Reading ← Efficiency ← Fast ← Processing ← Fast ← Understanding ← Learning ← Capacity ← Efficiency ← Boost Aspects.

  I click them into place with the Reading and Writing Aspects hooked up to the Software Aptitude, along with another two links for Understanding and Learning Aspects linked directly as well. I'm forced to expand the Software Aptitude to Size 4 on the Innate Control Aptitude, but it should work just like that for now.

  Being able to learn and understand what you're doing is part of growing, after all. Simply going through the motions is wasted effort.

  I step back up to the computer terminal and bring it back up.

  With my boosted Software Aptitude, I quickly bring up the console menu and get to work. Bypassing the login screen turns out to be fairly easy, but getting around the embedded security measures beneath it is a much harder challenge. Hard, but not impossible.

  Just rather time consuming. And I'm racing against the clock after the computer detected my intrusion.

  I am by no means a legit hacker, so I don't have any countermeasures against the computer's security traces or its shut-out programs. But I can not lose this chance!

  I basically end up using brute force and my surprisingly fast learning-as-I-go ability to redirect the security attacks away and then bottle the security programs up before finding a way to shut them down.

  It takes an hour, with me standing there doing nothing else but staring at the scrolling code going by on the holo-monitor before BAM! It is done. The computer restarts, and then boots up without requesting a login!

  Yes!

  Too bad I'm in a place where I cannot wipe my brow. I must have been sweating buckets while doing this, and the salt stings my eyes with every drop of sweat that drips below my eyebrows. Ugh. Annoying.

  I shake my head inside the helmet to do away with it, and grin to myself as I pull up the menu. Data Logs, Orders, Maintenance Schedule, and more flash up in front of me.

  *DING*

  Level Up!

  You have gained:

  5 Attribute Points

  5 Intellect

  Hacking Aptitude (Tech)

  Hack Aspect

  Concentration Aspect

  Program Aspect

  Hacking Aptitude (Tech)

  How well you hack computer systems.

  All hacking actions +5%

  Aptitude Size

  2

  Oh, another one! I blink my eyes in surprise, then pull up the information on the Hacking Aptitude. It’s a tier 1 Aptitude, but it’s already level 5! Holy shit.

  I also gained Intellect and three new Aspects from that, too. Hm. That's a nifty thing to keep in mind. If I do something and succeed, then the system converts the effort into bonuses and boosts the starting gains. I probably only got level 4 in Hacking, but its level went up by one from my racial trait.

  It’s still nice, and makes me happy that I did it.

  Hm. The Learning Aptitude and all the Learning and Understanding Aspects I had assigned to it seemed to have helped in that regard, too.

  But I go ahead and add it under the Software Aptitude, which I shrink back down and then re-connect.

  Oh, I forgot to mention that the taken slots used to connect the higher Aptitudes don't disappear. You add their size total taken up to the size of the Aptitude below and allow an equal number of connections. So the new Software slots are still there, along with the two Hacking slots. And the two slots from Innate Control, which I haven't done anything with. None of my current Aspects connect to the Innate Control Aptitude anyway.

  Probably because it’s a Special class Aptitude.

  It’s only after checking all of that do I realize that my Psi was completely empty, and my stamina was almost gone too! What?!

  No wonder I'm sweating up a storm and my brain feels sluggish.

  I sit down right there in front of the computer on the floor and wait for them to regenerate. Woo... Hacking took a serious toll on my Psi, even though I didn't realize it. That's probably why I got the Concentration Aspect. I didn't even notice the icons in my HUD, I was so engrossed in the attempt.

  I sip a bit of water and eat another meal to fill up my meters and wait about ten minutes for everything to finish up. Only when my mind finally clears do I realize that I'd also leveled up. I totally missed it!

  So I also gained 5 Attribute (Stat) points, too. I pull up my Status Screen to take a look.

  Status Screen

  Unspent Stat Points

  5

  Physical Attributes

  Mental Attributes

  Applied Attributes

  Bonus Attributes

  Strength

  Intellect

  Health

  Luck

  30 (30)

  50 (100)

  260 / 260

  40 (160)

  Vitality

  Psyche

  Stamina

  -

  32 (32)

  42 (84)

  260 / 260

  0 (0)

  Agility

  Awareness

  Psi

  -

  30 (30)

  42 (84)

  960 / 960

  0 (0)

  Titles

  Derelict Explorer, Darkness Eternal

  Heh. I've only just reached what in most games would be level 2, but levels aren't progressively tracked in Universe Online. Because there's such a high range of freedom with how character builds work for players and NPC's, there's no point in adding an arbitrary number that others could make snap decisions with. From my point of view, the only reason why there is even a real leveling system is to reward the stat points, which allow growth for even the craziest or stupid of players.

  The game basically forces you to deal with the reality where having the know-how and ability to do things is more important than grinding for levels.

  I'm actually quite happy with it, aren't you? Haha.

  There is an auto-assist system as well, but I don't use it at all. I'd rather do everything with my own power and body instead. I get better gains from doing so, as well.

  Finally now that my Stamina and Psi are filled, I stand up and turn back to the terminal and start going through everything.

  Most of it is inane information I don't need at the moment, but the Mining Log and a local space chart definitely catches my attention. I quickly download them both, and grin from ear-to-ear when they pop up in my HUD. The rest seems to be all work-related or information about the Tug itself.

  First up, the Mining Log. It includes information on the a+steroid field I'd spotted earlier while outside. Coordinates to prime locations and estimated amounts of resources there. Iron, Carbon, all sorts of metals and goodies. And ice. Water ice. Yes!

  The second is the space chart. And for a moment I don't really recognize what I'm seeing.

  “WHAT THE FREAK!!!”

  Oh my god, I end up on the floor. Or ra
ther, I bounce back in zero-g and hit the far bulkhead. Which wasn't far, so I didn't really hurt myself.

  But the map is still staring me in the face. Especially the name of the nearest planet.

  Drune.

  I'm in my race's home system. On the far end of the Milky Way Galaxy. Nearly on the opposite end of the galaxy from the Sol system and Old Earth, which was one of the possible starting locations for the players.

  But there's also another name that catches my attention. It’s marked abandoned, but the name is still there.

  Drex Conclave.