She tapped the next node on the path to the CPU, and it started to fill in. At the three-quarter mark, the security pulse went off, which would normally start the red line racing outward from any defense nodes, but her Freeze kicked in, delaying it by six seconds. The instant the second node became hers, she Ice Hammered the next one in line, taking control of it in an instant without having to wait the ten or so seconds a normal capture required.
When the fourth node in the path was halfway hers, three security lines raced out from their starting points, each one taking ownership of any node in its path. They moved way faster than normal, but then again, Fawkes had never tried to hack a level eight terminal before. Maybe that speed was normal.
She burned another Freeze, which halted the security lines for six more seconds, then spent three Firewall softs on unclaimed nodes in the red lines’ path. She didn’t need to take them over to reach the CPU, but raising their defenses would delay the security pulse by forcing it to capture them instead of simply passing through.
Fifty-two seconds after starting, the CPU finished filling in blue with a red security line maybe ten pixels away from ‘zapping’ her.
‘Access Granted’ appeared on the screen along with an ‘open/close’ switch.
Fawkes sighed with relief and draped herself against the fighter ship. “Wow, holy crap.”
“That looked easy,” said Rallek, standing alongside her.
“I used up like twelve softs. That’s ridiculous.” She laughed. “I haven’t even used one since level ten. I almost started selling them off. Glad I didn’t.”
“Well they don’t take up any inventory weight.” He shrugged. “No reason to sell them.”
“They’re expensive, even to an NPC vendor.” She smiled. “Star Auction is better, but players don’t buy hack softs.”
He nodded. “Yeah, not many people bother with the hacking system. Their loss.”
“You know…” Kavan scratched his head. “I wonder if they did that on purpose to be pricks?”
“Did what?” asked Rallek.
Fawkes smiled, adoring the irony. “Yeah. The developers knew everyone whined about hacking since putting points in it took away from raw combat power… so they made hacking required for the prize money. A giant middle finger to the meter-kiddies.”
Angel813 groaned. “Ugh, I hate them.”
“Wait…” She squinted at their white-haired Chinese medic. “You know what meter-kiddies are, but you’re all into vanity pets?”
“The reason I’m a casual is because I used to be a serious raider.” Angel813 rolled her eyes. “Got tired of dealing with the jackasses. This is a game. As soon as it felt more like a second job, I walked. I already have a job.”
“What guild?” asked Rallek.
“Army of One,” said Angel813.
Rallek and Kavan both stared at her as though they’d stumbled across a celebrity at a random coffee shop.
Fawkes’ eyebrows flattened. “What?”
“They’re the number two guild in the game,” said Kavan. “Pro sponsorship and everything. People in that guild basically get paid to play this game.”
“Well that explains why she’s so damn good,” said Nighthawk, a note of awe in his voice.
“Aww, thank you.” Angel813 made an ‘autograph-singing’ gesture. “Really, it’s not as fun as it sounds. I could hang with them, but way too much pressure. No one with a day job lasts long.”
Fawkes pushed the canopy glass up, exposing a single-seat cockpit containing a skeleton in a flight suit.
“Gah!” Fawkes yelled and jumped back, not mentally prepared to come nose to hole with a skull.
“What?” called Rallek.
“Dead pilot.” She clasped a hand over her chest and took a few breaths. “Just caught me off guard.”
“What else did you expect to find inside a crashed ship?” Kavan shrugged.
Angel813 peered in. “I’m afraid the pilot’s beyond my skill to help.”
Everyone chuckled.
After a little rooting around, Fawkes found a data pad in the pilot’s jumpsuit. She hit the button on the side, activating a six-inch tall hologram of a thirtyish woman.
“We’ve spent months tracking these damned pirates, but we’re too late. They got their hands on a prototype battlecruiser with a new type of warp drive. Everyone else gave up, but I managed to track the Reckoning to a system deep within Kazalor space. I was able to approach undetected, but one fighter isn’t going to stand a chance. Their network defenses are surprisingly low for the tech level of that ship, but maybe they just don’t know how to use it. The data I recovered points at a research facility at CF204.18 HH313.51, which may hold some clues for discovering how to track this crazy drive. Now, I just need to get out―”
The blue hologram face flashed red along with a warning buzzer.
“Damn. They’ve noticed me. Fighters are launching. If I don’t make it and someone”―another, louder, alarm went off―“finds this recording, bring it to Dar Cevu on Bauthen 3.”
A loud whump accompanied the holographic head breaking apart into static, then cutting off with a loud woman’s scream.
“Well, I guess she didn’t make it,” said Nighthawk, gazing at the wreckage.
Fawkes tried to stave off the sadness by concentrating on the thought this woman never existed. She’s a storyline in a game. No person ever died a desperate death trying to stop pirates. It’s just backstory. She exhaled out her nose.
Kavan looked around at everyone. “So, should we go to those coordinates or do we try to find this Dar Cevu guy?”
“Yeah,” said Nighthawk. “Now what?”
The ground rumbled, and six giant alien insects erupted, surrounding them. Glossy shells in vibrant colors caught the sunlight and gleamed. The biggest of them would make a semi-truck cab feel tiny while the other five had bodies the size of compact cars.
“Now…” Fawkes hit Flicker to leap into stealth. “We try not to die.”
One Step Closer
11
Kavan rushed at the huge bug. The stream of oversized ‘fireball’ projectiles coming out of his rifle announced his low-damage-high-threat attack designed to get a creature’s attention. While the boss alien focused on him, the smaller bugs ran at random characters. Fawkes fought the temptation to go for the big, juicy target and again decided to protect Angel813.
Rallek used a technomancy shield to give himself extra armor. Nighthawk kited one of the bugs going for him, running away while firing back at it. Fawkes lined up her gunsights on a yellow-plated bug seconds away from springing at Angel813.
The ambush shot critted for 1113 damage, knocking its health bar down about halfway. Fawkes’ body went solid again, indicating loss of stealth, making her grumble. One annoying quirk with the game and stealth: in boss fights, ambushing always kicked her out of hiding. Shooting open-world mobs in the back didn’t do that.
“Oh, shit. These things are tough as hell!” shouted Fawkes.
The one she ambushed whirled around and hissed at her, machete-sized mandibles twitching. It spat a shower of dark green liquid, which she somewhat-dodged. A pattering sensation as if she’d been pelted with a machine gun throwing ping-pong balls accompanied three-quarters of her health points disappearing.
A purple-plated bug slammed its jaws into the wall of techno-junk orbiting Rallek. Lightning crackled from the impact point, doing a little damage to the bug. Kavan instinctually moved to the side, pulling the giant one around to put its back to the party. Some of the group mission bosses had spray type attacks that could hit everyone, and did way more damage than a non-tank could handle, so he’d gotten in the habit of making anything boss-like face away.
Angel813 hurled a pair of medi-orbs at Fawkes. Green light streaming from the tiny flying robots got her health bar sliding back toward full. The bug that sprayed her charged. Fawkes ran like hell, chased by two baseball-sized bots and a bug as big as a Prius. She weaved side-to-side avoiding s
treams of acid. One attempt to peer back and squeeze off a shot ended with her chickening out and running harder when she realized how close the mandibles were to her rear end.
Fortunately, rogues had an innate foot speed bonus over other classes. With that, she could go fast enough to keep the bug from biting her, but she didn’t get any farther away from it.
Laser blasts filled the air behind her, but she couldn’t focus on anything other than the bug coming for her. Something exploded in the distance, triggering an idea. Still at full speed, she pulled one of the limpet mines from her inventory and set the timer to ten seconds before triggering it. Fawkes held it out in front of her so she could see the timer ticking down as she ran. When it hit two seconds, she dropped it.
Boom.
The concussion wave from the detonation hurled her off her feet. Fawkes landed on her chest in a forward slide under a torrent of warm bug guts. She clamped her mouth and eyes closed, abandoning her body to the flood of slime. When motion ceased, she put her hands down and pushed herself up out of a small lake of muck. Clear, intestine-like tubes draped off her arms, dripping with yellow goop that had the consistency of raw scrambled eggs.
Feeling it plus seeing it nearly made her throw up. It didn’t have a smell, likely the only reason she managed not to vomit. Paralyzed with disgust, she stared at her friends. Kavan appeared to be holding the big one’s attention, though it still hadn’t taken significant damage. Two bugs, one red and one pink, lay dead already. Nighthawk peppered the remaining pair of smaller bugs with laser blasts while they chewed on a group of rudimentary androids that Rallek must have summoned. Angel813, free and clear of imminent attack, frantically threw healing at Kavan, who’s health bar fluctuated so fast between twenty percent and full, the green line looked more like a stereo equalizer on a dance track than a health indicator.
She dragged herself out of the knee-deep muck and loped up to a jog, moving closer. Since they appeared to have the last two small bugs under control, and her class had been designed to work single-target damage, she slipped into stealth and moved into position behind the gargantuan bug. If the crashed fighter sprouted legs and started walking around, it would’ve been smaller than this monster.
Rallek backed away from the android fight, throwing a stream of pale magic light at Nighthawk. The instant the bolt hit him, his pistol’s laser blasts got brighter and thicker.
“I’m gonna dig in,” yelled Kavan. “This thing is tearing me up.”
“Thank you!” screamed Angel813. “I’m running out of supplies!”
Magic users had mana pools to power their spells. ‘Tech’ healers like the medic had an approximation of ‘supplies,’ which worked exactly like mana using a different name.
An explosion of creeping black techno-roots grew out of Kavan and sank into the ground, covering him in a network of crisscrossing strands. The grey ‘bonus armor’ bar appeared above his health points, which stopped bouncing up and down.
Fawkes ducked low in the tall grass and aimed at the huge bug’s ponderous, pulsating abdomen―a pod-like structure covered in segmented chitinous plates sticking up from the bug’s midsection. She’d spent enough time avoiding the first bug and recovering from the slime bath that Flicker had become available again. She fired, Flickered, and fired again too fast to process that her first shot critted for 6640 damage, and the second for 8260. While her jaw hung open from seeing such massive numbers, it ratcheted closed in horror at realizing the insect’s health bar barely moved.
Despite the huge hits, the bug didn’t flinch toward her. Kavan had been pounding on it long enough to build up a huge threat lead. She stayed low in the grass and fired as fast as she could click the trigger. Even not using stealth, her shots were hovering around 2,000 damage per pull.
“Nighthawk, get around behind it!” shouted Fawkes. “It takes extra damage if you shoot it in the abdomen.”
“The what?” yelled Nighthawk.
“Big pulsing pod thing sticking out of its back,” shouted Fawkes.
Considering she fired at a target the size of a large passenger car, she didn’t bother looking over the gunsight and watched Nighthawk and Rallek take down the last two bugs. Kavan’s bonus armor dropped at an alarming rate, which got Angel813 resorting to shouting in Chinese.
“What?” yelled Kavan.
“I’m just swearing,” said Angel813. “We gotta do something quick. I’m almost dry.”
Nighthawk bolted off into the field at a full sprint, leaving Rallek to handle the last bug alone. Much to Fawkes’ astonishment, Rallek didn’t seem annoyed or even surprised.
“What are you doing?” shouted Fawkes. She gawked at the fleeing gunslinger for all of three seconds until she realized he ran towards the Stormbringer. “Oh, shit,” she whispered. “We’re outside!”
She shifted targets and snapped off an ambush shot into the side of the last small bug’s abdomen at the same instant it bit the head off the last of the summoned androids. Its rear end exploded in a shower of raw-egg goop, and the screaming bug collapsed in place. Rallek faced Kavan and threw another spell at him, which caused his armor to start glowing in random places. Whenever the big bug bit into Kavan’s arm-mounted shield, a few tiny lightning bolts zapped it in retaliation.
“Thanks, but I got plenty of aggro already,” said Kavan.
“It’s still a bit more armor rating.” Rallek shifted toward Angel813 and hit her with two spells.
“Ooh! Thank you!” she cheered. “I hate that they buried that so damn deep in the tree.”
It took Fawkes a second to notice her ‘supplies’ bar had gone up a bit. Technomancers had access to the only ability that could restore mana to technical resource classes.
Rallek nodded. “Yeah, they don’t want medic mains to branch into that for unlimited mana. Gotta be a pure technomancer to reach it.”
“It’s not unlimited mana.” Angel813 scowled. “You use mana. It would just be converting mana into supplies.”
“Fawkes, get out from behind it!” shouted Kavan. “Now!”
She sprinted to the right, pumping her arms, grass blades whipping at her thighs. The Stormbringer glided straight up and tilted forward. Four bright blue streaks of energy connected the midpoint of the ship’s wings to the giant bug, setting off a huge cloud of bug-gut-steam and a horrible insectoid screech. The brief pulse of energy lingered in Fawkes’ vision, seared onto her retinas.
Still squealing, and down to a little more than half its health, the giant bug forgot all about Kavan and charged at the Stormbringer. It fired glops of sticky goo from an opening at the back end of its abdomen at the ship. The greenish slime splattered uselessly on the hull. Many bosses had abilities to ground Niath who tried to fly and get away from combat, but they didn’t work on a starship.
Nighthawk fed it a full barrage again; all four laser blasts melted holes in the enormous insect’s shell. The fragrance of a slightly overcooked omelet rolled by, making Fawkes gag.
Down to ten-ish percent health, the giant insect teetered to a stop and swooned. Its shell split open, red light pouring from the cracks. Quivering, it swelled up in size and emitted a roar.
“Shit, it’s enraged!” yelled Angel813.
Nighthawk blasted it again, and the titan crashed dead to the meadow, shaking the ground.
“And it’s dead,” said Rallek.
Fawkes stood there for a moment gawking in horror at the idea of that thing doing half again extra damage during an enrage phase before her brain rebooted, accepting the fact of its death. She slumped with relief and put her weapon away. Everyone gathered around the head of the dead bug while the Stormbringer drifted over to land nearby.
“Something on your shoulder,” said Rallek.
“Huh?” Fawkes looked up at him.
He reached over and plucked a length of clear, rubbery tubing away from her. “Think it’s a piece of bug. Kinda looks like a giant gummy worm.”
She went to clamp a hand over her mouth to hold
in vomiting, but stopped herself realizing her hand had a coating of yellow slime. “Ugh. This is so disgusting. I feel like I went swimming in raw egg with giant udon noodles.”
“Eww,” said Nighthawk.
“It’ll disappear soon.” Rallek smiled. “Fight’s over.”
“Damn good idea.” Kavan nodded at Nighthawk. “That thing had so many damn hit points I think they intended for it to take on a ship.”
“Nah,” said the gunslinger. “If it was meant for a ship fight, it wouldn’t have died so fast.”
Angel813 shook her head. She summoned a pair of puffy peach-colored alien dogs that bore a resemblance to Pomeranians with three eyes and little pink antennae. The dogs leapt at each other, yipping and playing. “I think they meant it for a twenty-person raid group.”
“Who knows?” Rallek shrugged. “Where’s the loot box?”
“Maybe it didn’t count as a kill because we used the ship?” asked Fawkes.
“Well, whatever it was… we killed it.” Kavan kicked a piece of shell.
The ubiquitous white loot box finally appeared, around the same time the bug guts coating Fawkes vanished. A pillar of white light rose around everyone, a pair of rotating gold orbs leading the way. The bwong noise of leveling up approached deafening with five characters all going at once.
“Ooh, grats all!” yelled Fawkes.
“Whoo hoo!” shouted Rallek.
“Double grats,” said Nighthawk.
She blinked at Kavan. He’d leapt from level thirty-four to thirty-six. “Damn… Guess you were technically too low for that kill.” She’d gone into that fight halfway to thirty-nine. Her XP progress bar now showed forty-four percent of the way to level forty.
“Oh, it just took the game a moment to realize we killed it.” Nighthawk chuckled. “I don’t think they expected someone to use starship cannons on it.”
“Or a group of five to take out a twenty-person raid boss.” Angel813 laughed.
“I think this fight was supposed to be a wipe, springing a raid boss on an unsuspecting crew.” Fawkes frowned. “Something to slow down the contest mission by a week.”
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