“Your show,” said Kavan, glancing at Fawkes.
She plugged in the override kit and accessed the hacking mini-game. “Oh, easy.”
Forty seconds later, she reached the CPU after grabbing enough side captures to make an extra 900 credits and score two Worm software modules plus a Freeze.
“Totally owned that,” said Fawkes.
The door slid open with a soft hiss, revealing a twelve-year-old girl in a miniature set of light space armor. Eyes full of terror and anger stared over a laser pistol she clutched in both hands. Upon seeing the crew, she lowered the weapon and went from angry to sobbing.
Rallek kept pointing his technomancer staff at her. “No funny business, kid.”
“You made it!” She darted forward at Kavan and leapt into a hug.
He held her, his armored glove clicking on her gloss-blue armored back as he tried to be reassuring.
Angel813 glanced at Fawkes. “Wow,” she muttered. “CSI stepping up their AI game.”
Anastasia lifted her head away from Kavan’s chest to glance at Angel813, confused for a moment before shifting her attention to the man holding her. “Thank you so much.” She sniffled and wiped her eyes. “It’s been days. I’ve been so scared.”
“Crazy demon alien any second,” muttered Rallek.
“I’m not a threat,” said Anastasia. “But there is a complication.”
“I knew it,” muttered Rallek.
“What sort of complication?” asked Kavan.
She let go of him and took a step back, clasping her hands in front of herself. The look on her face would’ve been perfect for a kid telling her father she took the car without permission and accidentally wrecked it.
Rallek tensed, raising his staff.
“Oh, please calm down.” Anastasia glanced at him. “I’m not going to attack anyone. I’m just a child. The complication is a moral dilemma.”
“Whoa,” muttered Fawkes. “That kid is reacting to stuff that I’ve never seen NPCs react to.”
The girl glanced at her, but said nothing.
Nighthawk stood half in a daze, evidently entranced by her.
“Okay, I’ll bite.” Kavan folded his arms. “What’s the moral dilemma?”
“You wondered why I was on this passenger ship instead of an official diplomatic vessel.”
Kavan nodded. “Yeah.”
“I am… or was… running away.” Anastasia plucked a data pad off her belt. “My parents divorced when I was six. I found out three months ago that my father sent my mother away and threatened to have her killed if she tried to make contact with me. I was told that she abandoned us and hated me.” She held her head high. “My father is not a nice person. I would rather you help me get to my mother on a planet not far from here, Atheos. I will be much happier there, but we won’t be able to pay you as much of a reward as my father will.”
“Okay…” Kavan rubbed his chin. “If that’s true, why would you even give us the choice of where to bring you? Just tell us about your mother.”
“Probably has to because of the quest,” whispered Rallek. “Bringing her to Mom is more XP. Dad is cash.”
“That makes dad the evil option,” said Angel813. “The heel path always has a bigger payout.”
Anastasia made a face like everyone started talking a foreign language. “Well, I wouldn’t feel right if I wasn’t honest with you. There is a chance that my father may learn that you helped me run away and… pay people to hurt you.”
“It’s okay, kiddo.” Kavan picked up the blue helmet on a nearby table and tossed it to her. “Getting you off this tin can and to your mother is the easy part. If you can somehow pack all that hair of yours into that helmet, that will be impressive.”
Anastasia grinned, and giggled. “You guys rock.”
That NPC just reacted to a quip about her appearance. Fawkes’ mouth hung open.
Everyone stood in stunned silence as the girl put her voluminous brown hair up and got the helmet on without a single strand showing.
The walk back to the docking bay felt like it took only seconds, surprisingly without a single combat.
“This kid is weird,” said Rallek over group chat, so the girl wouldn’t hear.
“Yeah. She’s so damn real.” Angel813 shivered. “I’m almost scared if that’s an AI.”
Fawkes twisted to peer at the medic. “What else could she be?”
Rallek shrugged. “Dunno, but consider me officially creeped out.”
“Wow, is that your ship?” asked Anastasia once they reached the docking bay. “It’s soooo pretty.”
“Yeah. Keep your head down, kid. There’s junk whizzing around in here.” Kavan hesitated for a second, and took her by the hand. “Come on.”
Fawkes grinned to herself. He must have a kid.
They ran, ducking the flying debris, not slowing until they reached the entry ramp of the Stormbringer.
Kavan hauled himself up the ladder from the cargo hold to the main deck and jogged to the bridge. Everyone else took their time moving to the main room as the ship lifted off and eased out of the dead passenger liner.
Anastasia removed her helmet, sat at the big round table, and behaved way too much like a genuine twelve-year-old for everyone’s comfort level. A constant undercurrent of tension hung in the room, with the crew exchanging ‘WTF’ glances every few seconds as she asked them about their adventures. Nighthawk seemed to have an easy time talking to her, and monopolized much of her conversation.
The hop to Atheos didn’t take long. From space, the planet appeared as a beautiful marble of blues, greens, and white, with a hint of rich teal at the deeper parts of the oceans. Kavan flew down into the atmosphere, following the child’s direction to the city of Cerna Prime. There, he came in for a gentle landing on a pad at the starport. All around them rose a massive city of gleaming high rises and loopy elevated maglev tracks. Anastasia used the ship’s system to make a video call to a rather ordinarily-dressed woman who bore a noticeable resemblance to her.
“Mom,” said Anastasia, choking up. “It’s really you! I’m okay. I made it! These people helped me.”
“Oh, I’m so glad to see you, dear!” The woman grinned, acting much like a normal NPC. “I’ll be right there.”
The girl hung up the call and faced everyone, still wiping tears. “My mother will be here to pick me up soon. You guys are awesome!”
Unease persisted among the crew as she made her way around hugging everyone. Eventually, the sensors reported a small vehicle approaching the landing pad. Everyone armed up and tromped down the ramp to the landing pad, but the expected ambush turned out to be a forty-something woman in a compact car.
Anastasia ran to her, clamped on, and burst into tears.
“Hello, dear. It’s so good to see you are okay.” Mom smiled in the general direction of the crew. “Thank you for finding my daughter.”
Anastasia hurried back over to the crew, grinning. “I can’t believe I really got away from him and found my mother. I wish I had something to give you, but… I’m not rich anymore.”
“Umm. You’re welcome.” Kavan set his hands on his hips and glanced up at the underside of the Stormbringer. “That was… a lot easier than I expected.”
“Well, not every mission ends with a three-story-tall bug,” said Rallek.
Anastasia blinked. “Three stories tall bug? Eww. Seriously?”
Mom stood patiently waiting by the car, wearing the standard ‘content NPC’ smile.
“Okay, what gives?” asked Fawkes. “Why are you so real?”
Anastasia bit her lip. “Well, since you finished saving me, I guess I can talk now.”
Rallek raised his staff.
“Oh, calm down.” She rolled her eyes at him. “I can’t say too much or I’ll get in trouble for breaking character, but I’m a real person. I’m not really twelve though.”
Fawkes biffed herself in the head. “I knew it.”
“I’m fifteen.” Anastasia grinned. �
�It’s a project for school. I’m in the accelerated drama program at Westfield, and they’re have this thing going with CSI. Kids from my group get to play bit parts like this.”
“Oh, that’s cool.” Fawkes grinned.
Rallek relaxed.
Nighthawk fidgeted.
“Thank you again for saving me. I need to go home.” Anastasia hugged everyone again before running to the car and getting in.
“Well how about that,” said Kavan. “CSI’s using real actors now.”
“One class in one performing arts high school?” Rallek shrugged. “Odds are high we’ll never see another one of those. This is a huge game.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Fawkes poked Nighthawk in the side. “You look like someone shot your dog.”
“She’s real.”
“Cool down there, bud,” said Rallek. “Little young for you.”
“What?” Nighthawk looked over at him. “Uhh, no. Not that. I mean, she looked so sad. I’m just… whatever.” He hurried back onto the ship.
Rallek shot a questioning glance at Fawkes.
“Well that was weird,” said Angel813.
“Yeah. Come on, we’ve got some coordinates to chase down.” Fawkes jogged back up the ramp.
Thirteen minutes later, they dropped out of warp in the system specified by the datapad they’d found on the crashed fighter craft. Coordinates CF204.18 HH313.51 led them to an earthlike planet designated AN7145.
“Huh,” said Rallek. “Looks like a rando world.”
“Info sheet shows a scattering of small cities. Trade broadcast is showing mostly textiles and agriculture products,” said Fawkes. “Though, there’s a lot of narcotics for sale down there. Whoa, wait… No, 2,455 credits a cargo-box, this is where you’d sell the narcotics.”
“Hot damn,” said Kavan. “Last time I saw narco on the sell list it was like 780 creds per box. I’m half tempted to note this place for future reference.”
“Don’t do it,” said Nighthawk. “If we start trading drugs, we’ll get flagged as smugglers and then the cops will attack us every time we go to land on a planet with a high law rating.”
Another sensor screen flashed orange. A sub-screen expanded to reveal a near-space map and an approaching ship. The Helm-class corvette had a horseshoe shape, its bridge at the middle of the curve between two extending side pods.
Fawkes yelled, “There’s another ship approaching us,” into the comm. “Its shields are up and weapons armed.”
Green borders around her engineering console displays went yellow, indicating that Kavan had armed their weapons as well. Flying around with them ‘off’ served mostly to send a message to other ships as to one’s intentions.
“They’re hailing us, captain,” said Fawkes, hamming it up.
“Knock it off,” moaned Nighthawk. “You guys are so lame.”
“Put it on the main screen,” said Kavan.
“I guess I’ll go give emotional advice to Rallek,” said Angel813. Something meowed.
“No, that’s the counselor. You’re the doctor.” Fawkes snickered.
“Argh,” yelled Nighthawk.
A pleasant-looking man with short, curly brown hair and a smile appeared. “Greetings, I’m Veras Kalé of the Feral.”
“Hey. Guess that makes me Kavan of the Stormbringer.” He chuckled. “Sounds like a character that belongs in ROI.”
Heh. Geez, I haven’t thought of that old game for years.
Veras nodded in greeting. “So rare that two ships meet in a universe so vast, is it not?”
“Depends on what system you’re sitting in,” said Kavan.
“Indeed.” Veras chuckled. “What brings you out to this particular middle of nowhere?”
Kavan shrugged. “Oh, just running a quest to collect the testicles of an Andilusian stag. They’re native to this planet. Big purple suckers, but the drop rate’s not good. Gotta kill like thirty of them to find one with balls.”
Nighthawk broke into a fit of giggling.
Veras’ eyebrow ticked upward. “Oh. I’ve never seen that quest. Are you sure? How odd.”
“Yep. Pleasure meeting you. Now if you’ll excuse us, we got some balls ta snip.”
Veras offered a slow nod. “Happy, umm… questing.”
Once the comm went black, Kavan grumbled. “Weird finding another player ship out here. Got the feeling he was milking us for information?”
Nighthawk continued cackling in the background.
“Cripes man,” said Rallek, “It wasn’t that funny.”
“Down we go.” Kavan emitted a laugh worthy of an evil mastermind, and accelerated toward the planet.
“What are we even looking for down here?” Rallek edged closer to the viewscreen, which soon became opaque with clouds.
“Some kind of facility,” said Angel813, “where they made that warp drive.”
“Be right back, bio break.” Nighthawk disappeared as he logged out of the game.
“So, did anyone else think our gunslinger was looking at that kid a bit creepy weird?” asked Rallek.
“Ain’t nothin’ to that,” said Kavan.
“Are you sure?” asked Angel813. “He was like, infatuated with that girl.”
Kavan swung the pilot chair around, his expression firm, but calm. “Trust me. Nothing to worry about. I know him outside the game, and it’s nothing at all to be concerned with.”
“Okay, okay,” muttered Fawkes, hands up in a placating gesture. She walked with Rallek and Angel813 down the hall from the bridge to the main room and flopped in one of the chairs around the big table. After an awkward minute of silence, she half-whispered, “I know it looked like he thought her cute, but maybe, I dunno… something else happened. Dude might’ve had a kid get sick and die and he was feeling all messed up about that.”
“Could be.” Rallek shrugged. “If you ask me, it was creepier how he seemed disappointed when she said she was fifteen and not really twelve.”
“Maybe his kid wasn’t that old, and he got sad because she wouldn’t ever be.” Angel813 stared into the table, stroking the longhaired purple vanity pet in her lap, a six-legged cat with fox ears and ruby-gem eyes. “Okay, well, now I made myself want to cry.” She clapped her hands together. “Let’s do something fun.”
Fawkes opened an internet window and searched for information about the Feral. “That other ship is bugging me.”
“Back!” yelled Nighthawk. “Where are you guys? Oh…” He trotted into the main room and headed right to the food printer. “Anyone want anything?”
“Chocolate ice cream,” said Angel813. “With fudge.”
“Hey Fawkes,” said Kavan via the comm. “Are you going to scan the surface or should I?”
“Gimme a sec. I’m checking on that ship.”
She looked over the crew profile on the Axillon99 main site. Another group of five players, though they ranged from 44-48 in level. “Little higher than us, but their ship is comparable to ours. Helm-class corvette.” The other ship lacked the sleek design of the Stormbringer, but then again, how maneuverable could a flying horseshoe be? It did, however, pack more firepower in the side pods, carrying a heavy particle beam cannon and two Class 3 lasers on each side. Armor and shield points generally matched between the two ships.
Nothing remarkable there, so she clicked off it. The third link on the page behind led to the contest leaderboard.
1. Grand Designs (Tied)
2. Feral (Tied)
3. The Stormbringer (Tied)
“Eeeek!” squealed Fawkes. “You were right, Kavan!”
“What?” he yelled over the comm.
“Look at the leaderboard! We’re on it and so are they. All tied!”
“Son of a bitch,” muttered Rallek. “I bet they followed us here.”
“The coordinates in that message weren’t hidden. We found it, so did they. But I bet they’re stuck not knowing where to go on this planet.” Fawkes scratched her head. “I better keep an eye out for that shi
p. If they see where we go, we won’t have any advantage over them.”
“Holy crap guys, are we really like in the running for that prize money?” Angel813 shivered while inhaling an overburdened spoonful of ice cream.
Nighthawk sat at the table with a huge basket of chicken nuggets and fries. “Yep. We’re closer than nineteen million other people, and dead even with two other crews.”
“I’m gonna pass out,” said Angel813. “I can’t believe it!”
He pointed a chicken nugget at her. “If we win that money, would you still be a nurse?”
She looked at him for a long minute of silence. “You know, I think I would. At least until I get old enough where it starts to hurt more than its worth.”
“Screw that coffee thing. If we win, I’m so out. My butt’s gonna live off interest, but I might look for a programming gig.”
“You’re a programmer?” asked Kavan. “Send me your resume. Maybe I can get you in the door at my place. We’re always looking for new blood.”
She scrunched up her nose. “Don’t you write like accounting software?”
“Yeah it’s terribly exciting stuff,” he deadpanned, “but it pays better than pouring coffee.”
Fawkes bit her lip. “You make a good point.”
“That’s awesome though, we’re on the high score list,” said Nighthawk.
“Not really.” Rallek let out a long, slow exhale. “That’s just put a giant target on our asses.”
Fawkes shrugged one shoulder. “So? It’s only a game.”
“Hey Fawkes, you got any kinda sensor stealth?” asked Kavan over the comm. “The Feral is tailing us.”
Keep Stabbing It In The Toe
14
Fawkes ran to the engineering station in the back, her home for almost all ship-to-ship combat situations. Since Kavan had tagged the Feral in the navigation/tracking system, one of the sub-screens showed a view of it above and behind them.
“This is where that physics shit would be nice,” muttered Fawkes.
“Which ‘physics shit?’” asked Rallek.
She opened a list of possible tech mods and scrolled down, looking for something useful. “That thing Nighthawk was talking about the other day. Atmospheric differences on flight speed. Their ship is shaped like a giant cartoon magnet. We’re much more aerodynamic… we should be able to outrun them planetside.”
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