For a few seconds, the Jarg and I stared into one another’s eyes, both understanding the critical importance of that information. We would be bringing half a million starships of an aggressive and highly technologically advanced civilization behind us. Should we go to a random point int he Universe to get the Composite off our trail? Or... I spent a few minutes standing in silence, then breathed a heavy sigh, having come to a difficult decision.
“Kharsssh-O? The Throne World of the Meleyephatian Horde?” Gerd Jarg guessed my line of thought unfailingly, confirming my very high opinion of his analytical abilities. I nodded in silence. That way, the main fleet of the Meleyephatian Horde would be tied up with something other than the war against the Geckho and their vassals. But would we perhaps not be trying to extinguish the fire of war with gasoline?
Just in case, I warned the Analyst not to tell anyone, though I had no doubts that Gerd Jarg would know well enough to keep his mouth shut:
“Not a word to anyone about this conversation or your calculations! Not here on the frigate, not back home! The future of both of our worlds depends on it!”
“READY, CAPTAIN! I FINALLY got it within the acceptable error range!” Ayukh the Navigator, his eyes sunken in exhaustion, turned away from the monitor. “Of course, more points would be nice for higher correlation and confidence but, overall, we’re in an acceptable range. We can now enter the coordinates for the end point of the null transport!”
I walked over and glanced at the furry Geckho’s calculations. Unknown formulas of mind-bending complexity, endless columns of digits. Maximum allowable deviation, dispersion, accounting for time factor, tensor nonlinearity of space... No, I didn’t understand a single thing and so I tried a different tact — I read the Navigator’s emotions and thoughts. There I discovered pride at a job well-done, a sense of triumph and jubilation at the fact he was able to solve a task of such exceptional difficulty.
Psionic skill increased to level one hundred eighteen!
Basically, what my highly experienced Navigator had accomplished over the last three ummi was hard to call anything short of a miracle. Ayukh himself had written a program to correlate the known coordinates of the Relict laboratory’s last several jumps with the navigation computer on Tamara the Paladin using data we had extracted from the ancient station’s memory. It used fundamentally different coordinate systems, different calculation principles and just overall different logic, but still he found a way to line it all up. Not right away, of course. We first tested the accuracy of the Navigator’s calculations by making a few jumps inside the star system before the cautious Ayukh finally said he was confident it would succeed.
“Continuing to wait for Urgeh Pu-Pu Urgeh is becoming too dangerous,” I announced to the crew, which was awaiting my decision. “We will leave without the Relict Technician. Navigator, the star system coordinates I will tell you have to be translated into the Relict data format. Engineer, prepare the station for null transport!” I also sent the last part mentally to Orun Va-Mart, who was inside the ancient laboratory.
“Where are we going, Captain Gnat? Taikhirhh-o-Tsykh?” Ayukh guessed with a satisfied rumble, sitting at his workstation and flipping the navigation system tumblers one after the next.
I turned off the loudspeaker and said only for the two pilots, Analyst and Navigator who were on the bridge:
“The Kharsssh-O system. Exiting twelve thousand miles from the second planet.”
That immediately wiped the smirk off the Navigator’s furry snout. Ayukh took a nervous gulp, then gave a muted rumble — not as a threat, but simply to show his extreme composure. And I should say! We were going into the very lair of our nemesis.
I sent another mental message to my Engineer:
“Orun Va-Mart, prepare to receive coordinates from the Navigator. And the laboratory’s invisibility shield cannot be allowed to go down for even a second! If it does, you’ll pay with your head!”
After the Engineer confirmed receipt, I turned the loudspeaker back on and decided to prepare the team for what we had ahead of us. Naturally, without revealing all my plans.
“Attention, crew! Full readiness! Tamara the Paladin will now be returning to our galaxy with the Relict laboratory. There is a high likelihood we will emerge in Meleyephatian Horde space. That is...” I stumbled for a second, thinking up a more or less plausible explanation, “a quirk of the Relict null transport navigation system. We will be spat out at one of the weak points in space nearest to the coordinates we entered and the majority of them, as bad luck would have it, are located in Horde space. And thus all Frigate systems are to remain inactive. Zheltov, this is not for you. All others, complete radio silence! Exiting the game is strictly forbidden! Your captain has been named an enemy of the Meleyephatian Horde so, if they find us, the kid gloves will be off. We’ll be annihilated instantly. Right after we come out of warp, we will start accumulating energy for our next null transport to get out of danger! Beginning countdown. Three. Two. One. Go!!!”
The image on the large aggregate monitor changed instantly. The gloomy neutron star of the alien world disappeared. In its place, half of the screen was occupied by the large densely populated planet Kharsssh-O II — homeworld of the Meleyephatians, their historical origin point and the official capital of the Horde. A brownish-orange ball blanketed in millions of lights, especially visible on the night side. No oceans or seas, just darker sectors in the mountains and brighter spots for urban areas, all spilling together into one single gigalopolis that encompassed the entire planet, which was inhabited by half a trillion souls. It had three belts of orbital rings with wharfs constructing starships and docks with parked ships. Innumerable orbital elevators delivering cargo to the surface and back to near space. And tens of thousands of starships of various classes flitting all around.
Cartography skill increased to level eighty-seven!
Cartography skill increased to level eighty-eight!
Eagle Eye skill increased to level ninety-seven!
“We came out of warp pretty close...” Starship Pilot Dmitry Zheltov shuddered nervously, watching a huge spherical ore carrier as it drifted just a few miles away from us.
“Yeah, this is a regular Hong Kong harbor...” I was forced to agree with the main pilot. “We’re twelve thousand miles from the surface, but it’s like a traffic jam in Moscow after the workday is over. Navigator, calculate a jump to Taikhirhh-o-Tsykh, the space port on its moon. Close enough so we can get there on main thrusters without using our hyperdrive. Uhh! Taik Rekh, don’t do anything foolish! Paws off the cannon trigger! Don’t worry, the enemies can’t see us,” the last part was directed at our Gunner, who had activated the laser cannon targeting systems and locked on to the nearest Meleyephatian border service corvette.
“Captain, look over there!!!” Ayukh, flustered, pointed a clawed paw at the tactical screen where a large cloud of red markers had just appeared, including a few that were quite large — the game system had marked the ships drifting in that area as hostile. “That’s the...”
“Third Fleet of the Meleyephatian Horde,” I was able to read the popup hint without my subordinate’s help. “The same one that was waging war against the Union of Miyelonian Prides. Now the fleet is here in the Kharsssh-O capital system to resupply in preparation for redeployment to the new war with the Geckho.”
“And there are just so many ships...” Geckho Gunner Taik Rekh also saw the fearsome force that would soon threaten his race.
Yes, it certainly looked impressive. I read the data on the tactical map aloud for everyone:
“Three thousand five hundred starships. Of them four are huge battleships, two Planet Destroyers, no less than twenty-five cruisers of various types and around forty large landing ships. But the majority of the fleet are Tolili-Ukh X modular frigates and various larger assemblages of Tolili modules. When we reach a safe area, Taik Rekh, leave the game into the real world and convey this information to Geckho Headquarters.”
“C
aptain, transport calculations to Taikhirhh-o-Tsykh complete,” reported Copilot San-Doon Taki-Bu. “The Engineer is saying he has already entered the data and there is enough energy even after the recent long-distance jump. By Relict standards, it’s basically an arm’s reach.”
“Okay then, let’s not outstay our welcome,” I chuckled, masking my pent-up tension with feigned joviality. “We’re going to Trillian space, Taikhirhh-o-Tsykh, to get our frigate repaired and link up with our respawned crew members!”
Chapter Fourteen. An Old Debt
I WAS STILL feeling shaken by the conversation with the Trillian repair workers. No seriously, what was going on with the prices out here?! Seemingly, I had been taken for an ignorant savage without even a near appreciation of how much it should cost to replace the cargo hold on a Tolili-Ukh X modular frigate and install a new hyperspace drive. Either that or in the minds of the local Trillians, Leng Gnat was thought of as something like the legendary King Croesus, famed for his untold wealth and ability to throw it around willy-nilly. Eleven million Geckho monetary crystals to repair a twinbody frigate?! And that was at the fact the interchangeable modules and most other components had already been purchased by my business partner Uline Tar and delivered here to Taikhirhh-o-Tsykh! Of course, I rejected the flagrant attempt at robbery.
The fee the repair-workers were asking for was so inappropriately jacked up that it simply could not have been a coincidence. Furthermore, I noticed that the senior technician of the group had an Execution glyph patch sewn onto his jumpsuit, which meant he was a member of the Hive of Tintara — an eerie criminal organization which had ensnared half the galaxy in its tenacious tentacles and was famed for its cruelty. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the coming of the Tamara the Paladin to a Trillian space port had drawn the interest of the space mafia, and this was just a relatively delicate attempt at stalling until those who truly had the right to speak in the name of the Hive of Tintara showed up. For some reason they were interested in me, and that meant I should expect guests. However, there was a faster way. I could just go drop into the office of the criminal organization myself. After all, the Hive of Tintara had a tall spiral-shaped building that was simply impossible to miss. And that was exactly what I was preparing to do.
“Stick together! Do not exit the game! I know that you can see the magnificent city glimmering beneath its forcefield from the space port. Yes, Taikhirhh-o-Tsykh II is famed for its opulence, casinos with the best rates in the galaxy, entertainment for any taste, large number of space tourists from every system and absolute guarantee of safety from the royal dynasty of the Trillians. Don’t you worry — you’ll get time to unwind in this tourist haven, take in its beauty and blow some cash. But first we need to have a talk with somebody. I’ll be taking Imran and Gerd Ayni with me. And meanwhile, the rest of the crew is strictly forbidden from going into the city!”
I ordered the Engineer to take the shuttle out for a test flight, then walked around to survey the guard posts. Eduard Boyko and the brothers Vasha and Basha Tushihh were all three in exoskeleton armor with their weapons at the ready monitoring the entrance to our hangar from the outside. Destroying Angel and Grim Reaper were with Svetlana Vereshchagina guarding the frigate entrance. On my order, Taik-Rekh had also deployed the ship’s left cannon and aimed it at the front gates, where he was watching. Perhaps all these preparations seemed excessive for a safe spaceport. But I had been named an official enemy of the all-powerful Meleyephatian Horde, so the precautionary measures made perfect sense to me.
I was left satisfied and was about to get into the shuttle, but then Nefertiti caught up to me. With unexpected respectfulness, the Dryad Jeweler gave a deep bow and extended her open hand containing a silver ring with a huge pearl in the setting:
Precursor Signet. Intelligence +4.
Statistic requirements: Level 100, Intelligence 33.
“Here, captain. As promised. Be smart!” I read in the Dryad’s thoughts, after which the NPC girl turned and ran back up the ship gangway with happy laughter.
I took the refashioned +2 Intelligence ring off my left ring finger and tested out the restored ancient signet. It was a perfect fit, and most importantly it worked! My effective Intelligence was immediately raised to forty, while my maximum Magic Points grew from 2191 to 2307. Splendid! Not wanting to show off such an insanely rare and expensive item unless absolutely necessary, I hid the signet, pulling on the armored glove of my Listener armor over it.
The now unnecessary +2 Intelligence ring I immediately gifted to the Miyelonian Translator standing at my side. The orange kitty Gerd Ayni Uri-Miayuu tried on the gift, admired the way the light played on the facets of its blue stone and, standing on her tiptoes, reached out and gave me an utterly human smooch on the cheek:
“You’re the best captain in whole the Universe!”
I hid my embarrassed smile behind a mask of seriousness:
“Imran and Gerd Ayni, your mission today in town is to accompany me and follow me everywhere. And stay vigilant the whole time, do not take your hands off the handles of your glimmering blades and try to look as intimidating as you can.”
“Are you expecting an attack?” the Dagestani athlete asked in alarm, immediately equipping his armor. But I reassured my friend that I didn’t sense any immediate danger. Still, I could sense an uncanny interest in us. Most likely the Trillians were merely observing and evaluating us to determine how they should treat us and decide just how much they needed to reckon with our interests. And given a high-profile Leng should never walk around without escort, a small company of crew members really couldn’t hurt.
Furthermore, I had to keep in mind the Meleyephatians and their vast Horde of vassals. Sure, here on the moon of the second planet, all visitors to the city of opulence were guaranteed absolute safety. The last time a pickpocket had been caught here was thirty tongs ago. And they were executed. Both in the game and the real world. And no instances of violent robbery or murder had been reported for at the very least five hundred years. But still it would be foolish for me to let my guard down. Especially given that I could be harmed in ways other than physically. They could for example put me in an awkward situation, bringing down my difficult-to-gain Authority. Or they could use psionics (which Meleyephatians were great specialists in) and pit some total stranger tourist against me. And no matter how our fight turned out, some trouble with the Trillian authorities was virtually guaranteed. In short, there were ways to ruin my life even here at on a safe resort moon, so security might come in handy. I was explaining all that to my companions.
“Captain, don’t you think we should maybe take someone a bit more considerable than our Translator, maybe someone from a combat class? For example, the huge imposing Geckho Gunner Taik-Rekh? Or Svetlana the Assassin? She recently complained that she feels unnoticed and isn’t getting used for serious business. Or maybe the pair of German shooters?”
“More considerable? What is that supposed to mean?” the diminutive Miyelonian turned toward the man who had just described her pejoratively, her fur standing on end to make her look twice as large. “Have you already forgotten losing to me in blade sparring at the most recent training session?”
“Stop it! Stop it!” I didn’t allow their argument to boil over. “Imran, Gerd Ayni can translate Trillian, so she is essential. And you are as well. Every player with an interest in my person knows you as my bodyguard, so your presence will not raise any questions. And I see no reason to take more combat-class players to a business negotiation. But to reassure both you and I, we will also be accompanied by both Small Relict Guard Drones. Take your seat at the helm of the shuttle. Let’s go!”
THE CUSTOMS CHECK, if you could even call it that, was only a scan frame. And our shuttle raced through it without so much as stopping or reducing speed. After that, Imran brought the aircraft right up to the energy dome separating the glimmering densely populated megalopolis from the black vacuum of space. It was actually scary to imagine the p
otential consequences if the forcefield was switched off by accident. I said that out loud.
“No need to worry about that, Leng Gnat. This here is a multi-layer shield supplied by several independent generators. The Trillians are great experts at building and maintaining such domes, with knowledge amassed over the thousands of years they’ve been exploring the cosmos. Of the currently extant races, they were after all the very first to begin expanding to other systems.”
“Were the Meleyephatians not the first modern race to make it into space?” I asked in surprise because I had heard a completely different story.
“Tricky question that,” the tailed Translator didn’t quibble. “I have heard a few narratives. The Meleyephatians say one thing, the Trillians say something else. The Meleyephatians and Trillians met in the game that bends reality approximately seven hundred tongs ago. By that time, both races were actively exploring outer space. They had both discovered virt-pod technology independently of one another and, along with it, the game that bends reality. There were of course some clashes at first. But the wars between the Trillians and Meleyephatians are in the distant past now. The two races signed a treaty of eternal peace dividing the galaxy into two spheres of influence. And that ancient treaty has been observed by both parties ever since.”
Imran, piloting our shuttle, turned in surprise:
“I can’t believe that! It doesn’t seem to fit the Meleyephatians’ M.O. at all. As far as I’ve heard, they’re an extremely aggressive race, avowing never-ending expansion and bending all galactic neighbors to their will!”
I must admit, I was also somewhat taken aback. But Gerd Ayni saw nothing odd in the fact the Horde’s forebearers were more amenable:
“In the distant past, the Meleyephatians were nowhere near as powerful as they are now. The Trillians meanwhile used to profess a religion based on absolute intolerance to all outsiders. Their sacred tablets proclaim that the galaxy must belong to the Trillians and only the Trillians, while all other races are to be completely exterminated. By the way, that same religion prevails among the Trillians to this day. However,” the Miyelonian chuckled, “there have been some significant philosophical adaptations. The interpreters of their holy texts now say that everything proscribed in those tablets will take place in the infinitely distant future, and the finale should not impede modern Trillians from communicating with members of different races, trading with them and allowing them to visit their star systems as guests. The Trillians do not relish waging war, although they are capable of doing so. And very few want to wage war against them. The Trillians have a massive star fleet and a spy network that spans the whole galaxy. And the ‘calling card’ of their race, if I can put it that way, is to murder all enemy commanders in the real world. The Trillians, for the record, are the only enemies the Union of Miyelonian Prides has a negative battle record against.”
Aces High (Reality Benders Book #6) LitRPG Series Page 13
