Aces High (Reality Benders Book #6) LitRPG Series

by Michael Atamanov

  “Thanks! But what mattered most was that I kept my place in Team Gnat,” the Dagestani chuckled through the pain. “As it was, I was starting to feel like the weakest link and thinking you could easily find someone better to replace me. I trust that you wouldn’t have gotten rid of me, though. I’d have left on my own if I really thought I was no longer up to the task. But wait, Gnat, my Fame is twenty-four already. A smarter player told me I’ll become a Gerd pretty soon. Then I’ll crank up my Agility, Strength and Perception and I’ll really be able to go balls to the wall! I’ll be of use to you yet!”

  I didn’t say a thing because Imran had said it all himself. Yes, being the personal bodyguard of a Leng meant something, and the player occupying that position was simply obliged to rise to the challenge. I watched the duels a bit longer, paying particular attention when Gerd Urgeh Pu-Pu Urgeh the Relict used his disorientation technique. As it turned out, there were a bunch of subtle details that needed to be taken into account. Starting with not wasting mana when mystifying more than one target, the need to consider the varied number and positioning of sense organs in different races, and just the fact that different species relied more on different senses. For example, Miyelonians could find and snuff the Relict with their blades even while dazed until Gerd Urgeh Pu-Pu Urgeh figured out he should also be knocking out their sensitive whiskers. Trillians then, especially when down on all six legs, could sense tremors in the ground, which also had to be accounted for. Although I did not personally take part in the fights, I was still thinking through plans of action so I could use my skills as effectively as possible. And the game system acknowledged that:

  Disorientation skill increased to level eight!

  Disorientation skill increased to level nine!

  I had nearly come around to taking part in the training session myself, but it wasn’t meant to be. My Engineers came to me with technical questions. Then the leader of the Trillian repair brigade asked me to sign off that they had finished their job and the starship was in full working order. And finally, the Navigator caught me in the hallway and asked where to set our frigate’s course to next — where were we going? And would we use our own power, or link back up with the mobile Relict laboratory? Before answering, I checked my senior officer’s mind. Absolute loyalty. In any matter that did not threaten the Geckho race directly, I could count on Ayukh in the fullest — he would never betray me or go wagging his tongue. And so I didn’t beat around the bush and answered honestly:

  “Let’s check the thrusters and other starship systems near the station, then we can link up with the mobile laboratory. It’s somewhere here in the Taikhirhh-o-Tsykh system. I ordered it to jump to a random location and await further orders. And as for our course, calculate a direct null transport to the Solar System, third planet, exiting a few thousand miles from its surface. Just make sure to translate all the digits into the Relict coordinate system first, so you can enter them straight into the laboratory’s navigation computer. I’m afraid we might have to leave in a big hurry, and possibly even under fire from an enemy fleet!”

  Chapter Twenty. The Solar System

  WITHOUT TURNING or taking a break from testing the ship systems, main pilot Dmitry Zheltov inquired:

  “Captain, what makes you so sure someone is going to try and waylay us while we take off? We have a great view of near space even through the forcefield. The only ship nearby is a Trillian shuttle installing lighting beacons in the spaceport landing zone, that’s it. Not a single suspicious ship.”

  I had seen the shuttle. As well as the fact that those were no beacons at all, but elements of a complex system for tracking the trajectory of departing ships. The Trillians really wanted to know where the Tamara the Paladin was headed. And although I did not anticipate aggression from the pointedly neutral masters of the Taikhirhh-o-Tsykh system, if they were to detect the location of my starship’s meeting with the ancient Relict mobile laboratory... the temptation to seize such a valuable trophy would be too great. If I were in their place, I would not be able to resist trying to take the ancient laboratory, which was filled to the brim with priceless technologies.

  But another thing had me on guard. The mass scanner had detected the presence of something very heavy and not too far away from the planetoid. And there were no asteroids or starships in that part of space, at least visually. Whatever the scanner was picking up out there was too heavy to even be a star cruiser. Seemingly, there was a whole cloaked fleet stationed just a few hundred miles from the moon of the second planet.

  But I didn’t tell my team about it because I didn’t want to risk aggravating things. I just said that, after the video clips with the Relict, the whole galaxy knew where my frigate was located. And our foes, who were quite numerous by this point, had had plenty of time to reach the Taikhirhh-o-Tsykh system and set up an ambush just outside the spaceport. I pinned it all on my intuition, which I made a habit of trusting. I also said that, in the immediate vicinity of the lively spaceport and its defensive systems and security ships, we had nothing to fear from space pirates or Meleyephatian Horde flotillas. But nevertheless, we had to keep our wits about us.

  “Take off! Pilots, advance as little as possible. Just break away from the surface and go through the spaceport’s forcefield. Gunners stand by!”

  I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate, imagine the positioning of objects in space. We were really zig-zagging! I had to get involved right away.

  “Dmitry, San-Doon, cut speed! Hands off the yokes, your captain will be slightly correcting course.”

  Cartography skill increased to level eighty-nine!

  Machine Control skill increased to level one hundred thirteen!

  This was the first time I had to get involved in their steering. Yes, I had no experience in the matter whatever but unfortunately there was no other way — my pilots couldn’t see what we needed to aim for. Okay, now we’re on the right path. Now to just add a bit of pull. There we go! Okay, this is gonna be the most pivotal moment. Got it! The frigate started creeping up to the distortion field around the waiting mobile laboratory.

  From an outside perspective, it probably looked bizarre and crazy — a starship just barely took off, then slowly passed through the spaceport forcefield and... disappeared right before your eyes! But the explanation for the phenomenon was very simple: I had decided to take a risk and brought the much sought-after Relict Laboratory right next to the moon Taikhirhh-o-Tsykh II-II, stationing it just over a quarter mile above the surface. If it were a more massive heavenly body, gravity would have brought the station crashing down to the surface. As it was, the thrusters were barely able to cope.

  Machine Control skill increased to level one hundred fourteen!

  Electronics skill increased to level one hundred!

  ATTENTION! You may choose your first specialization in the Electronics skill.

  Nice, of course. But I can’t be bothered to choose a perk right now! I needed to cut speed fast and turn so the twinbody frigate’s right nose cone wouldn’t slam into the thousand-foot metal spindle of the ancient laboratory. I was briefly thrown off while trying to figure out which systems to use and in what order. And so, I returned control to the more experienced pilots who could already see perfectly well what needed to happen.

  Zheltov started cursing and yanked the yoke toward him and to the left, while the copilot started working magic with the maneuver thrusters, tapping keys with the speed of a maniacal pianist. Yes! We miraculously managed to avoid a collision. It worked! The Tamara the Paladin was all the way under the distortion field and hidden from all observers and radar systems.

  Authority increased to 99!

  Authority? That boost most likely did not originate from my crew — Dmitry Zheltov was still freaking out at my far from professional and extremely dangerous maneuvering. I suspected it was outside players observing the Tamara the Paladin’s takeoff and now astonished at my arrogance. They were planning to deduce our flight trajectory then catch us wi
th nimble interceptors at the exit point from a hyperspace jump. But they almost certainly hadn’t considered that the Relict laboratory might have been right under their noses. And... were they really just going to let us leave untouched? No, unfortunately my worries were on the money.

  Danger Sense skill increased to level ninety-eight!

  Two hundred miles away, a group of ships appeared in space — Meleyephatian models. Two Yukito-Unteh-class cloaked frigates, a Shmorsh IV light cruiser, a Mirosssh-Pakh-II-type assault cruiser and a Zondesh long-distance reconnaissance ship. Old friends! The Meleyephatian Spy Leng Soweesssh Eleven just couldn’t let bygones be bygones and was again trying to get his old twinbody frigate back. Well, nuts to him! This time I’m ready for a fight! Plus, they were already firing at us (or rather the presumed location of my frigate). By all tenets of space law, it was legal to return fire with no risk of being slapped with “Criminal” status.

  “Light up the cloaked frigate,” I told the Gunners, placing a marker on a ship in the approaching group of opponents. “Stasis web placed. Target acquired. All cannons fire!!!”

  Targeting skill increased to level fifty-five!

  Sharpshooter skill increased to level fifty-three!

  You have reached level one hundred five!

  You have received three skill points!

  The fragile little ship I marked disintegrated after a series of hits, blowing its reactor on the way out and lighting up the cosmos with a bright flash. But... that wasn’t all that happened that very second. On the back-view monitor I saw another bright flash, this time on the surface of the moon Taikhirhh-o-Tsykh II-II, which we had just left. Something on the ground in the spaceport had just blown up. At a force of about fifteen kilotons, as I was informed a second later by the ship’s computer. I couldn’t remember if there were any starships parked there or not. If so, bad luck to those poor souls — defensive screens were usually switched off while parked, so the explosion would have destroyed them. If not for the moon’s defensive field, which absorbed the shockwave and colossal outpouring of energy, my frigate also would have also taken a hit.

  What even was that? Had the enemy Mirosssh-Pakh II cruiser missed, and the nuclear-tipped rocket it fired at us penetrated the planetoid’s forcefield and detonated down on the surface? Yes, that was the most obvious explanation. Although not the only one... I saw on my captain’s tablet that the ninth cannon — the one taken off the Dero interceptor, or rather the “desynchronizer” as my Engineer Orun Va-Mart had called it, had also fired.

  “Captain, look!” The Navigator’s cry pulled me from my contemplation.

  Wow! And what I saw made me open my mouth in astonishment. Just fifty miles from our ship, something unbelievable had appeared. A huge... no that wasn’t quite right. A HUGE mushroom-shaped starship. Its lengthwise axis was at least twelve miles, while the diameter of the “cap” was six or seven miles.

  Purto-Pino-Soyesh. Ravager. Flagship of the Trillian Royal Fleet.

  So that’s what my mass scanner was detecting! Other than that titan, there was a whole fleet hidden behind a distortion field, eight hundred ships at least. But somehow they all got lost on the backdrop of the flagship. Fortunately, my frigate was not that fleet’s target — the Trillians were attacking the Meleyephatian ships which, in the opinion of the defenders, were firing on their moon city. Clouds of drones billowed out toward the trespassers, and the cruisers blasted the enemy ships, destroying the light cruiser and recon ship. And then the Ravager shot! Just one volley and the Mirosssh-Pakh II assault cruiser blew away like a leaf in a stiff breeze.

  Eagle Eye skill increased to level ninety-nine!

  All that was of course extremely fascinating and, from our “front row seats,” we had a great view. But I was not exactly thrilled with the group of Trillian interceptors racing our way. Time for us to get out of here! There wasn’t enough time to transfer a long list of digits and coordinates to the Relict laboratory’s navigation computer, so I had it make a random jump within that same star system. The image on the monitors changed instantly and we were cast a hundred and fifty million miles away from the space battle.

  I finally breathed a sigh of relief and turned on the loudspeaker:

  “Let me congratulate you all. We made it out of the trap! Gerd Urgeh Pu-Pu Urgeh, Orun Va-Mart and San-Sano, take the shuttle to the mobile laboratory and check if its systems are ready for a long-distance null transport. Ayukh, relay the coordinates for a jump to the Solar System to them. I think we can all agree it would be best to test our thrusters and other systems there in a calmer setting.”

  “That is true. Things got pretty hot here,” Zheltov the Starship Pilot agreed, then suddenly laughed into the microphone. “Just imagine the Meleyephatians’ surprise. They were waiting for us just outside a secure area preparing to dominate one lone frigate with their combined firepower and capture us. But our captain had an ace up his sleeve. And then... another!”

  Seemingly, not everyone in the crew understood what the pilot was saying over the loudspeaker, but nevertheless they all laughed, delighted that things had turned out so favorably.

  Authority increased to 100!

  Attention!!! Your character has attained significant Fame and Authority and has now been assigned the rank of Kung. You have received eight stat points.

  Attention!!! Your character may now create an alliance, in which you may include up to eight player associations (groups, clans, prides, factions etc.). When your character reaches Authority and Fame of 125, the limit will be increased.

  Attention!!! Because your character lacks the Diplomacy skill, your alliance may only incorporate player associations composed primarily of members of your race (Human).

  Only Gerd Jarg sitting next to me noticed my status promotion. The other players on the bridge were too busy and had their backs turned. I put a finger to my lips, indicating to the spiny Analyst that there was no need to go flapping his gums about the captain’s promotion just yet. Then I mentally summoned the new Trillian girl:

  “Amati-Kuis, report to the captain’s bridge. I’m going to need your ring to block my character information for a couple days. Or, if you like, I could buy it from you outright. Or replace it with a ring conferring +2 to any statistic — our Dryad Jeweler knows how to make them.”

  Half a minute passed and the Chef-Assassin nimbly ran onto the bridge carrying a ladle and wearing a plastic apron atop her sheets of bone. And the Trillian extended me the Null Ring:

  “You can have the ring to keep, master. As for me, I’d like a +2 Agility ring if possible. And another thing, I’ve taken it upon myself to cook a festive meal to celebrate the occasion of my joining your illustrious crew. I am not familiar with other races’ cookery, but I am trying to keep strictly to the recipes. In half an ummi, I’ll set a table in the common room.”

  The coming of the Trillian girl to the captain’s bridge attracted the pilots’ and Navigator’s attention. They turned in surprise, but I had already donned the Null Ring, obscuring my information. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust my crew. I just thought everything had its time and it was still too early to show anyone the newest ace up my sleeve.

  And meanwhile, the image on the big viewing monitor changed again. Almost a third of the screen was now occupied by the virtual Earth. And although the blue planet looked nothing like geographical maps of the real world, it was still no less my home, no less priceless. I turned on the loudspeaker:

  “All clear, back to standard routine. If anyone would like to make a quick exit into the real world — now is the time. And in half an ummi, our new Chef would like to invite you all to join her in the common room. We will be celebrating the successful conclusion of our long voyage together and judging just how vastly the delicacies prepared by our professional Chef differ from the dry rations we’re all sick to death of. And my contribution will be drink for the whole crew except for the two pilots. Dmitry and San-Doon will get theirs after the frigate touches down on the planet.�
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  A contented hum rolled through the ship mixed with outcries proclaiming their captain’s greatness. I even thought I might see yet another Authority boost, but no such luck.

  “As the person in charge of finances for the whole enterprise, I have only one thing to say — you’ve all done a great job! You will all be paid a bonus of eight times your salary in addition to your fixed wage immediately after we land at the spaceport,” my first mate Gerd Uline Tar added, and a deafening roar of nearly thirty throats rolled through the frigate.

  Authority increased to 101!

  I strained to hide the contented smile trying to creep onto my face. Yes, my business partner knew better than her captain how to get the team fired up. My crew had come by all that honestly, though. Before takeoff from Taikhirhh-o-Tsykh II-II, Gerd Uline Tar and I tallied up a provisional assessment of the prolonged voyage, and our earnings and acquisitions brought us unequivocal joy. The only thing that saddened me was that Princess Minn-O was still feeling unwell and lying in her bunk. A rough bout of morning sickness. Our experienced Medic Gerd Mauu-La even pulled me aside and advised me to leave the Princess on planet because the extreme forces and stresses associated with space flight could have a disastrous effect on the health of our future child. I promised to consider what the Medic said.

  Chapter Twenty-One. Out of the Game and into the Real

  I WAS TALKING with our new Gunner Gerd Ukh-Meemeesh — a surprisingly relaxed and even deliberative Trillian, he was nice to chat with and actually somewhat shy. I couldn’t detect even a drop of “star sickness” in him, which was actually surprising for someone with a purple ribbon. In fact, he was only the third member of a different spacefaring race in history to be found worthy of such a high honor from the ruler of the Geckho. The only special request the fifteen-foot long six-legged “crocodile” made was for a new gunner’s seat adapted for his shape and size. The standard one was too small and cramped for him. The Trillian and I chose an appropriate replacement from a catalogue and I immediately instructed Uline Tar to order it for delivery to the Geckho spaceport on Earth.