Pop Kult Warlord

by Nick Cole

  Every avatar scrambles for a station on the bridge. The only one left is a big chair that seems to watch over all the other stations. I sit down in it and am rewarded with…

  Captain’s Station. Press Enter to Unlock.

  I check the Yamato’s holographic position again.

  Total team kill is not an option here. Not just because getting disappeared into Calistan’s secret police gulag is probably a real thing, but because I estimate we need to ruin at least three of the Geek League’s cities to get them off Calistan’s back. Just one isn’t going to do it.

  And yeah, the gulag thing too.

  So there’s that.

  I hit enter.

  The screen changes.

  I’m staring at an absurdly simple screen. In the center is a triangular spaceship. Little more than a triangle, really. Everything is vector lines. A moment later, giant tumbling rocks come in from all sides of the screen. All of them headed at the spaceship. My spaceship.

  Thankfully, a control schematic comes up and I get the basics of movement and thrust with the WASD keys. Except there’s no reverse. Just thrust and turn. The return key is fire. That’s it. I start shooting at the giant rocks as they tumble in at me. As soon as I hit them they break apart and I spend the next thirty seconds dodging them and reducing them to smaller and smaller chunks.

  There are five waves of this when suddenly my ship gets a low fuel warning and a message urging me to land. The game shifts as the little starship falls toward a massive planet. All in side-scroll 2D. But falling nonetheless. Altimeter and speed, along with rate of descent, appear in basic digital readouts.

  I thrust and send the ship speeding toward the planet’s surface. My guess… I’ll smash into the planet and come apart in all sorts of little sticks of debris just like those big rocks I smashed. I rotate the ship using the directional keys to get the engine falling first. Then I bring in the thrusters to slow the rate of descent. The first mountains I could have landed on had small platforms with bonuses should I land there, but my rate of descent was still too high and the approach vector was no good. Also gravity was kicking in.

  “Get those terminals unlocked people, we ain’t playin’ games here!” shouts Apone over the chat.

  Which doesn’t help because I’m fairly sure I’m going to get one shot at sticking the landing, otherwise I’ll probably have to do the five waves of smashing rocks all over again. Maybe. What if I’m totally locked out?

  I throw in more thrust to counteract gravity and descend into a narrow canyon of green glowing lines. Time and altitude are running out.

  The ground comes up fast and I go to full thrust to retard the descent. The engine is flaring at full and my index finger is numb from pushing the key so hard as though it might reward me with a little more counterthrust.

  It doesn’t and the descent still looks too fast, but the landing vector is good despite the gravitational pull that’s making me drift.

  The fuel cuts out just as the ship sets down.

  I find myself wincing as I wait for the ship to explode in every direction. But that doesn’t happen.

  The screen goes dark. I’ve beaten the game.

  Now I have access to the captain’s menu.

  All the stations on the bridge come up. I can see which ones are locked out and which ones are ready to go. I have a full tactical display of the surrounding area.

  In the corner a message blinks repeatedly.

  Space Fold Drive: OFFLINE.

  Not sure what that is. Probably don’t need it. I scan for weapons. I need them, and fast. At first it seems the SDF-1 is more of a carrier than anything else. It has fighters and hangar decks, all currently unmanned. Unless the fighters are bots, I probably can’t get them into the air and engaging that battleship before it fires its main gun.

  “Yamato’s launching missiles!” announces Hicks. He’s running the Combat Information Control panel.

  I look up from the captain’s screen. Above us, on the bridge tactical holograph, I can see several missiles streaking away from the ghostly image of the Yamato. Telemetric data trails alongside each one.

  I re-check the captain’s screen.

  “We need to hit them now, PQ!” bleats Rashid petulantly. As though this should happen merely because he has spoken it.

  We’re still locked out of both of the SDF-1’s shield systems. Something called an Omni-Directional Barrier and another system labeled the Pinpoint Barrier.

  “Woot!” shouts Ferro over chat. “I got engineering unlocked. Powering up main engines now.”

  “Two minutes till impact,” says Hicks. He’s running the Combat Information Control panel.

  “Whoever’s got defensive stations, we need those up!” I shout. I feel useless as the captain. I’m used to running and gunning. Changing the game one bullet at a time. As I’ve said, vehicle combat is not my thing. And a giant spaceship is really just a big old vehicle.

  “Uh, sir. Uh… I think I’ve almost got defense unlocked. Playing some old game called Berzerk.” It’s MarineSgtApone and he sounds distracted. “Uh… okay… got it. Station coming online now. Had to run away from a giant bouncing ball of death. Whoever made that game musta been on drugs.”

  In my captain’s screen I see that the Pinpoint Barrier System is now online. And it has power from the engines.

  “Sir… we got us a table,” says Apone.

  I look up from my screen and scan the digitally represented bridge in my HUD. In front of the main window, which shows a terrific air battle going on over the Cylon Basestar, a wide pool table-shaped block has risen up.

  I leave the captain’s chair and move my avatar toward it.

  On its surface lies a digital schematic of the SDF-1. Projected points of impact from the incoming missiles appear all across its surface.

  I have no idea how to use this.

  Neither does Apone. “While you figure this out, I’m gonna see about unlocking damage control,” he says. “Seems like that’s about to be real necessary.”

  I nod and sit down at one of the table’s three stations.

  “Hey, Perfect.”

  I look up to see two new avatars skinned in Calistani battle dress. Above them float their tags.

  Kiwi and JollyBoy.

  “We just logged in and got permission from the muzzies to join up. Figured you needed help,” says Kiwi.

  “Yeah, PQ old buddy, old pal,” says the ever-gregarious JollyBoy. He’s managed to doctor his avatar with his standard Harlequin mask and perma-grin. “I was getting… how shall we say… ah! Rather broke in Monte Carlo. Can you believe it? I’m almost down to half my Super Duper Bowl winnings. But! Never fear! I have managed to meet the perfect woman. She’s a wan little lass of an ultramodel with a penchant for sports cars and dangerous chemicals. I think we’re going to settle down and farm… or something.”

  He almost dies with a laughter that devolves into a wheezing bout of coughing fits.

  “I blame the Cubans,” he hacks. “Brought home a case of cigars too. They’re an investment.”

  “Jolly, you like ships right?” I ask.

  “Love ’em. I’ve always fancied myself a pirate of sorts.”

  “Great. You’re the captain now. Get us into the fight and take out that ship.” I tag the approaching Yamato.

  “Roger that, Mister Perfect. Hoist the mainsail, unlimber the guns. Top the mainsail and prepare to give ’em what for off the aft beam and I do say… I love a good aft beam and all, if you take my meaning.”

  Again with the wheezing laughter.

  “We’re kind of in a hurry here, Jolly.”

  “Oh, sorry.” His avatar takes the captain’s chair.

  To Kiwi I say: “Let’s stop some missiles.”

  Kiwi joins me, taking another station at the Pinpoint Barrier System interface table.

  The lead inbound missile is streaking toward us across the desert floor. I move my mouse and a small shield of glowing white energy responds on the schemati
c below our gaze. I move it over the projected impact point of the missile. A second later, the fast-moving weapon smashes into the SDF-1, just barely missing the shield I put up.

  On screen the ship rocks back and forth. Damage control alarms whoop in high-pitched tones. Other panels across the bridge light up like Christmas trees.

  “Watch it, Kiwi,” I mutter. “There’s a finesse aspect to this little game. It’s like it gives you a general area where it thinks the missile will hit. Then you’ve gotta adjust at the last second.”

  He maneuvers his shield disc to stop an inbound strike. Success. The missile disintegrates in a short flash of energy.

  “Natch,” he murmurs.

  “Oh, that how it is?” I ask as I position my disc to catch the next strike. They’re coming in faster now.

  Kiwi’s avatar nods.

  “Game on, buddy. Winner buys the beers when we meet up after this.”

  “You got it, buddy.”

  “Yamato’s firing her guns,” announces Hicks, without fanfare.

  Moments later the ship begins to shudder from the incoming fire. The Yamato has some sort of rail gun artillery system, I suspect. We’re taking hits, but we aren’t out. And the main thing is, while we’re out here drawing the Yamato’s attention, the Calistanis are inside the Geek League’s Cylon Basestar causing all kinds of damage.

  Still, it would be nice to shoot back.

  But I can’t worry about that. I’m too busy catching missiles. Another wave comes in as more artillery shots slam into the massive superstructure of the SDF-1.

  “We’ve got particle cannons up!” shouts PVTHudson, who’s been busy unlocking weapons.

  “Give ’em what for, Mister Whoever-You-Think-You-Are!” bellows JollyBoy in reply.

  “You mean fire, man?” asks Hudson.

  Pause.

  “I do indeed!” shouts JollyBoy joyously.

  “Firing!”

  Low, thrumming hums erupt from eight batteries along the SDF-1’s hull. High-powered beams of particle energy lance out to stab at the incoming battleship that looks like something from World War 2. Except it’s all sci-fi hovering above the battle.

  “Engine power at full!” announces Ferro. “We can lift off… I think.”

  “Then do that. Lift us off and take us into battle, Mister… You!” cackles JollyBoy like some maniacal pirate ship captain. All that’s missing is a parrot. And if I know him, his avatar will soon be sporting one.

  “Shots deflected,” announces PVTHudson. “They threw up a reflective shield at the last second. Never mind… setting particle guns to auto-fire. Bringing our box-launchers online. Let’s see how they handle these…”

  From all across the massive ship, panels open up and began to spit small missiles skyward, smoke trails streaking toward the incoming battleship. And then I realize we’re airborne and climbing.

  “What else do we have to fire?” I ask over chat.

  “Something called a Reflex Cannon,” says Rashid, “but we’re locked out. Also rail guns and torpedoes. Those are online.” I glance up to see his avatar is now hovering over weapons—since they’ve become important. But Hudson doesn’t surrender the station. He’s too busy tagging targets on the incoming battleship.

  “Fire everything!” whoops Jolly. “We’ve only just begun to fight… or something!”

  Both ships are now hurling every weapon they have at each other above the remains of the smoking Cylon Basestar. The Calistanis have been busy down there.

  “Uh… we’ve got a big problem, sir!” says Apone over chat. “And again… I’d like to remind you that we are bug hunters and not space navy type gamers… but… uh… well it seems the anti-gravity lift generators just tore free from the ship we are… uh… currently in.”

  I check our altitude. We’ve leveled off.

  A second later we’re in free fall.

  “Well, that was a short trip,” murmurs JollyBoy laconically.

  “Enigmatrix…” I broadcast over chat.

  “Trix here.”

  “Pull out. We’re done. Bug out and slip away. Rendezvous at the next target in twelve hours.”

  “Roger that. We’ve pretty much ruined this place anyway. I wanted to blow it up… but hey… beggars can’t be demolition engineers.”

  “I got this Reflex Cannon thing unlocked,” shouts Hudson. “Power requirements say it’s gonna drain our engines and batteries if we fire though.”

  “Everyone get to the dropship. We’re abandoning ship,” I announce over the chat. “Apone, tell the other Marines to bug out.”

  “Done, sir. We outta here!”

  Hudson persists. “PQ. Sir. If we can get the bow angle vaguely on target, I can stay behind and pull the trigger.”

  “If you don’t mind, PQ,” says JollyBoy, “I’ll hang out with my new best friend, Space Marine Private Hudson, and steer the ship for a shot. As ye know… captain goes down with his ship and all. I’ve grown fond of the old girl.”

  “You’ve only been captain for like a minute and half,” I argue.

  “I know… but I hate to toss her aside when we’ve been through so much together. And after all, I’m just a player. You’re the head cheese around here.”

  I hate to lose Hudson and JollyBoy, but they’re right—we can’t pass up a chance to take out the Yamato. “Just don’t miss,” I say.

  “Hudson…” says Apone as we leave the bridge, “that’s so… outta character for you. You know… game over and all. I mean you know we all try to stay in character for the clan. Just sayin’ and all, Bill.”

  Bill. I guess that’s the real name of the guy who plays PVTHudson.

  There’s a long pause. We’re racing for the dropship docked three decks below. The falling ship groans as JollyBoy adjusts the flight thrusters to get the bow angle just right for a shot against the Yamato. We reach the hangar deck and the waiting Colonial Marine dropship.

  “Not really, Sarge,” says PVTHudson. “He really went out a hero. Remember? There at the end?”

  The Marines all murmur their agreement over the chat. Private Hudson did go out a hero in that old movie that had brought them together as friends. Now, he won’t be going on with them. Rashid’s bankers made it clear that if any of them got killed again in Civ Craft: Mars, they couldn’t respawn as part of the clan. The Colonial Marines were already repurchased in once—at extreme expense after the last time Rashid killed everyone—and a second respawn would be astronomically more expensive.

  “Yeah,” murmurs Apone as we lift off of the massive falling starship in the Colonial Marine dropship. “He was total a hero, Bill.”

  The dropship races away. The Yamato is close. Missile trails compete with a sea of angry turret fire from both ships. Above and coming in fast, the Yamato is launching even more missiles and torpedoes right into the smoking and falling SDF-1.

  “Firing!” says PVTHudson.

  A searing multicolored beam of enormous dimensions erupts from the SDF-1 and hits the Yamato dead center. And then goes right on through as the massive space battleship detonates outward in a glorious kaleidoscope of endless destruction that shows off Civ Craft’s dazzling graphics to their fullest.

  I’m already planning to rewatch that clip several times when this is all over.

  The bow of the SDF-1 drops off sharply and the engines flare. And I see why. JollyBoy is aiming it for the Cylon Basestar.

  “Good for you, buddy!” I shout to no one because my chat isn’t engaged.

  And then everything explodes.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  I walk out into the midnight gloom that surrounds the Cyber Warfare Center. The fog has come up and I can smell the salt of the sea in it. Tall lights on posts cast orange bursts of diffused light, turning everything vaguely ominous and menacing.

  I have two messages. One from Kiwi. It’s short and to the point. If you’re in trouble let me know. I will get you out.

  He was particularly quiet during the battle, keeping to the
business of fighting our way out of there aboard a dropship getting harried by interceptors. And once we escaped, he logged out without a goodbye. It seemed odd, but I was busy organizing the next op. I thought we’d pick up later. But now I know his appearance, and that of JollyBoy, was a little intel gathering. No doubt everyone has been wondering how I ended up in Calistan working for Rashid.

  The other message is from Chloe. I expect it’s most likely from a burner. It reads simply: I’ll be in touch.

  For a brief moment I’m happy. Ecstatic even. And then fear sets in. I have a bad feeling deep down in my gut. Like somehow Rashid is on to me. That he knows about the message from Chloe, whoever she really is. She is, after all, out to kill him. And now he’s going to turn on me. Things will get crazy and out of hand. Even Irv admitted someone found the trackers he’d placed on me. Things will definitely get out of hand. And though I want to blame someone else, in the end, I’m really the only one to blame.

  I’m responsible for where I’ve ended up. Bad things are going to happen, and most likely, they’re going to happen to me.

  I soon find that I’m half right about that.

  Too many generals and personnel are leaving the building all at once. As though they have to. As though they’ve been ordered to.

  An armored personnel carrier pulls up in front, followed by a beat-up cargo van. Soldiers flood from the personnel carrier and race to the back of the cargo van with their weapons ready. The darkness mixed with the parking lot lights and the silence here along the water and far away from the party scene along the Gold Coast makes everything feel isolated. Alone. Surrounded. The way bullies always want to make you feel.

  There’s all kinds of harsh shouting. Men are being pulled out of the back of the van into the orange light of the parking light, kicked and pushed forward into a line. Every weapon trained on them.

  Rashid comes out of the building and walks forward briskly like he’s transformed from affable party prince to head of state and government functionary. He stops before them. The men who’ve been dragged from the cargo van. His hands are on his hips, feet spread apart. Like he’s daring them to try and take him, never mind that they’re surrounded by men with high-powered assault rifles. In Rashid’s eyes they’re cowards despite the fact that the odds are against them. That he, Rashid, holds all the cards.