London Wild (59 page)

‘Let’s go
, Ursula; let the hero grandstand alone!’ Simon offered.

‘Yeah
, okay,’ Ursula commented with a sigh. ‘Guess I wanted a little bit of action after sitting here for so long.’

‘Me too,’ Simon replied. A moment later he vanished in a flash of light, an unfortunately cheap
-looking effect, considering how real the rest of
The Game
appeared.  Ursula seemed to hesitate for another few moments as if considering trying to argue again, but then she too was gone.

Sult had expected Ursula to press her desire to stay harder, more than anything because as recently as a month earlier she had held the rank of Major and had actually led Sult on a few missions. She had been a good leader too, but she had lost it all when the
Deathdealers
ambushed her command during an escort mission. She had signed up a new character with the same call sign and rejoined the
Gnomes.
Already she was catching up with Sult again, but then Sult didn’t play a lot these days.

Under normal circumstances, Sult would’ve thought twice about the angle he now took as he headed at a fairly leisurely pace away from the protection of the planet’s magnetic field
and towards the approaching armada. Upon seeing him, they would be scrambling all the pilots they could find to go and engage him and any other flyers that might be with him. They would want to stop him getting away with the information he had gathered. On this occasion, though, the planet was already at panic stations because they had seen the huge fleet coming their way. They were already shunting all the pilots they could into the craft that were on the ground, and the unmanned craft that were on patrol about the planet were being recalled so live pilots would be able to use them. Sult hated that part of the game. People weren’t assigned to planets; craft were, and any available pilot could miraculously be summoned to a planet to help defend it or attack another. It made sense from a gaming point of view, though. It would be no fun to stand in reserve on a planet that never saw combat, nor would a player gain many points from it.

As he coasted to the approaching fleet, he thought to himself
that this incoming force should belong to the
Deathdealers
. If word hadn’t reached them that the planet had fallen to the
Monarchs
, they might attack in force. This might even cause the precarious truce that existed between these two
clans
to be shattered. If he could pretend to be from the planet’s defense fleet, perhaps he could convince the strike force to attack without checking the
clan
affiliation of any other craft.

A quick glance behind him revealed a large cloud of approaching defensive craft
; this was going to be one hell of a dogfight. It would be a shame he was going to miss most of it, but unless for some reason this approaching fleet was from his
clan
he would effectively be alone against them all.

When he was in what he considered to be weapon range
(the weapons in the game being rather stunted on range to force pilots to get closer to engage with each other), he gunned the engines to full speed and started to swerve about, trying to stop any of the approaching fleet from getting a clear lock on him. He hoped they weren’t from his
clan.
It seemed unlikely that they could be.

And then they came
. Six model RT9s appeared from hangars of the nearest capital ships. The RT9 was also a low-grade fighter craft. It was heavier in armor and shields but nowhere near as maneuverable as Sult’s NS2C. Under normal circumstances, he felt confident—if a little egotistically—that he could use the speed of his little flyer to cut the six of them to pieces. He valued speed and agility much more than any amount of armor or shields, but the presence of the rest of the fleet changed that. These six were just those that had been sent to meet him. There would be many more fighter craft of all shapes and sizes among the fleet, and they might come to help if he started doing well. There was really nothing he could do except weave about trying to dodge them while he found out which clan had brought this fleet. The thought struck him that one hit on his craft, which had been designed for speed and not defense, would end his game pretty quickly. He began to question his wisdom in having come here.

He dodged and swerved
, returning fire occasionally, but mainly he was looking for clues as to which
clan
these craft belonged to. And there it was on the nose of the fighter craft that was trying to dog his tail: the
Forces of Bryan.

They had been busy nibbling away at all three
clans
involved in this little war, not actually capturing planets but acting more as pirates, finishing off the survivors of battles and intercepting the occasional freight shipment or two. They had been an irritation, but none of the big three had considered them really dangerous. And now here they were, bearing down on a badly defended
Monarchs’
planet. Obviously their tactics had changed; perhaps they felt they were ready to take this thing to the next stage, and the
Monarchs
were their first target.

‘Well,’ thought Sult to himself as he flipped a quick turn and then reversed the direction suddenly
, intending to get away now. He opened fire immediately on the RT9 that had been on his tail, hitting it but not destroying it. ‘A war between the
Monarchs
and
Bryan
can only be good for the
Gnomes
.’

Bang! The RT9 had returned fire. Suddenly one of his wings disintegrated
; he punched the eject button with perhaps a second to spare before the rest of his craft joined the wing. Well, that was it. He was going to be a prisoner of the
Forces of Bryan
for a while. Since his clan wasn’t in open war with them, it might be a week or more before such an exchange would be made. On the plus side, when he was returned he ought to have gained enough points to reach full lieutenant.

Then one of the RT9s turned about and headed for his escape pod
as Sult watched him. The RT9 would reach him and he would be their prisoner, even if the capturing craft was itself destroyed later in the battle. But the RT9 didn’t slow down as capturing craft tended to do in order to grab the escape pod. Instead it opened fire on him.

Sult
, watching, couldn’t believe it. He thrust his arm towards the approaching craft accusingly. ‘You can’t do that,’ he shouted at it; ‘that’s illegal. You’re breaking the…’ His world seemed to shatter into a million shards of glass. He was sitting in front of his holographic computer monitor, and he was livid, his outstretched arm almost touching one of the three hologram generators that helped to create the three-dimensional fantasies.

‘I’m gonna complain,’ Sult muttered under his breath
. ‘They can’t do that. I was helpless; it’s illegal to…’ he stopped as he realized he was just ranting to himself. He needed to get away from the computer for a few minutes, perhaps fix himself a drink, anything to take his mind off the injustice that had just befallen him.

He stomped angrily into the kitchen and poured a glass of water. He drained it in seconds and poured a second
; this he nursed, still fuming about it.

He returned to the living room and stood in front of the holographic depiction of a mirror on the far wall
. For maybe a minute he considered the differences between when the hologram was made and the room as it stood now. He just wanted something to take his mind off of what had just happened, anything to try and calm him down a little.

‘A message has just arrived,’ the household computer stated.

‘Read it,’ Sult snapped back.

The computer ignored the inflection of anger in Sult’s voice
and asked, ‘please confirm?’

‘Confirmed,’ Sult spat out at the machine.

‘From General McFee, Third level of Command of the
Forces of Bryan:
To Sult, second name unknown, erstwhile of the
Gnomes of Power:
’

Sult’s attention was caught by now
. The
Forces of Bryan
were calling him? Why, did they intend to apologize, and how did they get his address? He listened closer.

‘Sir, under unfortunate circumstances you have become the victim of a brash assault by one of our pilots. The pilot will be disciplined, but of course this won’t bring back your character. A little bit of research has revealed to us that you held the rank of sub-lieutenant and would have been made
a full lieutenant when your period in captivity was over. To make amends for this awful incident we wish to offer you a position in our
clan
with your next character. We are willing to bring you in straight to the rank of flight lieutenant, which, as you are no doubt aware, is one rank above where you would’ve been. Thank you, and again we are sorry.’

It was a nice offer, Sult thought to himself, a very nice offer. It all sounded too good though, especially considering
that it had only been a few short minutes since the incident. It was too close. Sult could almost imagine the
Forces of Bryan
deliberately killing otherwise helpless pilots and then offering them this or a similar deal. It had to be totally illegal inside the confines of
The Game;
at the very least it was an abuse of the system.

No wonder,
he thought to himself, fuming,
they’d been able to field such a large force.
He shook his head. True, he had no proof that they had been doing this to others, but such a thing could unbalance the whole game. It could destroy the very fabric, or at least the spirit, of how
The Game
was currently played.

Several thoughts then vied for his attention
. The key one was to contact the people that ran
The Game
and tell them of the dirty tricks that the
Forces of Bryan
were pulling. However, he feared that those running
The Game
already knew what the
Forces of Bryan
were up to and that they were turning a blind eye. Another thought was that he should write back and demand the rank of Colonel at the very least or he would go to the people who ran
The Game
and tell them what was happening. Again, the thought that those who ran it knew what was happening might be a hiccup here.

Just yesterday he had been talking to Fredrick about how it was impossible to execute prisoners within the confines of
The Game,
and then this happened. It was an illegal move. He thought
The Game
was supposed to stop that sort of thing from even being possible. He began to calm down a little. Perhaps because he hadn’t actually been picked up, he wasn’t literally a prisoner and therefore, even though he was helpless and in an escape pod, he wasn’t protected by that part of
The Game’s
mechanics.

‘Incoming call from Fredrick Hughes,’ the computer intoned
, breaking his line of thought.

It always disturbed Sult when that happened,
when he was thinking about someone and suddenly there was be a call from them. ‘From who? Oh, er, yes, put it through on the main monitor,’ he replied. His anger had made his voice sound a little shaky.

‘Please confirm,’ the computer insisted again.

‘Confirmed,’ Sult replied, fuming.

‘Hello, Sult
.’ Fredrick’s voice was coming through loud and clear, but the visual image of Fredrick’s face seemed a little jumpy, freezing in places and then jumping to a new position, or moving but trailing a ghostlike afterimage.

‘Hello Fredrick
. I’m afraid there seems to be some interference. What’s up?’

‘I thought you’d like to know
that we’re on for tomorrow,’ Fredrick told him. ‘I’ve managed to arrange it so I will be traveling in the back. There are three of us to pay off, the driver, my partner, and myself. I’m afraid we’re asking for a million.’

‘A million!’ Sult seemed startled.

‘Each,’ Fredrick finished.

‘I don’t have that sort of money,’ Sult replied
. ‘I’ll have to ask Joseph.’

‘I’ve little doubt he’ll be able to find it with his contacts,’ Fredrick replied
. The screen went blank but his voice continued, ‘I’m sure you’ll be able to find the money from somewhere. Didn’t you have that number one hit a few years ago?’

‘Try number forty-seven,’ Sult replied tersely.

‘Forty-seven?’ Fredrick replied, surprised.

‘No,’ Sult told him,
‘but you’re getting a lot warmer. And you’d be surprised how little money there is in that sort of thing for the performer these days.’

‘Well anyway,’ Fredrick put in, ‘you’ll need three million.’

‘Just the three of you, then?’ Sult asked as he approached the blank monitor.

‘Yes,’ Fredrick commented, ‘we won’t have to bribe the doctor. They’ve run out of the serum they’ve been using to put the cats down with. It seems the last shipment was intercepted
. They think cats were behind it, but it could have been anyone. As a result the cells are at bursting point. The doctor was only too willing to let me take one. “
Make sure you make it humane after you’ve finished with her
,” he said. What do you suppose he thought I wanted her for? I dread to think. Anyway, that’s all sorted.’