Start the Game (Galactogon: Book #1) (23 page)

“Qualian,” Alonso answered for me, giving me a guilty look. It would have been silly of me to be angry with him. Whatever friendship tied us together, family was more important and so if there was a potential threat to his spouse, it had to be intercepted as soon as possible. But goddamn it all! Why had I told him about my escape?! “He’s already out though. Only took him two weeks to get out of the Training Sector…”

“So you’re Surgeon,” the girl concluded without asking any further questions. “As you already know, I’m a Precian. I won’t tell you my name. If everything you said is true, then I can’t trust anyone—even the messenger. I can promise one thing. I won’t harm you purposefully, at least until I find that planet. Once that happens, I won’t let anyone get close to it—including you. And again—thank you. You’ve convinced me: I won’t tell anyone about you…”

“The gaming capsule has been ordered. It shall arrive and be installed tomorrow at 9 a.m. Master, how do you intend on moving to your new home? Allow me to suggest several options…” As soon as my conversation with Alonso and Lucille had ended, my smart home reminded me of its existence. No, I’ve got to say again—Stan had really changed recently.

“Let’s see it,” I waved my hand and got comfy. I had done my duty and it was time to look out for myself.

“Do you know how to drive at least?” smirked the technician who had come out in response to my complaint about a (supposedly) faulty game capsule. I would have never imagined that there would be a service in our world that specialized in secretly moving those who believed themselves under surveillance. All it took was four grand and I’d be secretly whisked away from under the noses of the agents watching me—even if they knew that such an operation was underway.

The first thing the plan called for was hanging a bug jammer on me (even though the technician would sweep me first anyway)—just in case one would be planted as soon as I went outside. Afterward, we were to exchange clothes and then I was supposed to leave my house, get into an ordinary-looking truck (not a flyer) and drive to my safehouse where I would switch with another person sitting in the back, and crawl through a secret hatch in the truck’s floor into the tunnel to my new place…Listening to the logistics of this operation all I could do was shake my head, unable to comprehend why all these things existed in our computerized world. I pointed this out to the technician, objecting that as soon as I’d leave my new house, I’d show up on video surveillance and then they’d identify me and notify the relevant authorities. Yet the secret moving service surprised me even here—the technician explained that I wouldn’t have any need to leave my place for at least a month. Meanwhile, they would plant a person wearing a mask of my face in my old house and it would be him who’d go out periodically to get some fresh air, letting himself be seen by any surveilling parties and letting them know that I was at home as per usual. Pure craziness!

Satisfied at last with my new home and having made certain that my new network gateway would still go through my old home’s server, I wired over the money. The nameless technician waited long enough to see the funds appear in the company account—and handed me his uniform. The move had begun…

Chapter 8

Crew Selection

Unlike my old, Spartan house,
where I sought to maximize free space, the new place smacked of antiquity. It featured massive, plush furniture (dusted hourly by a robo-maid), a very authentic fireplace with a rocking chair before it, and carpeting that my feet sank pleasantly into. Thus, in addition to the already ample array of technical gadgets and amenities, I found that my new expensive and luxurious house was fully furnished.

“Stan, did you find anything about the
Galactogon
butterfly?” Having brushed my teeth and washed my face, I resumed terrorizing my irreplaceable assistant. I could hardly imagine what I would do without him.

“Master, the data analysis is still incomplete,” Stan answered in a culpable tone through the new home’s smart home. “My analysis of official sources yielded nothing. I am currently parsing the forums…”

“Are you trying to tell me that there is no official mention of this creature?” I asked surprised.

“Without having analyzed a sufficient number of sources and having no access to…”

“Stan—get to the point!”

“I am unable to find any of the requested information for both the first and second search requests,” said Stan, seemingly deciding to admit his helplessness. “Whereas establishing the search vector for finding Blood Island is a matter of time, I am simply unable to find any information about the this strange creature or its race in any public sources. The word ‘Uldan’ does not show up anywhere, just like the word ‘cryptosaur.’ No such animal is listed in
Galactogon
’s bestiary. It is as though you managed to land in an entirely different game…”

“How about the translation of Yalrock’s speech?” I changed the subject, seeing that my virtual friend was at a total loss.

“This request is likewise impossible to complete. Only five unique words were pronounced, yielding no logical meaning. A contextual analysis suggests that, in this language, one and the same word can carry two utterly contradictory meanings. Much like the word ‘cleave’ in English. I am very sorry, Master, I do not have the resources to complete this request either.”

“So all that you can help me with is finding the planet’s coordinates?” I clarified.

“Not the coordinates, but the vector, following which one may encounter a star map similar to the one in the photo. I will be unable to say, however, exactly how far along that vector the planet’s solar system will lie.”

“What’s the approximate time to completion for that task?”

“About three to four weeks. At the moment, a portion of my resources is dedicated to monitoring the new house. Accordingly, this estimate may grow by another week. Do you wish me to accelerate my work on this task?”

“No need,” I shook my head, even though Stan couldn’t see me. “Yank me out of the game as soon as the new game capsule is delivered.”

Giving the universal game capsule (which came with my new home by default) a skeptical look, I shook my head, sighed deeply and crawled into it. I wasn’t used to using generic consumer crap. It seemed, like I would have to do something about this too…

You have died. Do you wish to resurrect on Blood Island (current planet), or shall you ask your Planetary Spirit to resurrect you back on your homeworld (Qirlats)?

Seeing this notification appear before me, I simply couldn’t contain a squeal of joy. During my preparations, I had read everything there was about how ships and their captains respawned—but I had never gotten around to reading about marines fighting on planets. I had figured that this information wouldn’t be necessary. It was too bad for me—players who died on some planet were given a choice: respawn on that same planet or return “home.” And until you made that decision, you couldn’t actually enter the game. Sometimes in life, it’s a pleasure to find out you’ve been wrong all along. I wasn’t about to lose
The Space Cucumber
, after all! Plus I was now pretty curious about this Yalrock. Who was he? And why did he have a pet rhinoceros with three eyes? I wouldn’t have minded having one of those too…

You have chosen to resurrect on Blood Island. Entering game in 5…4…

The game respawned me on Blood Island several feet away from my ship. Overnight, the jungle had not yet managed to cover the path I had made through its green majesty, so I had no trouble heading back in Yalrock’s direction. Using one of the three remaining powercells, I got out a pacifier and headed off to find a big boulder. If the cryptosaur had active resistance, then my pacifiers would fizzle out as soon as I try to use them. Luckily, I’d already had to deal with this problem before. The pacifier had enough charges for a week of continuous use, so I didn’t have to be too thrifty with it now. That poor rhino. Hunting season had come. The important thing was to find a nice heavy rock.

“Grrr!” the beastly roar of the cryptosaur was music to my ears. Another blow from my six foot pebble sent the animal flying, knocking it off its feet and slamming it against a tree. Waves of iridescence coursed along the rhino’s body, as if the animal was trying to adjust its active resistance; however, there wasn’t much it could do against a rock coming at it at speed—this was elementary physics at its most vivid.

I came upon the animal in the same clearing where it had sent me to my first resurrection. I got the impression that the rhino was like a guard dog for some nearby home. Yalrock was nowhere to be seen, so I climbed up a tree, heaved up the rock I found with my pacifier and sent it flying onto the overgrown monster. The startled beast’s legs splayed out in different directions and it collapsed heavily onto its belly—casting about its head in search of the assailant. Lifting the boulder again and thereby drawing the rhino’s attention to it, I moved it a few yards aside and then instantly launched it into the animal again. Mass and acceleration did their job—the cryptosaur couldn’t dodge in time and merely oinked when the rock knocked it off its spot and stamped it into a tree. The only bad thing was that the rhino finally spied me. I understood that I’d been found out.

And so we began to dance.

I lost count of how many times I wanted to pat myself on the back for having climbed up a tree. Over and over again, the cryptosaur slammed into the huge tree trunk, trying either to break it or to clamber up to me—which, given its dimensions, would have been quite a sight. This wondrous beast couldn’t jump, so I calmly and evenly accelerated the rock and cast it into the teeming animal mass, time after time forcing from it gasp after gasp. The strange thing was that the life bar hadn’t appeared, as if it didn’t exist at all—and yet with each blow, the cryptosaur’s movements grew slower and slower. Considering that this was a game and a monster of this type wouldn’t weary easily, I could safely say that I was beginning to win.

“Surgeon! Stop!” After ten minutes of this exercise, the cryptosaur stopped in its tracks and collapsed in a motionless heap at the foot of the tree. I got no experience for the kill, which meant only one thing—the beast was still alive. Raising the boulder into the air once again, I got ready to drop it straight onto the rhino’s head—when I was stopped by Yalrock’s exclamation. The Uldan butterfly had alighted on my branch.

“So you do speak English after all?” I asked sarcastically, lowering the boulder to the ground beside the cryptosaur just in case.

“I do not know what ‘English’ is, but my
glardirant
identified your speech as a very impoverished variety of a language spoken by an experimental race of creatures called ‘Qualians.’ When I realized that you had returned to this planet, I had to go visit the
shalrandan
so that I could learn to communicate with you. The cryptosaur was supposed to slow you down…Why have you come here to Karlaton?”

If a local wishes to start a conversation, it’s pretty dumb to ignore him. Since the butterfly turned out to be so garrulous, who knows, maybe he could help me salvage
The Space Cucumber
. Therefore, I made myself comfortable on my branch and began to relate how we got into our last battle, how we jumped to hyperspace, how we found the planet and how I sent my team on furlough, remaining here to save my vessel. It wouldn’t have made sense to keep all this secret from this bit of AI…

“Your rock shell won’t allow your ship to leave the planet,” said Yalrock, flitting about
The Space Cucumber
. “Even if you fill her with Elo, the self-destruct won’t do anything. The rock layer will preserve the hull and, consequently, the ship as a whole. To bring her back to order, you’ll need to get her back up to space and then hit her with one of your torpedoes. There’s no other way to save this ancient frigate.”

“She’s not so ancient,” I replied defensively, looking askance at the cryptosaur. When I told the local humanoid my whole story, he decided that he wished to look at a modern spaceship with his own eyes—as if he hadn’t heard
The Space Cucumber
come crashing down onto the planet to begin with. What a bunch of weirdos were the locals here. The cryptosaur came with us, barely walking on its short legs—it looked like I had worked it over rather well and now it kept casting glances at me, so that at least one of its three eyes was constantly upon me, as if plotting some kind of revenge.

“She’s not ancient in terms of when she was made. She is ancient in terms of when she was designed,” Yalrock explained. “We stopped building such ships many millennia ago, deciding that they were too faulty.”

“Millenia? How old are you anyway?”

“At the moment, I am 122,342 years old,” came Yalrock’s astonishing reply. “I was left here as a planetary protector and therefore did not participate in the galactic war. Maybe that’s why I’m talking to you right now, instead of floating out there somewhere.”

“Why did you call the Qualians an experiment?”

“Because they were created artificially. We were looking for a way to fight the Vraxis and experimenting with the different races. Qualians and Precians are our children—created to protect the planets. We granted reason and knowledge to our creations but, as we see now, the experiment was a failure. Over the 70,000 years since the death of my race, our creations have devolved significantly. Technologically as well as linguistically. Am I correct in assuming that you are looking for something?”

“I don’t even know what to ask,” I droned. “If the difference between what you and I know is too great, then it won’t make sense to ask even for a bit of wisdom, since no one living would understand you. I’ll try another approach—tell me, is there a bank check for a billion pounds on this planet?”

“No,” Yalrock shook his head. “The item you are looking for is not here.”

“WHAT?! You know what I’m talking about?”

“Uldans always held their prophets in high esteem. I was once foretold that a searcher would come to me and ask me about a check. Then, I would have to tell him: ‘He who finds freedom will show you the way, but first you must show him that you are worthy.’ This is the phrase that has kept me from going to my rest—after all, our prophets were never wrong. Now my mission is complete. I can calmly return to the ether. Goodbye my child…”

“Wait!” I yelled, seeing Yalrock begin to melt into the air as if he was a player signing out into reality. Stan would dissect Yalrock’s message and provide his best guesses for what it might mean, but at the moment I was after something else too. “How do I get off this planet?”

“Send yourself to resurrection and lose the ship,” replied Yalrock, coming back into focus a little. “You have learned how to speak to the Planetary Spirits, so you may die bravely and find yourself reborn on your homeworld. You do not have the resources to save your frigate.”

“You don’t say,” I smirked. “If you give me this planet’s coordinates, then I’ll be able to call…”

“Seventy thousand years have passed—in the course of which many stars, civilizations and empires have been born and died. Do you really think our coordinate grids will match? Don’t keep me here, Surgeon. I have grown weary.”

“Listen, I understand that you can’t wait to get to the ether and all that, but you already waited a hundred thousand years, so you can wait another hour. You said that I can get my ship to space and destroy it there. Is there something I can use on this planet to do that?”

“No,” the butterfly shook his head again. “This planet has no such devices that will allow you to launch that mountain of stone into space. However…”

“However?” I looked inquisitively at Yalrock, who’d fallen silent.

“There is a ship on this planet that you could use. If you recharge your frigate with Elo and then turn on your onboard computer—then, I believe my ship’s AI will be able to connect to your frigate and synchronize the data, including the navigations network. Then you’ll be able to find out the coordinates of this planet and call your friends to come help you.”

“Well why didn’t you say anything earlier?” I asked surprised. “What do I need to do to get this ship?”

“You must pass a test,” Yalrock brought me back to reality. “You passed the first one already—the marine has recognized you as his leader. Now you have to convince the rest of the crew.”