Chapter 14

The 18th Cycle

Life was getting crazy. Well crazier. I spent a million Tokens to purchase a sky yacht for my family to live on. It was massive and currently floating about the Pacific Ocean where the country I had flippantly asked for was being constructed. Hundreds of thousands of drones were pulling materials up from the ocean floor and bringing it down from space in a ballet of progress that would end in the creation of a landmass that previously hadn’t existed.

The reason we were out here in the middle of nowhere was that I hadn’t thought it was wise to remain in the United States when I was about to piss off every authority figure on the planet.

I’d been right.

Commander Prime had me purchase a bunch of administrative AIs to organize everything, spending all of my remaining Tokens, causing me to have to borrow some from Tee, which he moaned about. Most of the AI’s were purely for administrative work, but one of them had a software package for writing speeches. Another had a package for recording and editing images. They’d walked me through one of the greatest speeches I’d ever read, having me deliver it in a way that portrayed everything they wanted perfectly. I’d spent two days filming the speech and a series of interviews, and then we’d released it on the internet and every news station that would carry it all at once, which most of them were happy to do.

I told everyone the truth. That we weren’t going to win. We couldn’t win. We didn’t have the skill. Every other faction had been doing this for longer than we had. They were better at it than we were. The best we could do was smash and grab. Take as much as possible in the shortest amount of time and then accept that we would be factionless mercenaries for the remainder of the season. To that purpose, I called them to war. I called them to become Mars incarnate. To go out and fight a battle where we didn’t win, but we achieved our goal.

To my surprise, people listened.

A lot of people.

No one was buying what the governments were selling. If you spent five minutes poking holes, their rhetoric fell apart. The problem was they were all saying the same thing, and no one was saying anything different. No one they could get behind, that is. But they could get behind me. I was the guy who fixed their bum hip or made grandma younger. I was the guy who was fixing the environment. And I was the guy with a plan that wasn’t so idealistic but at least sounded feasible.

Tens of millions signed up in the first few hours. As each hour passed by, more people joined. The smallest countries caved first. When the number of people signed on reached a hundred million, they looked at their population and realized they would do better by joining early, so they contacted me to participate on the condition that my influence did not extend outside the game. And that was how I ended up signing my first treaty.

It had only gotten worse after that. By the time I entered the game on the 18th cycle, over a billion people had signed on to the plan and were actively working towards it. Resources were flowing through the human stations at rock bottom prices, and credits were being spent buying from other factions no matter the cost. Everything was being spent to make them stronger like they should have been doing all along. People were willing to give up their in-game resources so long as we didn’t take their Tokens. Tokens were all that mattered.

I preferred to leave the game sitting in my command chair, so it wasn’t so different when I entered. And the first thing I did when I got into the game was release an exhausted groan. The groan went on for more time than it should have, ending with the statement every stressed-out, overworked statistician had said at some point. “I hate my life.”

“You should try being your secretary,” Tee complained. “At least, you can sleep while you’re in here.”

I groaned louder. “That sounds like a wonderful idea. I should just sleep for the next two days.”

“Don’t you dare. You have a meeting with the Japanese prime minister in a quarter of an hour.”

I stood up. “I need to work out my frustration first.”

“Where are you going?”

“To cause bodily harm to some station rats.”

I was back and sitting in my chair within ten minutes. Wailing on a few rats had significantly improved my mood. And the next few hours passed in a blur as I went from meeting to meeting, reassuring national leaders that I wasn’t trying to do some sort of coup.

Most didn’t believe me.

They thought I was some sort of puppet for Commander Prime. That didn’t bother me because it was kind of true.

I was in the middle of talking to the prime minister of Australia, who had legitimate concerns because my new nation was being formed in their backyard, when we were interrupted.

“We’ve got contact,” Tee said, muting the prime minister. “The Wargarg are making another move. They’re about to pass through the ring. They have a battleship.”

“I’m sorry to cut this short, prime minister, but something has come up.” I pressed a button on my command chair, dropping the call. “How the hell did they reach the ring without us knowing?”

“They’re a saboteur faction. Stealth is sort of their thing. Be grateful I gave you any warning.”

“How large is the fleet?”

“They have 500 frigates, 500 cruisers, and the battleship.”

“Focus on the battleship.”

“The armor is too heavy for your R5-Ms to damage. It looks like they’ve invested everything they have into it. They’ve built it for pure defense. It might even hold up to the R9s. Do you want me to use the particle cannon?”

I groaned, guessing at what they were going to try because I understood their culture. “No, don’t use the particle cannon. No one in our faction has used it yet, so it’s still our secret weapon. I don’t want to use it unless I absolutely have to, and we don’t have to. They’re going to try to board us.”

“What?”

“Think about it. They work best by attacking internal system, but the last time they tried, it didn’t work because they ran out of bombs. This time they’re going to ram a battleship down my throat and flood the station with fully equipped soldiers.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“We need to strip the battleship of point defense and then use the stealth strikers to take out their engines. They will expect it, so I’m expecting they will have retractable point defense. We will need to destroy the first layer and fire some winders to entice out the second layer in order to take it out too. If they’ve got more than two layers, we are going to have to repeat the process, doing this layer by layer until they have nothing left, allowing us to finally destroy their engines. This is going to be a pain.”

“What about the rest of the fleet?”

“Destroy it. It’s a smokescreen, but the combined point defense will be a problem if we leave it there. I’m willing to bet most of their fleet will remain on the other side of the ring until they’ve taken out the station's defenses internally. Send the first dozen strikers towards its engine the moment you’ve stripped the battleship of obvious point defense. I’m also going to bet they’ve upgraded the engine to get it here as soon as possible.”

“Your reactor isn’t powerful enough to fire all your R5-Ms.”

“Thanks for the reminder.”

I’d put this off in case something different occurred, but it looked like I needed them. I opened the R5 upgrade interface.

You have spent 275 Station Points to buy the Internal Battery round upgrade 0-10. (Maxed) You now have access to the R5 Internal Battery blueprint tree.

Each R5-M now had a battery that held 500E. It was enough for 100 rounds or a little over eight minutes of continual fire.

“They’ve reached the transit ring and are passing through. You were right. The battleship is out front, and it’s being followed by frigates.”

“Only the frigates?”

“So far.”

Why the hell were they sending frigates instead of cruisers? The reason hit me a second later. “Fire on everything, right now! The frigates will launch their darts as cover fire to engage our missiles. They don’t need to hit the station. They just need us to not destroy their battleship.”

On the 3D map in front of me, several thousand R5-Ms fired. The frigates were appearing at ten a second. They were immediately firing their darts.

Damn, they were predictable.

“The frigates are taking cover behind the battleship,” Tee said. “It’s going to make it harder to hit them. The R5-M rounds need more room to maneuver.”

The battleship was moving as quickly as I feared it would. The approach wasn’t going to take hours, only minutes.

“Smart. It’s not going to work, but it’s smart. How many rounds do you need to fire at the battleship at once to bring it to a stop?”

“Ah, you want to stop their battleship.”

“Yeah, but only for a moment. I’m willing to bet the frigates have to move out of formation to avoid a collision which will let the other rounds you fire take them out.”

“I’ll need both the R9s and 1871 R5-Ms to do that. It will cause structural damage to the station. The inertial dampeners are still level 1, and you are basically asking me to cause a battleship to collide with the station at full speed.”

“Fire an opposing volley to compensate.”

“I should have thought of that.”

“Do it.”

“Give me a few seconds. I need to let the railguns recharge.”

I rolled my eyes. “How many frigates have come through?”

“About 250.”

“Are they using stealth tech on us?”

“No. They can’t both attack and hide their location.”

“Could the battleship be doing it for them?”

“No. It’s actively scanning us. I just don’t know why.”

“It’s providing point defense readings for the frigates. Fire additional R5-M with the volley at the battleship. Otherwise, this won’t work.”

“That’s definitely going to cause structural damage.”

“Do it. They’ve actually got a feasible plan that could take the station. We need to stop it now. How quickly will they make contact?”

“Ten minutes.”

“Yeah, definitely do it then.”

“Ready. Are you sure about this?”

“Fire!”

Here’s the thing about inertial dampeners… when they don’t work a little, you notice. When they don’t work a lot, you die. I don’t know what went wrong, but something did.

I came to inside the regeneration chamber as the lid was opening. There was a rather exciting notification waiting for me. I’d been level 43 a minute ago.

Congratulations, you have reached level 100

You have 102 path points to spend.

You have 4732 station points to spend.

You have 4377 dungeon points to spend

You have completed the station master tutorial.

Congratulation, you have completed the station master tutorial! As the first member of your faction to achieve this result, you have been given an achievement reward:

X2 Path Points up to this point and beyond.

X2 Station Points up to this point and beyond.

X2 Dungeon Points up to this point and beyond.

X2 Resource Points up to this point and beyond.

X2 Credits up to this point and beyond.

X2 Experience Points beyond this point.

Your AI Trait has been upgraded

+100,000,000 Tokens

Your class has changed to reflect your non-tutorial status. Your level will now equal your station level. Your path specialty has unlocked; station path points beyond 100 must be spent on specialized paths within the station tech path. Your secondary paths have been capped at 50 and will now scale with your level once they reach this point.

You will now receive 20 path points per level.

You now receive 20 X your new level of upgrade points each time you level.

You are level 10.

Next level: 2,321,487/10,000,000

Your path points have automatically been spent to raise your Station Tech path to 100. (Maxed) Your Station Tech Specialization paths have been unlocked.

Your path points have automatically been spent to raise your Physical Tech path to 50. (Maxed) Your Physical Tech now scales with your level.

Your path points have automatically been spent to raise your Personal Tech path to 50. (Maxed) Your Personal Tech now scales with your level.

A cascade of notifications appeared.

You have unlocked station reactors. You receive one additional station reactor for every 100 path points in the station tech path.

You have unlocked the sensor arrays. You receive one additional sensor array for every 100 path points in the station tech path.

You have unlocked structural fabricators. You receive one additional structural fabricator for every 100 path points in the station tech path.

You have unlocked railgun fabricators. You receive one additional railgun fabricator for every 100 path points in the station tech path.

You have unlocked ammunition fabricators. You receive one additional ammunition fabricator for every 100 path points in the station tech path.

You have unlocked missile fabricators. You receive one additional missile fabricator for every 100 path points in the station tech path.

You have unlocked fighter fabricators. You receive one additional fighter fabricator for every 100 path points in the station tech path.

The old familiar waking up to the lid opening occurred, but this time it was different. I felt different. I felt powerful. I rolled off the table, walked over to the wall, and punched it.

Typically when you punch a steel wall your fist breaks. This time the wall broke.

I grinned, but that grin faded as I stared at the notifications feeling more than a little confused. This didn’t happen the last time I got the station tech path to 100. I got to the part where it said that my physical tech path had been pushed up to 50. I checked my path points to see if the notifications were accurate.

It was.

My physical tech path was at 50. I couldn’t level my station rats anymore. I felt a little better when I saw I had 194 spare path points to spend in my specialty tree. But only a little. I’d just lost so much free experience.

I sighed. There was no point in dwelling on it since I had no control over it. “I take it that the attack was successful.”

“And then some. Those little guys did a lot of leveling while planning their revenge. The average level on the frigates was 30. The average level on the battleship was 35.”

“We destroyed the battleship?”

“No, but the same thing happened to them that happened to you. The sudden stop killed the crew and raiding party.”

That made more sense. “How’s the station?”

“Not good. We can probably do that a second time, but a third will tear us apart. You need to invest in stronger building materials.”

“I need to invest in a lot of things, but now I’ve got the resources to do that.”

“I’m glad to see your class finally makes sense. You should progress normally now. Thanks for the upgrade. I can do all sorts of fun stuff now.”

“Like what?”

“Give me a minute, and I can take control of the battleship.”

“Complete control?”

“I’ll need two minutes for that.”

I looked over my most recent rewards trying to make sense of them. I quickly realized they were a game-changar. My experience penalty had just been halved. And my other rewards made it so the extra experience cost was fair. Growth wise I’d just been given back everything the moderator took from me, which made me understand why he had taken it. “I’m in the top 1%, aren’t I?”

“Yes. You are probably in the top 100 at this point.”

“How are your internal defenses?”

“Better than ever but not enough to repel their fully armed boarding. Not without you spending some of those new path points on increasing my turrets.”

I ignored his last comment. “Give me a brief rundown of how my new specialization works.”

“So you know how you get an internal turret every time you spend a path point in station tech. Well, if you spend 1 path point on increasing internal turret frequency, you will get two instead of one for every path point you use in station tech. All the specialties are like that. Everything costs as much to upgrade as how frequently they occur. So if you want to double the number of hangar bays, you will have to spend 20.”

“Is there a limit?”

“There are two. You need to have space for the weapons, and you can’t upgrade it more times than you have station levels.”

“This is big,” I said, as walked over to the locker and opened the door. A cloud rushed towards me, swarming over my body, molding itself to my frame. “Fuck yeah, nanotech.” My particle pistol came to rest on my hip without me having to do anything. I drew it.

“Be careful. That’s strong enough to punch through the hull.”

I smiled at my particle pistol, stopping myself from kissing it. “Yeah, you are, you sexy beast.”

I’d never got to 50 in personal tech before. I’d split my path points evenly, so this was the first time I’d seen it.

“You will be pleased to know that if you place it against your shoulder, it will work like the shoulder cannon predators have.”

I slapped it to my shoulder. A heads-up display appeared. It had options for me to aim or for it to work automatically. I pulled it off and looked at it.

“I’m calling you Huntress.”

“Lame.”

I loved my particle pistol so much that I ignored Tee.

“Ah, not to ruin your overly sexual moment with your new gun, but there is still a battered Wargarg battleship headed for the station. We destroyed the frigates, though, and it doesn’t have any external weapons, and the R9’s are now numerous enough to damage it severely. Would you like me to open fire? They don’t know the station has had such a substantial upgrade. We took out their scanners.”

“No, don’t fire. Are they completely blind?”

“Almost.”

“Take over their systems. As they get closer, start feeding them false information that the station took significant damage when we launched the first attack and then let them board. I want to farm.”

“I’ll need more turrets.”

“No, you don’t. Get the squad so we can clear some R5-M quests before they arrive.”

Tee sighed. “How many do you want?”

“How many can we activate in time?”

“Maybe a 100.”

“Then build that many,” I said, walking into the corridor. “Remember to make our attacks on the battleship look legitimate. And I want you to fire another volley when it’s three-quarters of the way here. We need to look desperate. I want their scanners to show the station taking huge damage when we make that attack.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m going to let them take enough of the station that they will tell their fleet they are making progress and that we are heavily crippled. Once they do that, you are going to take complete control of their ship and feed them false information. Then we are going to tell the rest of their fleet that they can come.”

“You’re grinning again. You know I don’t like it when you do that.”

I laughed. “Just get me those R5-Ms.”

***

There were rats everywhere. They weren’t having much luck killing the fully armed and armored boarders, so I was going around killing the boarders for them. A very beaten and battered battleship had limped to the station. We’d taken three of its four engines, making its progress slower and our attempt to stop it that much more believable.

They hadn’t suspected a thing.

In their defense, we were in a lot worse shape than I thought we would be after the second volley, which I survived unscathed thanks to my awesome new body and armor. There was structural damage all over the station, the shield was broken, and half the R5’s couldn’t reload. The fighters in the hangars were all damaged, and only one of the missile batteries was still functional. I needed to upgrade the inertial dampeners.

I turned a corner and promptly shot ten twelve-foot mechs, blowing a hole in their chests where the pilots sat. Their automated weapons slammed into my personal energy shield, dropping it by 40%. It quickly began to climb back up. I’d reached the point where all of my traits came into play, and they were kicking ass.

Just because the pilots were dead didn’t mean the mechs were out of action. Their weapons continued to fire at me, retaliating without guidance. I calmly picked them off one by one until I was staring at a bunch of tin cans. My shield quickly finished recharging, because of my reactor trait.

“They’ve signalled the fleet that they are making progress,” Tee said, over my armors internal coms. “I’ve taken complete control of their system.”

“Can you deactivate their mechs?”

“No. They aren’t networked for remote control.”

“Keep them busy.”

“Why?”

I walked over to the nearby maintenance hatch. “I’m going to board them and take out a few of their regeneration chambers.”

“Is that your plan?”

“Yep,” I said, climbing into the maintenance hatch. My HUD showed that this was a straight shot to the deck above the one they were boarding us through.

“You’re mad. Just give me more turrets.”

I laughed.

I was having too much fun to take him seriously. “Path points are too valuable to waste on these guys. I’m only going to spend them if we really have to.”

“I can deactivate the regeneration chambers remotely and feed their soldiers false information that you did everything you claimed.”

“And if people on the ground see that isn’t true and end up somewhere else, they might catch on to the fact that isn’t true. Besides, I’ll be fine.”

It turned out I was anything but fine.

There were fifty stealth mechs that didn’t appear on my scanners waiting for me when I cut a hole in the floor from the deck above and dropped down to the boarding bay entrance. Every single one of them had their weapons pointed at me. The leader of the group was my old friend He Who Eats First. He was in a fifteen-foot mech that was kitted out better than the others.

My HUD showed that I might be in trouble.

He chuckled when he saw me. “You thought you could sneak up on Wargarg. How foolish.”

“Who’s sneaking,” I said.

I activated my particle bomb weapon. It was my once-a-day weapon that my particle cannon gave me.

Anyone watching would think I exploded.

The surrounding corridor vanished in a flash of light, destroying everything for two hundred feet. My flight stabilizers kicked in, leaving me floating. It was the neat perk my hangar bay trait gave me. Every mech that didn’t belong to He Who Eats First dissolved under the fury of the attack. And the hull tore open, venting the atmosphere.

There was so much damage that I think I singed the paint on the battleship, along with clearing the boarding bay.

He Who Eats First’s mech fell, landing two hundred feet below. His Mech had barely survived the attack. His shield was gone, along with his external weaponry.

I slapped my pistol against my shoulder and flew down to him, grinning fiercely. My armor was linked to my thoughts, so all I had to do was think about what I wanted and it happened.

I landed in front of him and had to look up. “You’re taller than I remember.”

“My people are coming. Enjoy your fleeting victory.”

“I have to say, of everyone I’ve met in this game, you are by far my favorite. Every time you try to destroy me, I grow exponentially. You’re like a walking talking movie montage, but you’re glitching, so you keep repeating. I can’t wait until you come back.”

I launched myself at him. My fist collided with his armor. It bounced.

He chuckled. “You can’t harm me. You don’t carry a weapon large enough to penetrate my armor.”

I rolled my eyes and patted the giant mech on the shoulder. “You can’t move, can you. I’ve welded you solid right.”

“A minor inconvenience.”

“We’ll see.” I grabbed his arm and willed myself upwards. My flight systems kicked in. To my surprise, I rose without trouble.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m taking you, prisoner.”

“To what end?”

“It will be funny. I think I’ll add you to my dungeon as a trophy.”

Your comment has been moderated.

“You won’t.”

My HUD showed me he’d activated some sort of self-destruct system. The energy level inside his mech was ramping up.

Fucking moderators.

I changed to internal coms. “Tee, can you shutdown his self-destruct?”

“No, and it looks like you won’t be able to outrun the blast. That’s going to take out half the station in about nine seconds. If he had reached the center, he could have destroyed the station. This is why you don’t let the enemy board you.”

I’d already changed directions and was flying him outside the station. My instincts made me prepare for the worst even before asking the question. Without any atmosphere, I could get some decent speed. Not enough, of course. My HUD showed the blast radius as the seconds counted down. That asshole took out a quarter of the station and a chunk of the battleship with him when he exploded.

Once again, the lid on the regeneration chamber was rising. “Send the confirmation to the fleet that the station weaponry is disabled.”

I jumped off the table.

“It’s a little early.”

I opened the locker. The nano swarm flowed over me. “He just blew up a quarter of the station. I may have been over-eager in my assessment of what we could handle.

“You, overeager? Never! Don’t be ridiculous, Morgan. Overeager would be letting an army of mechs onto your station. Overeager would be taunting an entire faction. Overeager would be trying to board a battleship to Lee Roy Jenkins it.”

I opened the door, because Tee was in a mood, and started running. “You’re right. That doesn’t apply to me at all.”

“Where are you going?”

“To board the battleship, I still want to get my hands on one of their mechs, one without any damage. Did the squad survive?”

“No.”

“Damn. How many Mechs are on board?”

“I’m not sure. They are pushing forward and destroying my sensors. It’s probably close to a thousand.”

“Damn. That is a pickle.”

“They are destroying the station's systems! Stop being so calm!”

“Do this maths for me. Compare how fast the station repairs with how quickly they can damage it. Now factor in how fast your turrets repair with how quickly they replace their missing numbers and how much ground they will have to cover.”

“They destroy all the systems on the station in eighty-six minutes.”

“Now factor in what that means if we take out the second fleet?”

“How about instead of doing that, you factor in what happens if they fill the station with low yield stealth bombs my sensor can’t detect and detonate them.”

I stopped running and opened my new station tech upgrades. My plans had changed. I was allowed to have fun. I wasn’t allowed to have so much fun I lost my station.

The list was huge, but it seemed to have a similar layout to my station point upgrade system. I went looking for the turret multiplier. I found it in a few seconds. I spent 10 path points upgrading internal turrets to its current max, giving Tee 1100 internal turrets.

“Thank you!”

“You know, you really should have told me to do that earlier. Don’t drop the ball like that again.”

“You’re not funny.”

“Of course I’m not funny. I’m hilarious. Now, where are the nearest boarders?”

Directions appeared on my HUD.

I started running.

I’d definitely been overeager.

Far too overeager.

It wasn’t as much fun fighting the mechs when I knew they could destroy my station. And Tee was right. They were definitely putting down bombs. They were covered in stealth tech, making it impossible for Tee’s sensors to see them. I cleared unit after unit, trying to speed run the engagements.

Finally, there was some good news.

“The remainder of the fleet is committed,” Tee said. “It’s passing through the ring as I speak. Cancel that. Part of the fleet is passing through, about 10%. I think they sense a trap.”

“Fire one of the missiles at the battleship and punch another hole in its side, then detonate the remaining missiles in the battery. Then inform their faction that it’s a trap, that we’ve got more weapons active than they thought, and that they are being pushed back. Request either a full offensive or permission to withdraw. Then have the person who requested permission to withdrawal be executed by their subordinate for cowardice.”

“Why are we blowing up our station?”

“It’s called a bluff. The battery isn’t going to make a difference.”

“It might if they have more battleships.”

“Just do it.”

“Stop grinning!”