I stand in front of what I believe is a projection of the advanced intelligence known as the Archive. Within one of the hangars (Yes, I got it right this time, damnit! :P) of the Trident, where only the soft glow of the tug's exterior lights and the golden ones set along the landing area of the deck even tries to pierce the darkness even I cannot see through. Its like a black fog that obscures everything within it.

Beyond that though, I'm having a conversation even I'm not entirely sure I'm not simply dreaming. Except the subject matter is too far beyond what I'd normally dream about.

Its a very odd experience.

Like talking to a god.

“Okay, so putting aside the fact that you want me to work for you... How do you know about me? Or rather, how are you able to discuss it so openly? The other games have all sorts of lockouts and safeguards that keep the A.I.'s from interfering with the players in such a personal manner. Universe Online shouldn't be any different.”

My question is a good one, if a bit blunt. With everything that's been going on in the last handful of hours in-game, I'm having a really hard time keeping up. That, and I still feel totally wiped out from all the stress and then the pain overload earlier.

Normally VR games are set so that the players only experience part of the pain from damage they receive. It keeps things enjoyable without pushing players away. There have been a few 'Hardcore' games, but there are only so many people willing to go for the full deal. Universe Online has a limit hovering somewhere around 20%.

The pain of assimilating the Key Gem was probably way higher. High enough that I had literally passed out, and not just in the game world, either. If that happened I'd black out and end up with a timer and the Unconscious status for a time.

But that didn't happen. I'm just not willing to hardly think back upon it, either.

It was like... bad on toast, ya know?

“The answer to that question will take a bit of time to explain, so before then why don't we get you and your crew to work first? Your tug has enough stored fuel to restart the Tridents power cores, so that should be first.”

Archy just skips right over it, but I nod anyway. Getting to work should still be high on the list of priorities anyway.

“Fair enough. Mind turning off whatever that black fog is so we can see and get to work?”

Even before the words were completely out of my mouth, Archy had grinned and disappeared as if nothing was there, and with It or rather him the unnatural inky blackness disappears too. The fact that we could now see and use the comms again was a bit sudden, as even though I'm staring out into the now-visible hangar, the one thing that jerks me back is the cursing and yells from the comm unit in my ear.

“What the..!”

“Shit!”

“You see that?!”

I'm not sure what they saw through the monitors until it became visible, but I let out a sigh.

“Quit quacking! We have work to do here, people. It was just some sort of defense mechanism.”

My rational, calm words must have snapped them out of their surprise, because they quiet down almost instantly and start out the airlock in a group. I roll my eyes in my helmet.

Now that the hangar is visible though, it isn't so surprising that they'd go a little batshit. The entire compartment is big and open and very much spotless. Not a speck of dust or debris. It is also rather full. Filled with more blocky tugs, the longer and bigger frames of the true mining ships, and I even spot the sleek low hulls of what are obviously space fighters. From the look of the nearest one, probably an interceptor.

Even in space, you cannot build a ship that does everything. So you still gotta categorize. Space fighters are small, one or two man ships used to intercept other fighters and bigger bombers. Bombers take on larger ships, but also require interceptor cover against others of the same kind; not to mention larger ships flak or point-defense systems.

At this point though I spot several different kinds, but there's too much to do and look at to get into it now. We have a job to do, and time is ticking down. So I turn back to my crew.

“Let's grab the fuel. I don't know about you, but I'd like to get some lights on around here first. I'm sending you a download of the Trident's interior map.”

I send it almost as soon as I move toward the outer hatch of the storage hold of the tug, hitting the switch that causes it to open up like a can. In the zero gravity conditions, the tug's internal gravity is keeping everything piled neatly at the 'top', but I deactivate it without hesitation.

It all sticks there, too. You just have to love Newton's laws. Without any movement, objects at rest will stay at rest even without gravity. Its a neat treat.

It is hell of a lot easier to grab the stuff when it isn't being tugged out of your hands, as well, so I start tossing everything out to be set down by the others. We actually brought quite a bit of stuff, all sorts of materials and fuel and electronics that may have been needed. I actually get the feeling that most of it will be more or less redundant here though.

What finally comes out last are the large storage units of the fuel. Where before we'd used tanks, these are more like the heavy metal barrels you'd expect highly explosive materials to be stored in. Except they're so light that only the liquid mass inside seems to be there at all.

I actually grunt when I grab one and set it down beside me. I'm not the only one. Luke has moved over to me to help and even he grunts at how much mass he swings around. If we had gravity, we'd probably require a hoverlift or a bot to carry the stuff.

Speaking of which, I turn to Luke when the last of the stuff in the hold is out.

“You brought a couple of bots, didn't you?” It wasn't really a question, but through Luke's transparent helmet plate I could see him grinning.

“Figures. Bring them out. There's no way we'll be able to pack the barrels to where they're needed even in zero-g.”

I'd totally forgotten about them in my rush to get here, but it seems that Celes is covering my ass. That's why she's the crew manager at this point. I just point and give orders when needed. Otherwise I take a shift like the rest of the guys.

Its times like these that I forget that I'm in a game. Just thinking the thought though brings a chuckle over my comm, and I recognize the voice from Archy. Damnit, now he's reading my brain?!

I ignore it. I'll settle up with the AI later. For now we get the bots deployed and then start moving. It takes all four of them to move the barrels of fuel, but we make a lot better time.

My suit even came with magnetic boots, but I ignore them as we float or bounce to the back of the hangar bay, where a large set of blast doors are already hanging open. I'm pretty sure every door or bulkhead on the way to the power core in the center of the ship is open for us. And just like in the hangar, there isn't a speck of debris or signs of battle damage anywhere.

I know for a fact that there is some exterior damage, but it seems that the Trident's own shields and defenses kept the ship from the fate of the station it is currently docked in. Just like Archon Station though, the Trident is freakin' huge.

If I didn't have a rather good map of the ship, I'd have probably been lost for days trying to find my way through the maze of compartments and corridors.

Unlike Archon Station though, which was strictly military and industrial in design, the Trident's interior is just as odd as its exterior. Sleek, I guess you could say. The compartments come in all shapes and sizes, and the metal plating is coated in a shining silver paint that glitters in our suit lights. There's also plasma glass, or simply p-glass everywhere, too, which I'd seen only rarely on the station.

P-glass is a type of transparent reinforced material used to create windows and the like in bulkheads and on the hulls of ships. Damned near impossible to break without military-grade weaponry, it looks just like a sheet of regular glass on any planet, except its completely vacuum resistant and airtight. It also changes its characteristics when an electric current flows through it.

Usually in the form of going opaque against light or going reflective to create a mirrored surface.

Without any main power though, the p-glass is all transparent, and as we pass compartments lined with the p-glass windows on the outside, we get the chance to see inside some of the rooms without stopping.

What we find though is sort of breathtaking.

Large compartments filled floor-to-ceiling with sleek, cylindrical cryostasis pods. Hundreds of them in one room alone. Others are large processing facilities for fuel or atmosphere. And still others are hydroponics farms, filled with great big machinery and proper gardening bots and everything. They are a bit different from my water-based hydroponics system though.

I take just long enough to get a closer look and find that the low trench-like tanks are filled with a gel instead of liquid water. Huh. I'd never seen that, but I don't have a lot of time to look it over. The remnants of dead plants in the hydroponic gel though shows that it had still been in use even when the power went out. Five hundred years ago.

At least we won't starve in here.

After that, it takes us more than two hours to reach the centerline of the ship, and from there we have to travel another fifteen minutes to reach the main power core. Deeply sealed within the center of the Trident, the entire place is taken up by engineering compartments.

It is easy to see why. The power core is actually an array of five of them, four large ones set at points around a very, very massive central one. Even I don’t believe my eyes at first. Its all too much.

Okay, so Power Cores 101. Most power cores are actually matter annihilation plants. The core itself is basically a sphere of platinum group elements. Platinum, osmium, iridium, or palladium or the others. Even I’m not sure how that works, but I do know that the purer the metal, the better the power output is.

And given that they are all very rare on planets, its no wonder that every species mines them in asteroids, which have much higher or at least accessible amounts of them available.

Anyway, when you shoot the fuel into the containment area around the core, it creates a chain reaction that causes the core to produce electric current as well as plasma, which can then be converted into even more power. The draw-off of this plasma acts as a cooling device, as well.

After that it gets too technical even for me. I haven’t had a whole lot of time to sit down and work out the theory, much less the practice of it. I can build a small one from scratch, with about the efficiency of a toaster oven, if I have to. I’d much rather go for solar though. Far less expensive that way.

But given how small you can make a rather nice power core, seeing one big enough to dwarf my mining tug is a bit mind boggling.

“This is the right place, right?”

The one who asks is Luke, and he’s standing there looking as dumbfounded as the rest of us are. Even the engineer and technician are staring at the cores in stupefaction.

“Yep. This is the place. There’s no way we have enough fuel to activate the central core though. So we’ll start with one of the smaller ones.”

I speak up, drawing them all back to reality as I point to the nearest core, which is only about 1/4th the size of the big one in the center. Thankfully the engineering compartments setup is standard, and even I can spot the emergency fuel port in the side of the machinery supporting the core unit itself.

Getting the bots to carry over the barrels, we quickly set up the adapter and hook up the first container of fuel. We don’t even have to pump it. There still must be power somewhere, cause it starts sucking up every drop it can get almost as soon as we have it set up.

The core starts to hum almost as soon as the fuel hits its internal tank, and the thing lights up as the first flow of energy hits. I have the technician at the console almost instantly, making sure its working properly from the readouts as soon as the screens flicker to life.

“We have power! The power core is in its heat-up phase. Roughly four minutes until full load is achieved.”

The guy is obviously excited, and he isn’t the only one. Even the small core in front of us is the size of one in a cruiser-class vessel. That’s a hell of a lot of power. I cannot even imagine the Trident using all five of these at the same time. That’s just insane.

“I want a full scan of the power distribution as soon as it comes online. We won’t have enough power to run the ship here on just a single power core, so we’ll need to prioritize.”

To me, my words made sense, and the others are nodding in their helmets. Luke is on standby with the bots, while the mechanic has already pulled out his own computer, having plugged it into the core to do his own checks, no doubt.

“That won’t be necessary, Rex.”

The voice from behind me forces us all to turn, and promptly go out of control like the first time I’d heard Archy. This time though there isn’t any humor on his face. And the others definitely see him now.

“I’m the ship’s AI. You can call me Archy.” He introduces himself, his eyes flickering over me as if I’m not even there.

”I do not wish them to know who or what I am.”

Archy’s voice comes over my comm just as I’m about to open my mouth, so I shut it with a snap and give him a slight nod as I turn to look at the others before glancing back at the projection of a pretty-boy.

“The Trident still has fuel in her tanks. Now that power has come back, I am activating the pumps now. You may wish to step away from the power cores.”

I’m not the only one who rushes to clear the area back beyond the warning lines laid out on the floor at our feet. And its a good thing we did too. Cause almost as soon as Luke, the last of us with the bots makes it across, the other four cores come online all at once.

Including the massive core in the center.

The noise is so loud we can ‘hear’ it through the vacuum of space around us. A humming that shakes the floor itself at our feet. Archy though doesn’t seem perturbed at all, and instead has a smug, almost eager look on his face.

That at least I could understand. We need power to survive out in space. The Archive probably also needs a constant draw of power in order to function properly. Being reliant on a power source that can be shut down has got to be uncomfortable.

Especially if he’s survived the past five hundred years on battery power, slowly growing dimmer and dimmer as time went by.

Yeah, like being starved.

That isn’t a good thought by any stretch.

Still, lights and consoles and computers start flickering on as the power cores hum in contentment. I still send the technician with us back to monitor the console, which is outside of the warning line just to make sure.

But it seems that Archy has everything well in hand.

“Ah… I never realized how dim and drab everything had become while I was running on battery power. When the fighting started and we rushed to activate the Imperial-class shields…”

Archy was talking to himself, which was odd, but then he stops and turns to look at us with something like chagrin on his face.

“Sorry about that. I have been alone for quite some time. Now then, with power restored, I’m running through a full systems check. Light, life support, and gravity should be coming on here shortly. The lifts are also now in operation, so if you’d please come with me to the bridge, we’ll get everything settled.”

It was like flipping a switch. Archy switched from seeming almost human to the same droning tone he’d taken when he’d first shown up in front of everyone. Like a proper AI who’s running the ship.

Still, being able to take a ride instead of walking all the way up to the top deck where the bridge is located is going to be a joy and a half.

Or not.

The experience turns out to be like one of those super-fast elevators you get to ride on to get to the top floors of a really tall skyscraper. With us hurdling through the lift shaft at breakneck speeds. And because there isn’t any gravity, we all have to hold onto the railing to keep us from being slammed into the back bulkhead.

All of us but Archy, who’s secretly snickering while standing in exactly the same spot as when we’d started. Thankfully we’d packed up the bots away, cause they probably would have been beat the trash during the ride.

It finally ends after what seems like a bloody eternity, and by the time we stagger off into the bridge, Archy is actually laughing without showing any of the reserve he’d tried to hide behind before.

Yeah yeah, laugh away.

His laughter turns into a gale when I flip him the finger while leaning over on my knees. I just sort of tune it out though when I finally straighten enough to look around the bridge.

Like everything else with the ship, its huge. Separated into the upper and lower deck with the CIC (Command Information Center) right smack dab in the middle on the raised upper deck. It looks nothing like the cockpits of any of the ships I’d ever piloted before.

At least it is easy to figure out where to sit, given that the captain’s chair is right front in center, just behind the large console and holographic projector bank of the CIC. I cannot help but step up to it and run my hand over the real, honest to the gods leather of the chair.

“Admiral Krane sat there during the thirteen years that the Trident and Archon Station were being built. To say that he lived in that chair would be a bit of a stretch, but from there he oversaw our war against the Drex and every major project in the solar system.”

Archy had come up beside me, and even I could hear the slight catch in his words as he tried to speak as dispassionately as possible.

“At the time there wasn’t anyone with the Key Gem, so the only way they could communicate with me was through the ships systems. But I watched everything, heard everything.”

His voice had dropped down, almost as if he were talking to himself instead of to me. But I still reach out and set my hand on his shoulder. Or at least try to. My hand passes right through him in a burst of multi-color static that comes from when a person pokes at a 3D hologram.

He really is a projection.

My touch still seems to bring him out of it though, and he straightens up and glances around. He need not have bothered. The other three members of my party have run onto the lower deck and were talking excitedly to each other about the controls and everything.

The lower deck is separated with holographic screens into sections, and each one is clearly marked and labeled. Communications, Engineering, Environmental,

Flight Control, Piloting, Sensors, Weapons, Security, the CIC. And probably more that I cannot check from my position.

All told, there’s enough consoles and seats for about fifty people here on the bridge. I’ve never been that big of a military buff, so I don’t know jack of what sort of rankings or the like would have been up here, reporting to the Admiral when all hell broke loose.

Still, it all seems to have the atmosphere of what used to go on here. As if the echoing of talking, cursing, and crying could still be heard. And that’s when I realize that I actually am hearing it. From one of the consoles the others were around.

“Allec, we found the ships log.”

Luke is the one who calls out to me, and I give a glance to Archy before making my way down then over. There’s only four steps between the upper deck and the lower, but it seems like it takes me forever to get in front of the console so I could see the monitor projection.

“What have we got?”

I ask as soon as I step up behind them, craning my head over to see. It appears to be a recording, and its obvious that the ship and the station is under attack. I can see people with their heads down with bad looks on their faces. I don’t even need to look over the information scrolling on the side of the screen to realize that.

I’ve seen the aftermath myself. In how badly torn up Archon Station is.

But we have audio for this, so I turn up my comm unit so I can hear.

The screen is showing us an overhead look down at the whole of the bridge, which is buzzing with activity and sirens of various sorts. Every seat is manned, and the CIC and its massive spherical projection is filled with all sorts of information. I can clearly make out the station and the Trident and the asteroid belt. And surround ‘em on all sides are ship icons for the Drex.

Someone is yelling out damage reports and weapon engagements. The older guy with balding, gray hair sitting in the captain’s chair is listening and giving short orders.

Even Archy is there, caught on the video. He looks decidedly ruffled though, and he’s talking about the Archive.

The screen shakes before anything else can be made out though, and new sirens ring out as they report taking damage. Its like watching a drama where you are riveted to the action. Even though I know most of what happens, I’m not able to look away at all.

“Activate the Imperial shield.”

The order causes everyone to still and almost as one turn to stare at the Admiral. He doesn’t even bother standing up, but looks pale and gaunt, even though he’s dressed in enough medals and honors on his uniform to be worshipped anywhere else. That’s a whole lotta gold.

“Do it. I don’t care what it takes.”

The tone is absolute, and the others don’t even bother trying to backtalk as they get to work.

A new icon pops up, showing some sort of estimated countdown as the lights dim in the rest of the bridge. The power draw is freakin’ massive. From our vantage point of looking down at it, even I can see that the draw is coming from the station as well, and not just the Trident. Weapons are shutting down and shields are thinning, becoming soap bubbles that pop against the blasts of enemy fire.

It only seems to get worse as the countdown ticks down, and even the Trident is shaking from more weapons fire before it go goes black as soon as the ticker hits zero.

No more video. No audio, nothing.

We all lean back from the console and I look at Archy, who hasn’t left the position beside the captains chair. But his eyes are distant, not looking at us or anything. In a memory.

“The Imperial-class shield is the biggest and strongest ever made. So powerful that it warps space itself. All shields do this in some manner, in order to divert energy or physical weaponry. But the Imperial was like nothing else the Rex or any others species had ever built.”

Archy starts talking after a moment, loud enough to hear and I start back towards him.

“It completely separated the inside space from the outside. Literally cutting through quantum space itself. But we’d never run a full test before. We didn’t know what it would do. What it did.”

He finally says, blinking and glancing around before letting out a very real breath.

“At a quantum level, every particle is both a wave as well as a particle. Wave interference from space keeps the… I guess you could call it quantum radiation down. We hardly read it on sensors. Mostly as background noise. But being cut off from space itself, the interference disappeared. Almost instantly everyone on the station and in the Trident died. Literally vaporized.”

That explains why there didn’t seem to be survivors anywhere, and why with searching we’d only found a handful of corpses. Even of the Drex, which I know had boarded the station.

“Those who were already dead were spared. But as the shield came up, everyone else almost literally popped out of existence. Not only that, but power went out due to overload. Even I was shut down until the Imperial shields’ internal batteries dried up and we dropped back into normal space again.”

I could only just imagine what that was like. Waking up to find that everyone was gone, the station and the ship abandoned completely. Not only that, either. By then the planet had been bombed into oblivion too. Drune had been turned into a wasteland during the time when Archon Station and the Trident were literally unreachable.

“You’ve been alone, running off of battery power since, I take it?”

I ask the question, bringing Archy back to the present and giving me a slight nod in kind. As much as a thanks as I’m likely to get.

“Yes. The Drex had already left by the time I came back online. It had been almost exactly a week. Without bombardment, the Imperial shield has enough battery storage to supply it with energy for nine days of constant use. But it was still very much experimental. We used Jump Gate technology to make it. No one, not even I, realized what being cut off from the space outside would do.

“Its actually one of the few things I’ve been able to concentrate on in the past five hundred years.”

Now he has a slight smile on his face, a look of pride. Sadly I don’t really have time to listen to it just yet. So I turn to look at the rest of the crew, whom has gone pale at the news.

“You heard Archy. Now we know what happened five hundred years ago. But that doesn’t help us now. Lets get this boat online and get our people up here.”

My words snap them out of it, and once again I’m saluted as the three of them scatter, going over console after console to find what is needed.

We have power, but we need lights, gravity, and air to live up here.

Archy though barely waves a finger and several consoles come online, showing us which to use.

“I could do it all, but it actually takes quite a bit of computation cycles to work through everything. It was decided when I was put in the Trident to allow the Rex to handle what they could to take the strain off of me.”

That made sense to me. Even AI’s are limited based on the amount of processors and memory storage they have. And if I remember correctly, Archy is basically at the bottom rung of AI’s these days. He doesn’t have access to the same amount of resources the others have.

“Allec, come with me. I’ve highlighted the instructions on the consoles needed to get the Trident operational, but there is something we have to do now.”

His words bring me back to my own senses, and I nod and make sure the other three have their orders before I turn and let Archy lead me toward the back of the bridge.

That’s usually where the conference room is, and it isn’t all that different here. Except for the black square box set into the back wall. Black and shiny. It reminds me of the Drex exoskeletons, actually. Almost insectile.

It isn’t that surprising that I fall short, but Archy turns and gives a slight laugh when he sees the look on my face.

“The Drex got their genetic data from me, after all. It was work based upon the race that built the Archive, and they were actually insectile. I can show you later. Now though I’ll have you imprint yourself on your Archive first.”

His words didn’t make sense, and I turn my gaze to look at him with an obvious question.

“Ah, sorry. To activate the Archive and set it as your new spawn point. Until now the escape capsule has been the only place in the Universe you were able to set.”

Ooooh, okay. You could say I had a blonde moment there. Ooops.

“Just come over here and touch the black box with your hand.”

I didn’t even have to ask him which hand he meant. I could feel the Key Gem heating up against my skin as I step closer to the… thing. I’m going to call it a relic. A relic of the Archive.

It turns out to be actually bigger than I thought it had been. Its a cube of shiny black material that stands almost to my waist, set flush against the back wall of the room, equal on all sides.

I reach out and set my hand, palm down on top of it.

Instantly it responds, coming alive in a blaze of heat and green light. A dark green the same color as the gem, and Archy’s eyes. It spreads out from around my hand print in a circular manner, running across the whole of the cube in those circuit-board like electrical lines before disappearing into the wall and the floor with a low rumble.

At the same time Archy behind me is bathed in a green glow, and he almost seems relieved when it finally dies down.

*DING*

You’ve gained PropertyHaving imprinted yourself with the Rexian Archive, you have gained ownership over it and the Trident. By extension, Archon Station has formally been registered as Allec Rex’s property.

You are the first player to gain ownership over a ship of tonnage greater than 50K.

You are the first player to gain ownership of a space station.

The ‘Abandoned’ and ‘Derelict’ tags has been removed from Archon Station and the Trident.

All other claims of salvage have been canceled.

You may now access the Ownership and Property Menu.You have gained:

5000 Reputation.

Social advancement within Drune Rex culture.

Hero status.

Property rights.

I was more than a little surprised when the new messages popped up, along with a notification that a new menu has been gained. I don’t bother checking them now, and instead turn to look at Archy.

He’s grinning, almost like a fool.

“Planned from the beginning for me to gain ownership, I take it?”

I cannot keep the sound of vehemence out of my tone, but it doesn’t seem to phase the AI at all. He even gives me a shrug.

“More or less. Ever since I rebooted five hundred years ago, I haven’t been complete because the Archive itself was still offline. It requires the Key Gem in order to come online. And it was on the planet during the bombardment. I thought it lost forever, given that I’d have to get close enough to sense it to find it, and I was stranded up here with no real way to know if there were any survivors planetside.”

I blow out my breath at Archy’s explanation, but I don’t really dwell on it too much. I was about to respond when the lights in the ceiling of the conference room flicker on, followed soon after by the sudden tug of gravity at my feet, almost unbalancing me.

Over the comm I can hear the others cheering as power, light and air and gravity come online. I can already hear the hiss of atmosphere flooding into the compartment.

“Ah. It seems the Rex are still as rowdy as ever when it comes to celebrating.”

Archy’s tone has a touch of nostalgia in his voice, but I ignore it and shift my weight as full gravity tries to pull me down. Having operated in way less for so long, it is quite annoying, to be honest.

“I wouldn’t really know. I haven’t been able to spend any real amount of time with them since I first logged in.”

I say, nodding to them before turning to look at Archy.

“So, we have a ship, we have life support and power. I take it the crew requirements of the Trident are probably bigger than the bare 2000 Rex that’s on the planet.”

It wasn’t really a question, but Archy nods all the same.

“Yes. The Trident can house every man, woman and child in the shelter without having to put them into cryostasis. And we do actually need to at least try to save Site Prime. There’s just some things that are easier to do on a planet instead of on a ship.”

I cannot help but nod at his words, but before I say anything my atmosphere meter puts up an icon. I’m now in breathable atmosphere, and with enough pressure too. Cold though, but it doesn’t stop me one bit from unsealing my helmet and popping it off.

Aaaah. Much better. My breath gives a spray of fog, but its still nice to get out of my helmet. Too bad it doesn’t stop my ears from going all red and tingly from the cold though.

“Well, if we have to save Site Prime, do we have anything onboard that can be used to burn out the Drex crap?”

I skip over the other questions to get to that point. There’s no reason to even try if we don’t have anything that can do the job, after all.

Archy just grins and waves his hand again, pulling up a hologram overtop of the conference table that takes up most of the space in the room.

“In fact, we do. The Rex on the planet don’t remember, but myself and the older Rex have had dealings with the Drex before. We created a cold plasma thrower that can stop and kill such… infestations. We’ve had to do it almost every time they managed to board one of our ships. The only reason Archon Station wasn’t overrun by it was because it was in space. Even the Drex cannot survive in hard vacuum.”

I grin and nod, looking over the ‘weapon’ that Archy had pulled up for me to see. It looks kinda like a flame thrower, except the pack is made with a small power core instead of fuel tanks. But after reading through the information, I can see why.

It uses the plasma from the core and the energy it produces to cool the plasma down to near freezing conditions, turning it into cold plasma instead of the superheated plasma the core generates by itself. It doesn’t have any of the secondary plasma converters or anything that other power plants use. So its efficiency is crap. But more than enough to run itself from a tank of fuel.

“Looks good to me. Now if we can just get our hands on a few we can get down to the planet. I hate the twelve hour drive though.”

Yes, I have come to quietly loath the twelve hours it takes to get from Archon Station to the planet and back. If I had a faster ship, I’d jump right on board.

Instead though, Archy breaks into giggles again, and I look at him as if he’s gone crazy. He just grins and motions around.

“We’re on a ship, Allec. Even in this state, the Trident can get to the planet within three hours. More than that though, Archon Station itself can make it in six, which would be far better, don’t you think?”

Okay, I blink at him. Why didn’t I think of that? Then again, I’m not used to the idea of being in such a big ship. Much less a freakin’ moving space station. But I still end up grinning back, before I hit my comm unit on the neck ring of my suit.

“Luke! Get on the horn and tell everyone on the station to pack their shit and get over here to the Trident, NOW. We have a way to get to Drune, and a way to save Site Prime.”

I’d barely finished speaking when I saw Luke jumping out of the seat in front of the weapon control console and move to the communications station. Thankfully with the power now on the p-glass wall that separates the conference room from the bridge had gone opaque on the outside while still allowing us to see out like a one-way mirror.

This could be good news, but getting everyone from the station and into Trident could be a big hassle. But we have Archy here, so I’m not too worried about it.

“We can get enough people here to man the bridge, but you’ll have to control Trident and Archon Station. I’d rather go together, cause the connections from the station to Trident look rather torn up when we did our fly-by.”

I didn’t really have to tell Archy though.

“Yes, but we still have a good lock. Also, without independent power in the station, we’ll have to use the Trident’s power cores to power every thruster to get to Drune. Its easily within the limits though, so no worries.”

Heh. No worries, huh?

“Just try not to break the station apart. Some places in the utter ring are barely held together with cable and bubblegum, you know.”

I walked out of the conference room behind Archy and take the captain’s seat at the top of the bridge. From this vantage point, I’m able to watch over the whole of the bridge and the CIC projection as it comes up outlining our projected route to Drune.

“Rex, the crew is scrambling. Celes says to keep the doors open for ‘em. I also got a call out to Site Prime. They’re reporting growth of the Drex crap at an accelerated rate. Current count is 32 hours before Site Prime is overrun.”

Luke is calling out information, and I flinch at the first word out of his mouth. I really don’t care for the title of ‘Rex’. But it seems I’m stuck with it, especially now.

“It’ll be fine. Once we’re all onboard, it’ll take us about six hours to reach them. Tell Site Prime that we’re bringing Trident and Archon Station home.”

-|- -|- -|-

Here you go guys! Chapter 1 of Volume 2 of Universe Online!

Hurray!

Heh. Too many damned distractions from Real Life lately. Lots of cold and snow and ice. Bah. Its still cold, and we’re going to end up getting more. Texas is already hit, so that entire state is shut down. Lol.

Kentucky isn’t going to fare much better to be honest!

Now then, I know I’m rather late with this update, and the next one probably isn’t going to be until the start or middle of next week. A man has gotta eat, so that means working. I’m not really able to try to guilt you guys into donating, but really, every dollar does help. I’d much rather write than go work in a warehouse. -.-;;

Other than that, I hope you’ve enjoyed the chapter! Leave comments, criticisms, or questions below!

Also, I’m not going to stop the Cover Art contest yet. So there’s no worry for a deadline there. I actually enjoy some of the stuff that’s come up. :D Good job there, guys!

Well, if you’ve enjoyed, please donate!

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