Author Corner: Final chap of the volume 1 and a short chap for the final touch ups.

Enjoy

On the days of the incident with the Xetra, due to the great public pressure, ‘The Nebula’ was temporarily taken offline the day of the incident and put under investigation by the experts of Virtual Works.

The day after, Virtual works called for a press conference to explain what was discovered.

In a large room with a pedestal with many mics sticking out and a mass of journalist sitting while a number of camera men were near the back or up a bit higher to not be obstructed, were waiting.

At noon Malcolm Brim himself came out but unlike the common image of a gentleman he gave, today his face was grim and fierce with a frown on his face. It caused the people in the audience to feel as if he had a true nobles aura.

As he stood at the pedestal he sighed and drank a bit of water.

“Greetings everyone and thank you for gathering on short notice. You all know why you are here so let’s begin.” he said.

At once every journalist stood up at once waving their hands.

Malcolm looked at saw a familiar journalist and pointed at her.

“Sir, what exactly happened.” She asked.

“It was an all out attack to demoralize me personally. This attack wasn’t meant to escalate from what we understand. The target was unfortunately my own daughter. The weapon used was a bomb that releases compressed psi but somehow the criminals were able to hack into the game from inside and alter the base code of that specific bomb so that it would target my daughter but due to a number of coincidences at the same moment the attack failed but as a result caused widespread damage.” Malcolm said and everyone started to raise their hands again.

He pointed to a middle aged man.

“What was the purpose of the bomb, how would it actually kill someone?” The journalist asked.

“There are several theories which will not be tested obviously. One is that the bomb would cut the link to the capsule and kill the avatar my daughter is in and may cause real death. The other is that the bomb would attack the nerves and short circuit the nervous system and shut down the brain. Such an overload would kill instantly before the AI’s could even react. Fortunately because of the incident the energy was dispersed and only caused mental overload but not at the scale of killing but it's unknown when those victims will awaken from the comatose they are currently in.” He replied.

The crowd got up again and he chose a young lady again.

“What is this incident you spoke of?” She asked.

“We have prepared a video of the incident which our main AI Amy, was able to extract from the memory.” Malcolm said and looked to one of the men on the side of the stage. He nods and pulls out a remote that makes a white screen lower and the lights go off as a projector begins to project the incident.

It showed the ship and it zoomed in.

“This is the ship my daughter is in along with her crew and an old friend acting as captain.” Malcolm said.

As the video rolls they see them veering and soon the ship begins to lose direction but straightens as the shields act up. Then the warship brings out a huge cannon in the front. At this point the video pauses.

“At this point we had to search greatly before we located this.” Malcolm said.

The video focus into empty space but soon a grid appears and soon the image of a black ship appears. Everyone was startled by the ship.

“We discovered this by following the trajectory of the bomb they follow but as we try to figure out who they are we found that they aren’t something part of the system.” Malcolm said.

At this time everyone began to talk and numerous flashes of cameras covered Malcolm.

“They had somehow hacked in and by the time we noticed they were gone but we did locate the hole in the system they used and have located a number we hadn’t seen. As such “The Nebula” will remain offline for around a month until we patch this up. The avatars of all the players were given basic AI’s and they will do the simplest tasks and those with ships or are travelling, will only maintain the ship. As for those directly affected by the incident, we can’t affect ingame for some reason.” Malcolm said.

Everyone started asking questions but he held his hand up.

“There is more.” He said and the video played on after zooming out. They watched as the missile was launched and soon the wormhole opened just before both the missile and emp pulse was launched and the ship escaped before both waves of energy impacted the wormhole mixing and causing the massive shockwave.

Several moments later the wormhole began to open up again.

Then the Xetra ship appears and faces the Bandit War ship and blasts it to ash. The other ships that come after it do the same to targets over several thousand kilometers away leaving nothing. They release small ships and hunt down all the smaller ships before going to the planet and dyeing the green spots in red before leaving and opening a wormhole and appearing in the next system over.

Everyone was silent at the moment.

“What you just witnessed was one of the currently unknown races of the game known as the Xetra. They are isolationist insectoids that are neutral but have only a single thing that ticks them off and is having their technology stole or found onboard another races ship even if it was found fair and square. Their level of technology leads them to put enough fear in all three factions so they won’t move against them unless all three factions work together and that won’t happen due enmity. This is for another time, as for the incident we are discussion, what we theorize happened was that the energy of the EMP and the Psi from the bomb was mixed perfectly by the rapid spinning of the wormhole. When the wormhole the crew was using closed it also cut off the flow of energy rushing to attack as well as the shockwave dispersing 90% of the power behind it. If it was not so then there would be many more deaths than simply my daughter.” He said.

No one moved but one lifted his hand and Malcolm pointed.

“What is being done to help those in comatose?” he asked.

“Virtual Works will pay all expenses, we are also seeing if there isn’t a way to stimulate them to wake up earlier but it's a dangerous period for them so we ask that no one try to force it and hope they wake up soon. We can’t say for sure how long they will be out. I ask that no one place them back into the capsule even after they wake up until brain scans have confirmed they have absolutely nothing before they can be allowed back into “The Nebula” after it is open once more.” Malcolm said.

The conference continues but through the television of one group of people it goes.

One man was sitting at the desk at the back with his hands joined and his elbows on the desk with his forehead on his interlocked fingers.

His breathing was a bit ragged and he suddenly exploded as his fist slams on the desk.

“You promised me that you would hit him where it hurts but what do you do! You fuck up!” The man shouted.

“Fufufu, is that so, buying you one month to launch a your game without his interference and once it goes back online the players will think twice with the danger they saw in it. I think we did mighty fine.” A seductive female's voice said.

The owner of the voice stood up as the room's lights were flicked on. The woman was wearing a long red dress with her hair tied up. Her lips were covered with red lipstick and her face was youthful but there were signs of aging. She had perfect middle aged woman curves that express she had a child but everyone that knows her knows she has no known son. Only the man behind her knows anything about her past.

The man in question is an elder with full head of grey hair and a thick mustache and black cold eyes as he wore a butler's suit.

“It’s not enough that they have some feeling of danger, it might even attract those crazy extremist that like the rush. We need to keep causing trouble for them, the bitch daughter of his didn’t die like she should have and she will probably be under the highest level of security so until she returns to the game she is too heavily protected. Try to hack the game again and ruin it more. Cause war, blow up planets or other things just make that game burn into rubble!” He said.

“Sorry to say but we were barely able to use a single opening in the system, now that they are patching the game we need to wait until they are finished, then wait a period for the intense paranoia to calm down before we can even start searching.” The woman said.

“We have no time!! I don’t care if you have to blow up the entire Virtual Works main HQ! I want that company out!” The man shouted.

The woman sighed and gestured to the man.

He nods and walks to the man with a suitcase and deposits a pile of money.

“Here, this is half the money, since we did half the job of causing serious trouble for Malcolm we will keep half, I would keep all of it since we did a public problem but then you would have that over my head so let’s keep it at that. Don’t call me anymore, I am cutting out of the men I work with.” She said and turned letting her dress flutter. “Come Bruce.” She said.

The butler bowed and followed.

“You think you can just leave! Maria!! MARIA!!” He shouted but she leaves and the butler just looks back with a hint of disdain in his eyes.

After they left, an awkward silence was left in the room with the higher positioned works of the company.

“Maria… ARH! THAT BITCH!” he shouted and slammed his fists.

“Sir, what she said is right, his public image has been tarnished and it will be a while before it recovers. Let us take this time to launch the game.” One man said.

“I know! Still to lose so much money for a half done job. Can’t even kill a brat to keep that asshole from getting more heirs.” He cursed.

“We should be lucky they did what they did.” A woman at the end of the table said.

Everyone nods and the boss sits back on his chair.

“Tell the men to wait a week and release the game. Make the propaganda about the release.” The boss said and made the rest of them leave.

“Maria Collins, don’t think you can leave so easily.”

***

While the game had been shut off everything in it was still moving, due to this the universe of the Nebula was still working.

Far from any known space, after over a week of unstable wormhole travel a slow tear in space split and spun making an exit.

The space was filled with destroyed ships and even an amazing sight of a planet that was split in half and the core was cooled. The moon was in a similar state and broken into many parts scattered around. All over the space for thousands of kilometers warships, capital ships, carriers and more were all half destroyed.

As the wormhole reaches stability a Venturi Battle Frigate is thrown spinning out from the hole.

The power was off but a moment later every system besides the main thruster starts up and the strong spinning begins to be countered by the side thrusters around the body that countered the force and soon the ship stopped in space.

“Seems we’re are safe.” A single AI said before the ship turned off once more deactivating almost completely besides the life support.

After several weeks a distortion in space once more appears in the space near the ship. This one was different as it was similar to an FTL drive.

What appeared was a small mining ship sized shuttle that instantly broke apart into a long cylinder shaped escape pod that flew fast and impacted into the side of a random ship.

The escape pod pops open revealing the body of a small young girl that looks no more than 12.

She opened her eye revealing the android eyes.

She looks around and sees the Star Comet Crew ship.

“Target found, beginning plan.” she said into her own mind.