Joe's alarm clock rudely yanked him from his restless and all too insufficient sleep with its god awful beeping. He hammered the snooze button with a groan and sat up. He glowered at it briefly, then made sure it was actually off and not just snoozing and got up to make some coffee. His girlfriend, Jen, just groaned and rolled over. Their morning routine rarely changed, he would get up with the alarm, and she would get up when the coffee was ready.

He brought back two cups, and after setting hers on her nightstand he sat at his computer desk to check his email and social media accounts. As the computer booted up he glanced over at his Bolt and sighed. Things had gotten so complicated after Archangel dropped that unimaginable bomb a couple months ago, everyone had opinions on the subject and a pathological need to express them at every possible opportunity. He had decided to take a break from Shard because of it, despite the popularity his stream had garnered after that high-profile assassination he had pulled off.

Thinking about that still made him smile. Such an epic shot. He took a sip of coffee and turned his attention back to his screen. The first article that popped up when he opened the browser almost made him choke, and he started coughing and sputtering. "Archangel Releases Starfall for Free?" He clicked the link, "Co-founder of Archangel Evan Ebonhart issued a statement apologizing for the delay of the launch due to 'unforeseen circumstances?" Joe snorted. "Unforseen my foot, they flew off in an alien spaceship!" He skimmed the rest of the article and his coffee was abandoned as he snatched up his Bolt.

"Jen! They downloaded Starfall onto the helmets for free last night! You gonna get up?" He called back towards the bedroom.

"They did what?!" He heard a loud thump and a curse, and she appeared in the doorway wide-eyed and towing the blanket from the bed. "Where is it!" She charged over to her desk and started rooting around.

"Right where you left it." Joe responded with a grin and pointed at one of the drawers in her desk.

She pulled her own Bolt out of the drawer and started pulling it over her head. "You coming?" She asked with a grin. Joe grinned back and put his own helmet on.

******

Joe found himself seated in a comfortable chair in a futuristic briefing room.

"Welcome to Starfall! Please select a character name." Joe thought about it a moment before shrugging and typing out a name on the glowing keyboard that appeared in front of him. "Close physical proximity to another player has been noticed by the system, would you like to synchronize starting location? Player JenTenK has accepted synchronized start."

"Yes." Joe responded.

Synchronized start accepted by both players, one moment."

Jen materialized next to him. "Really?" She asked. "Johnny Rocket? That's the name you picked?"

Joe rolled his eyes at her. "Uh-huh like you are one to talk Miss Jen-Ten-Thousand. Come on, let's get through this start-up stuff, I want to see the main game!"

"Please select preferred starting roles, your options are: Pilot, Logistics Officer, Engineer, Tactical Command Officer, or Marine. Due to the sandbox nature of Starfall this choice will only affect your starting point, all players will be able to find opportunities to fill other roles if they seek them."

"Pilot!"

"Engineer!"

They spoke in unison, each laughing a bit at how eager the other sounded. "Starting roles selected, player Johnny Rocket has chosen Pilot. Player JenTenK has selected Engineer. Please select your starting faction. Be aware that your starting faction will determine how difficult changing roles will be."

They were a bit confused as to why that would be the case until a screen appeared above the table with a list of options. "Ah," Joe said, "that makes sense now. It would definitely be easier to fill multiple roles in a mercenary outfit than in a Defence Force or Fleet. Mercenary? More freedom that way."

Jen nodded in agreement. "Definitely. Engineer in a fleet would probably have me stuck doing maintenance and nothing else, I want to tinker with stuff."

"Mercenary selected. Would you like to join an existing company or start your own?"

They looked at each other. "Start our own." They answered in unison.

"Warning, starting your own Merc Outfit is rated as an Extreme Difficulty start, Confirm choice."

They both confirmed it, and the room faded out. They soon found themselves in a battered looking room that had metal pipes running along the walls. The floor was vibrating under their feet and they could hear machinery running somewhere out of sight. After a moment the room jolted and they almost fell over. "Docking sequence complete. You may exit at your leisure."

"Who was that? Joe asked.

"How should I know? I just got here at the same time you did!"

"I am Ship AI Mark II Serial Number 845G569P09K6 of the transport vessel Gilded Rose. For additional details please access ship records through your A.R.G.s."

"What?" Joe asked out loud. He hadn't expected an answer, and having gotten one it only raised more questions.

"I am Ship AI Mark II Serial Number 845G569P09K6 of the transport vessel Gilded Rose. For additional details please access ship records through your A.R.G.s."

"Okay that is going to get irritating really fast." Jen remarked. "What are A.R.G.s?"

"A.R.G. stands for Augmented Reality Glasses, and they enable their user to access available metadata on whatever they wish."

They searched their pockets for anything resembling glasses, then when they found nothing they searched the room they were in and finally found a couple pairs of strange looking goggles in a locker that had been inset into the wall. Putting them on brought up a list of options in their peripheral vision that they could access. It probably would have been difficult for anyone that hadn't already encountered a nearly identical style of augmented reality on the magitech side of Shard.

They were delighted to find out that they were co-owners of the ship they were on, and they had just docked at a station in search of work. So their current task was to look for cargo or passengers. The ship was a modified cargo vessel with a few weapon systems bolted on haphazardly, and was very far from being any sort of gilded anything. It was battered and old, and Jen would probably have her work cut out for her keeping it flying.

They explored their ship before doing anything else, but that took almost no time at all. The livable spaces were rather small overall, and while it could ship a reasonable amount of cargo, the majority of their available storage space was under vacuum. They did find a small armory with a couple pistols in it that were virtually identical to each other and clearly their starting weapons.

They strapped them on and headed for the airlock, eager to get started for real. The A.R.G.s made exploring the station something of a surreal experience. There were giant glowing advertisements drifting through the air around them, little tags coming off of people they passed that when selected offered them the person's public profile, businesses also had little tags, but theirs brought up menus and ratings.

Jen found something of a public bulletin board that had job postings on it for mercenaries in a submenu her A.R.G.s gave her access to. She picked a job they met the requirements for after consulting with Joe, and it brought them to a place that Joe could only describe as a bastard offspring between a dive bar, pawn shop, and illegal gambling den. He grinned when they finally met their client.

He was a slimy little weasel of a man, his scrawny build and furtive gaze absolutely screamed that he was up to no good. "You have a ship?"

"Of course we do, wouldn't have come here if we didn't." Joe responded.

"Good, good, and you aren't wanted anywhere? No reason for SDF or Fleet to stop you?" Joe shook his head and the man continued, leaning closer and talking in a low voice. "I have a shipment I need delivered discreetly if you catch my drift. No questions asked."

"No problem." Jen chimed in, clearly not wanting to be left out of their awesomely shady business deal.

"Excellent," he handed them a tablet. "Drop off location is on this, give me your berth number and I'll have the cargo sent over right away. The sooner it gets to its destination the better. Payment upon delivery."

As interesting as the station was, they were eager to get out there and wasted no time in getting back to their ship. Their client was true to his word and a nondescript man was waiting near their docking hatch with a small pallet of sealed containers. "This's your cargo, get it loaded before the bribe I gave security wears off." They opened the hatch and led the man to the much smaller storage room in the pressurized part of the ship. Joe made sure the man loaded the cargo and left without getting sticky fingers or any ideas while Jen fiddled with something in her A.R.G.s.

Not long after the man left and the hatch was resecured something clunked into the ship hard enough to jolt it and make him stumble. He ran into the common room where Jen was sitting seemingly unaffected and unconcerned. "What the hell was that?" He asked.

"Ah, well I went back to the job listings and found another cargo headed for the same station, and a third that has to go to the planet the station orbits. Three birds one stone. Come on! Go get this boat flying and make us some money so I have something to play with!"

She certainly didn't have to ask him twice. He went straight to the cockpit and sat in the pilot's chair. It was a nice padded chair with a helmet assembly attached to it that resembled his Bolt to a remarkable degree. As the helmet folded down over his head automatically he found himself speaking without intending to in a way that reminded him of a cutscene. "Flight this is the Gilded Rose seeking permission to depart."

"Permission granted Gilded Rose, pattern is clear for the next fifteen minutes."

The ship faded away and he was suddenly floating in space. He was the ship, and a thought disengaged the docking clamps. Another fired maneuvering thrusters and shifted them gently away from the station so they wouldn't damage it with their main engines. Once some instinct he hadn't had before informed him he was clear he fired up the mains and boosted away from the station. With a delighted laugh he opened them up, zipping away from the station at a breakneck pace.

Not that they could feel it through the inertial dampening. He altered course to head for the transit point. Their ship only had one option for FTL travel, and it required them to travel sublight to the spot in the system where they could fire up their Slipstream Drive. It also handled like an overweight, elderly, drunken horse, but Joe didn't care. With the interface it felt as though he were flying through space without any protection at all, he was free to travel the galaxy to his heart's content.

The euphoric rush was wearing off as they left the protective bubble of SDF space. It was a loosely defined area, essentially if something happened and a patrol happened to be nearby they would respond, but if not you were on your own. Which they weren't. Which is probably why something smashed into the side of the ship and set off horrible, blaring alarms.

Joe frantically pulled up a visual of the ship that had just shot them, cursing at himself for not paying attention to their sensors. It turned out to be another cargo vessel like their own, only with a lot of extra weaponry added to it at the expense of cargo capacity. He rolled the ship and dove perpendicular to the ecliptic plane, ducking and weaving in as many directions as he could manage while firing back at the ship with their rather pathetic weapons.

"What the hell are you doing up there?!" Jen shouted.

"Getting shot at by space pirates!" He shouted back with glee. "What are the game's salvage laws?!"

"Uh, hang on a sec." There was a minute of relative silence, the whine-crack of the railguns spitting rounds at the pirates and the scream of the overworked engines the only sounds he could hear. "Finders keepers against pirates! We file a claim and the footage of the attack and we can keep everything we get our hands on!"

The ship jolted hard again and the engines cut out. "That's good because I think we might need a new ship pretty soon!" He disengaged the chair and ran for the weapon locker. Without power from the engines there were no weapons or maneuvering, so it was time to fend off boarders. He stopped suddenly as he passed the storage room. "Hey Jen? How much do we care about that shady guy's delivery?"

"Why?"

"Because he has us transporting a bunch of guns and grenades! I've decided I care more about shooting pirates with awesome space guns than making a delivery!" He snatched up one of the rifles and inspected it. He found a button on the side and it hummed before going silent again and a little display lit up on the back with the number sixty on it. He grabbed a bunch of grenades and stuffed them into his pockets, then headed for the airlock the pirates were no doubt about to enter through with a massive grin. These pirates were about to go toe to toe with Shard's greatest assassin. In space!