Battlestate

16:09 EDT

It really wasn’t going well.

“These guns fucking suck!” Mason yelled from behind us, venting his anger. “And when I collapse the shields on one ship, one of these assholes moves in front of it and shields it!”

Mason hadn’t been able to destroy a single ship, and the smaller ships were more than fast enough to keep up with us. While we weren’t doing any damage to them, that wasn’t true for them. An indicator in the top left of the viewscreen was showing that our shields were only at twenty-eight percent. The weapons on the enemy ships weren’t any better than ours were, but it was five versus one and the steady stream of fire was slowly draining our shields.

I took a look at the counter in the top right and cursed under my breath.

00:19:49

“Fuck this! I’m going to go get suited up,” Mason shouted as I heard him get up.

“What? What for?” Ben asked.

“Typically when people lie in wait for someone to fall into their trap, it’s to capture their ship, not destroy it,” Mason explained. “As soon as the shields are down, they’re going to disable the engines and attempt to board us. I want to be ready when that happens.”

After he finished talking, I heard his heavy footfalls get quieter and quieter as he ran to the small armory.

“Transfer all power from the weapons to the shields and then go get suited up as well,” I told Ben.

“Done. What about you?”

I looked up at the indicator in the top left and saw that our shields had only risen from twenty-eight percent up to thirty-four percent. That wouldn’t buy us more than a few minutes, at best, now that Mason wasn’t firing back.

“I can’t exactly evade some of this fire if I’m not at the controls. Come back when you get suited up and take over for me so I can do the same.”

As he ran to get geared us as well, I returned my focus to the task at hand; dodging as many energy beams as possible. It was either a lot harder than I thought it would be, or the five chasing us were quite experienced. It could be that they had all played this game a ton, or all five were active in the navy. Either way, very few of the sustained beams went sailing past our ship, the vast majority of them taxing our shield briefly before winking out as they recharged or cooled down.

I dodged as much as I could over the next three or four minutes, watching the shield drop almost seven percent in that time. At the rate the shields were falling, I knew we would be cutting it very close. I also knew, without a doubt, that the five pursuers knew that as well.

I heard footsteps growing closer, and a moment later Ben was standing beside me, clad in armor that was not unlike the armor we wore in the real world. It wasn’t one-size fits all like our armor was, since that armor required mana to resize it, but luckily they had a variety of different sizes in stock. Including armor for Issurons that had a hole for their tail to stick through.

“So what do I do?” he asked.

“It’s pretty intuitive,” I replied while I continued to dodge as many beams as I could. “Watch me for like thirty seconds and you should get the jist of it.”

As he watched, I went through a bunch of different movements, making sure that he had at least some grasp of how everything worked. “You’ve played some games where you’ve had to play aircraft so you know how things work, for the most part. Just don’t touch the yaw controls or the pitch controls and we should be fine.”

“Got it. I think,” he said.

Standing up while holding onto the controls, I moved over to the side and allowed him to take a seat. As soon as he was seated and his hands were on the controls, I let go. “If you have any problems, shout and I’ll run back. Be back in a few minutes.”

I sprinted to the rear of the ship where the armory was located, right next to the cargo bay. As I got there, I saw Mason sitting down with the tablet in his hands.

“What are you doing?” I asked as I moved over to where my armor was stored and began pulling it all out.

“Checking to see where the likely breach points are,” he answered. “There are only two entrances which are the main hatch and the cargo bay. Neither of those are viable access points, so they’ll probably latch on with all five ships at various locations and use shaped charges. They’ll want to limit the amount of damage done to the ship, so that limits where they can breach the ship to gain entry.”

I began putting on the lower half of the suit while looking over to him. “So what are you thinking?”

“I’ve found a few places on top of the ship that they could punch through without doing any major damage. One of them is right over the galley, while the other is over the cargo bay. Besides that, there are only four more options that I can see that are spread out all over the ship. One of them is on the starboard side, pretty much directly opposite of the hatch, while the other three are all under the ship; one in the cargo bay, one near our quarters and the other is in the lavatory. There is really no way to know where they’re going to come from, and it makes it extremely difficult to deal with, especially since neither you or Ben have any actual experience with firearms.”

I could agree with that. I hadn’t wanted to play either of the two FPS games my mom showed us because I would likely perform very poorly and dying would probably be quite unpleasant. It figures that we’d get in a firefight within hours of playing this game.

“And that’s not even taking into account the possibility that they use gas,” Mason said, causing me to freeze as I was in the process of putting on the upper portion of the armor.

“Gas?”

“It may not be something lethal, in fact I would bet that it would be some sort of sleep agent, but these suits have a limited supply of air. They could just punch through in one area and then flood the ship with the gas to eventually knock all of us out. We wouldn’t be able to purge it either, because then we wouldn’t have any air left to breathe.”

“What do you mean we wouldn’t have any air left to breathe?”

He gave me a look. “You’re telling me that you’re the owner of one of, if not the most advanced ships in the universe and you don’t know how the life support works on it?”

“I didn’t think to ask,” I shrugged.

“It may be different on other ships, but this one uses a combination of air scrubbers and tanks to supply breathable air for a long duration. If we need to purge the toxins then that uses up a sizable portion of our air. If they do it once we can probably deal with it, but any more than that and we probably won’t have anything left to breathe.”

I grimaced at the thought of that. It seemed like the only option would be to fend them off, but if they did decide to use gas, then there would be absolutely nothing we could do. By then, our engines will have been disabled meaning that we wouldn’t be able to jump to hyperspace until they were repaired. Give us a few days to familiarize ourselves with the ship and read through the manual and we might be able to fix it, but I had little to no hope of us being able to do that right now.

I finished suiting up and then booked it to the bridge. Ben began getting up before I even got there, but he held on to the controls until I could take over.

“How many shots do you think we can take without the shields?” I asked Ben as I tried to keep us out of the line of fire.

“I have absolutely no idea. Maybe two or three, but if we take too many hits then something is bound to get broken. Why? What do you have in mind?”

“Start transferring power from all non-essential systems and life support to the inertial dampeners.”

“Uhh, we need life support to breathe,” he said.

“It’ll only be for a few minutes, at most, and hopefully it will buy us the time we need to be able to jump back into hyperspace.”

I saw him nod out of the corner of my eye and then he began typing on the console in front of him. A moment later, he looked back up. “Done, though I don’t know how much power the inertial dampeners are meant to be able to take.”

“Well, they’re going to have to take quite a bit more. On my mark, drop the shields and transfer the remaining power to the inertial dampeners.”

“Give me a moment. I can do it with a push of a button if I set things up beforehand.”

I nodded and continued my job while I waited, glancing up at the top left and the top right to check what the shields were at, and how much time we had left until we could jump. The shields were at fourteen percent and we had about six minutes to go before we could safely enter hyperspace.

“Done,” Ben called out from beside me.

“Alright, both of you get buckled in. This isn’t going to be pleasant, especially not for me,” I said as I started securing myself while trying to dodge a few more hits.

“Ready!”

“Me too!”

“Alright, on mark! Three! Two! One! Mark!”

On mark, I pulled back on the throttle, cutting all forward thrust while simultaneously flipping the ship end over end until we were facing our pursuers. They were already getting closer, though they all appeared to try to dodge, expecting us to counter attack. As soon as I saw our shields fall, I immediately pushed the throttle forward, burning at maximum speed to decelerate.

Even with all the extra power that we were feeding into the inertial dampeners, the force of us slowing down so quickly pushed all of us back into our seats and shook the entire ship. Having originated on a low gravity planet, I was sure that the g-forces acting on my body were doing some seriously bad things. If it got us out of this, and my character survived, then it would be well worth it.

The enemy ships had rapidly overshot us, and if we could look back we would probably see all of them flipping end over end to perform the same maneuver. What I was counting on was them having worse inertial dampeners and the fact that it would take them time to transfer power to be able to pull it off.

I breathed a sigh of relief just as a bout of nausea hit me. Turning my head to the side, I regurgitated all of the food that I had made a few hours earlier. When I was done emptying my stomach contents, everything went dark.

*****

It got bright again a moment later, and that was when I realized that I was back in the game lobby. Bazuth appeared immediately afterward, as did some furniture to sit on.

“Is my character dead?” I asked him.

“No, though there was quite a bit of internal damage from the maneuver you pulled. Your character will be incapacitated while your friends attempt to get you some help.”

“It worked, then?”

“It should, though it is too early to tell. The game put you here a few seconds after your character went unconscious. I will be able to tell you for sure in a few minutes.”

“I see. How did those players know to wait for us there? Actually, were they even players?”

“I can’t answer your first question, I apologize. You’ll have to figure that out on your own, if your character survives. I can confirm that they were players, however.”

There were only really two explanations I could come up with as to why a group of players would be waiting for us at that exact spot. It was a straight shot from Othora-4 to Zecciea, and it was probably well known that beginner ships require downtime between hyperspace to prevent engine damage. It could have been that they calculated the midway point between the two stations and decided to stake it out.

The second explanation actually tied into the first one, and that was that the group of pirates had some inside information. Whether that was from the company that offered the job, or someone that just found out about it, I wasn’t sure, and I wouldn’t know how to go about investigating it. With that information, they could just wait for us to appear along a certain stretch of space, certain that we would show up, eventually.

“So this is what happens when your character gets injured?”

“It depends on the severity of the injury. A player is always returned to the lobby when they are knocked unconscious or killed. In the latter case, that player’s character will cease to exist, as will any progress they’ve made up to that point. Any equipment on your character or in your inventory will also be deleted, though anything you have stored on your ship or in your guild’s base will remain accessible when you create a new character.”

“Huh,” I replied, unaware that the game was hardcore, to an extent. “So how do guild bases work?”

“There are three ways to go about creating a base, though keep in mind that each gets progressively more expensive,” he said as a screen appeared behind him showing a large open piece of land, made up largely of tall grasses. As he continued speaking, the scene began to change as the land was developed. “The cheapest way to create a base is to purchase a plot of land on a habitable planet. This can vary wildly in price, however, depending on if you want to go with a pre-built base or build one of your own. The downside to choosing to build a base on a planet is that large ships are not able to land, and you have to deal with the government of the planet you choose.

The scene changed, this time depicting a massive space station that looked heavily fortified with many large cannons spread about. Around it were ships of various sizes, as well as some that flew inside the behemoth.

“The starbase is the second option, and is considered by most to be the best one. Starbases are mobile with fierce defenses that make them very hard to attack. They start out relatively small, but they can be upgraded over time to look similar to the one behind me,” he explained as the large base disappeared and a much smaller one replaced it.

It started off as a central sphere with six identical cylindrical columns. Oriented as it was, one column was directly on top and another was on the bottom. The other four were spread out at ninety degree increments around the central sphere. As time went on, many disk-like objects were fitted onto the columns and locked in place. Some of the disks varied in size and seemed to have different uses. There was even one disk fitted onto the end of one of the columns which was literally just a large block of engines.

“The last, and most expensive, is to build inside of a hollowed out asteroid, or build on a dead world,” he said, the screen splitting into two to show both of them.

The depicted asteroid was similar to the space station, but was truly massive with a few openings large enough for even the largest ships to fly into. Wrapped around its surface were what looked like thick cables which were probably there to help keep the large rock intact. Spread haphazardly around its surface were also an incredible amount of cannons in various sizes.

The other screen showed a similar scene, though the majority of the building was on the surface of the rocky planet. There were many large ships landed on the surface of the planet, as well as a few that flew into large hangers built just below the surface. As far as defenses, it seemed like planets were the way to go. Dotted all around the planet were what looked like two types of guns. The first was clearly a mass driver and the other was some sort of anti-aircraft gun. I couldn’t tell if they were railguns or energy weapons, but they were clearly meant to shoot down fighters and lightly armored craft.

On top of that, there was a network of satellites that orbited the planet. They weren’t any bigger than the cargo ship we purchased, but they didn’t need to be. They were pretty much flying guns, with a small engine on the back, likely for repositioning, as well as a half-sphere on the side that was probably the generator to power the thing.

“You can see why they are the most expensive option. You can build anyway you like, but it often requires a very large guild to make a base on an asteroid or on a dead world like the one behind me. This is because bases on habitable worlds can be built using construction companies, and the rings are mass-produced. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to hire a construction company to build a base somewhere without atmosphere, so the work usually has to be done by the guild itself.”

I wasn’t very interested in the first of the three options, but the other two were pretty interesting. And not just in the game, either. It made me wonder how long it would take until Abi would be able match one of the space stations in size.

I saw Bazuth look over to the side for a moment before looking back to me. “Ah. It seems that your friends were able to escape, after all. It took some time for your friend to figure out how to take the ship into hyperspace, but they are now safely on their way to Zecciea.”

Now that was a relief.

“Can you let them know that I’m sitting in the lobby? If you haven’t already, that is.”

“I have already done so,” he nodded. “One of them will log out of the game as soon as there is an opportune time to do so. They are currently in the process of making sure your character is stable.”

I nodded and he continued answering my questions. Both Ben and Mason appeared about twenty minutes later, with Mason scooping me up in a bear hug while Ben immediately created a screen and began tapping on it.

“Nicely done, man,” Mason said when he let me go.

“Thanks. It was the only thing I could think of to get us out of that situation. How are your characters holding up?”

“We’re both fine. It seems that our bodies are quite a bit more durable than your own.”

“That and the fact that our suits are designed to prevent us from losing consciousness,” Ben said as he joined us. “If we hadn’t been wearing them then we would probably be dead. You definitely would be with the g’s we were pulling.”

“How is the damage to my character’s body?”

“It’s not great,” Ben replied. “We put you inside of the medical pod, though it’s a pretty basic one and can’t do more than keep you alive until we can get you to a hospital. The scanner said that you had some minor internal lacerations from the vibrations combined with the g-forces, but the big thing is that your brain was compressed, causing some tissue damage. I’m pretty sure that’s why you threw up before losing consciousness.”

“I thought you said the suits were designed to prevent us from losing consciousness.”

“From lack of blood flow to the brain, yes, but you didn’t lose consciousness from that. All a g-suit does is prevent blood from rushing to your lower body using inflatable bladders, acting almost like a tourniquet.”

“Oh,” I replied.

“By the way, you should set a task for your character unless you just want him to stand there, Mason.” Ben said.

“Oh yeah. How do I do that again?” he asked.

Ben ran him through the process and then we logged out of Battlestate so we could check out another game while we waited. We ended up selecting Everus Online, creating characters and then just fooling around until it was time for Ben and Mason to head back, both to get my character some help and deliver the cargo. We really needed those extra thousand credits.

It took an extra hour of in-game time before my character regained consciousness and I could log back in, but I was still stuck in the much more advanced med chamber until it finished doing it’s job. Ben had told the doctor what had happened to me, so I received a stern talking to before she would let me leave.

Soon after that, Ben and I were taking the tram to where our ship was docked while the cargo was unloaded. They were actually done by the time we arrived, and we just barely managed to get Mason’s attention so he would stop raising the ramp, allowing us to board.

“Good timing,” he said as we jogged up the ramp. “How’s the head?”

“I’ve got a mean headache, but the doctor said that it should subside over the next few days. I’ll need to take some good old fashioned pills for the pain, in the meantime,” I said, holding up the small canister.

“Cool. Anyways, we’re now four thousand credits richer. Can we get any upgrades with that?” he asked, directing the question to Ben.

“Wait, four thousand credits? Where did the other thousand come from?”

“I guess the guy really needed whatever was in those crates quickly, so he tipped us an extra thousand credits.”

“I’m not sure what we can get for four thousand credits, but I’ll take a look momentarily. We’ll also need to stop and get some crates to hold any ore we’re able to gather, assuming that’s still the plan?”

“I don’t see why it wouldn’t be, we haven’t really lost any time. We started at around 14:40, and we’ve been in-game for what, ten and a half or eleven hours? That’s only two and a half hours or so of real time, if not a little bit more. How far away is that asteroid field you were talking about, anyways?”

“Not far, only about five hours or so by hyperspace.”

I leaned over towards Mason and partially covered my mouth, “Not far, he says.”

He copied the motion. “Yeah, how many trillions or quadrillions of kilometers is that?”

“You know what I mean,” Ben laughed.

It turned out that all of the upgrades we wanted were out of our price range, though one good trip to the asteroid field would probably give us more than enough to get at least one upgrade. We definitely wanted to upgrade the weapons first, as we probably would have been able to deal with the pirates with more powerful weapons.

It was a rather minor upgrade, as all we had to do was buy higher quality focusing crystals and just swap them out. If the documentation on them was accurate, then our beam weapons would be twice as powerful, with a slightly longer cooldown period as the heatsinks did their job. The icing on the cake was that the power needed to fire would actually drop by approximately ten percent. It wasn’t a large amount, but every little bit of power we could squeeze out would be very helpful in a prolonged engagement.

The crates that we acquired were rather cheap at a measly ten credits a piece, but we had to put them together ourselves. Luckily they were rather light which made them easy to work with, and they didn’t require any tools. They slid together, for the most part, and a couple of pins in key spots kept them from falling apart. As soon as one crate was full, all we would need to do is slide the top on and then slide the pins in to secure it.

After I set a course and took us into hyperspace, Mason and I spent a half hour or so putting together six of the thousand cubic foot crates. We did purchase more than that, but we didn’t quite have enough space in the cargo bay to fit them.

While we were doing that, Ben was reading anything he could find on piloting a ship. Our plan was for Mason to pilot the mining pod while Ben maneuvered the ship around, avoiding any rogue asteroids but keeping the ship close enough to reduce Mason’s travel time. My job would be to stay in the cargo bay and transfer the ore into the crates, though that would take some doing.

As soon as we got done assembling the crates, I retreated to my quarters with one of the spare tablets. All of us would be studying over the next four-plus hours, but I needed some quiet while I practiced.

At the same time that we bought our weapons and armor, I also bought a case containing one hundred small balls that reminded me of the balls used in a ball bearing. I had initially wondered why a place selling weapons would be selling them, but that was before the owner of the store demonstrated them for me.

Like myself, he was also a Straesse, though he was one who had control over his abilities, telekinesis being one of them. He took us to the back of the store where there was a firing range and then took one of the balls out of a pouch he wore around his waist. Placing the ball in his hand, we watched as it rose in the air. After telling us to watch down range, there was one loud crack followed immediately by a second as a marble-sized hole appeared in the sheet of metal that protected the back wall.

He did it again, but this time he took out six of the balls and hovered each of them over his hand. One by one, he sent them down range, making us laugh as he made a happy face using the very first ball as the eye and filling out the other eye and the mouth. He hovered a few more balls around his hand as he explained that it was a good way for beginners to practice using telekinesis and work on their control.

That’s what I would be working on while we were on our way to the asteroid field. I had a sort of how-to guide on how to do it on the tablet, and I read through it, making sure I didn’t miss anything, before opening up the box and retrieving one of the metal balls. Placing it in my palm, I closed my eyes and imagined the ball rising off my hand.

It took some time, but eventually I couldn’t feel the weight of the ball in my palm any longer. Everytime I would open my eyes, however, it would drop back down, frustrating me to no end. It got to the point where I could easily sense the ball and move it around objects while my eyes were closed, but as soon as I opened them, I would cease to be able to do it.

My plan had been to turn off the artificial gravity on the ship and then use my telekinesis to move the chunks of ore into the crates we had ready. That was looking less and less of a possibility, unless I kept my eyes closed the entire time I did it. Even then, I didn’t know if I would be able to move such large objects around, even in the weightlessness of space.

By the time we finally arrived at the asteroid field, I still hadn’t got a handle on it while my eyes were open, meaning that we could still load the ore by turning off the artificial gravity, but we’d need to do it a different way. There were two ways I could think of on how to do it. The first would be for Mason to use the clawed hand to drag around one of the crates with him and fill it directly before pushing the crate in the direction of the ship. From there, Ben would be able to position the ship so the crate would fly right into the cargo bay where I could secure it.

The second way to do it would be to position the crate on its side while it’s still in the ship, and secure it that way. Whenever Mason found a nice bit of ore, then he could push it in the direction of the ship and Ben would ‘catch it’ with the crate by moving the ship around. Neither option was perfect, but unless I could move chunks of ore around using telekinesis, then those were the only other options.

Actually, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there might be a third option available for us. It would just require a bit of preparation beforehand. After leaving my quarters, I went down to the cargo bay where Mason was playing with the mining pod and had him join Ben and I on the bridge. Once we were all there, I filled them in on my progress and laid out another option for us.

“So lemme get this straight. You want to dismantle all but one of the crates we put together to make more room?” Mason asked.

“Yup,” I answered.

“And then you want me to go out there and find a rock with a good amount of ore and cut it down so it will fit in the cargo bay before dragging it back?”

“Mhmm.”

“And then you want to break it down inside of the ship so we can easily move it into the crate before throwing out all the garbage, putting together another crate, and then repeating the process?”

“You got it,” I nodded.

“Fuck it, I’m down,” Mason replied. “As long as I get to try out the mining pod.”

We got started as soon as our characters had some food in their bellies, it having been over twelve hours since we’d last eaten. Once we were all suited up, I had Ben stop the ship about a kilometer away from the edge of the asteroid field before rotating the ship around so the rear of the ship was facing it. When Mason was secure in the mining pod and I was ready, Ben purged all of the air from the cargo bay and opened up the ramp so Mason could exit the ship, but not before turning off the artificial gravity.

It didn’t take long at all before Mason was pulling back a sizable asteroid, actually having to use his drill arm to shave it down a bit so it would fit through the door. Once it was in, however, we quickly got to work. There was a highly advanced mineral scanner built into the mining pod, which allowed Mason to pinpoint the valuable ore we were looking for. Anything good would immediately be tossed inside of the crate, while the trash would be ejected out of the back of the ship.

It worked rather well and we filled the first crate within an hour, with about thirty percent of the original asteroid remaining. After putting the lid on the crate and pushing it to the back of the cargo bay, we took a quick break to assemble the next crate before getting back to work.

“What was that ore, by the way? I want to make sure that we don’t mix anything up.”

“Tungsten,” he replied. “Ben gave me the pricing and tungsten is going for about twelve hundred credits a ton. I don’t know how much we loaded, but there should be a good amount of ore there.”

Nodding, I let him get back to work breaking up the asteroid. I didn’t have anything to do, really, besides redirect the odd piece of ore into the crate if it missed. That was fine, though, as I used the time to work on my telekinesis, trying to get to the point that I could use it with my eyes open.

“Alright, I’m going back out to find another one,” he said over the radio before turning and activating the small engines on the back.”

“Got it. Make sure that you don’t get another massive rock, find just enough to top off the second crate. I’d rather go with some variety than load up a bunch of tungsten. You know the pricing. Find something that will make us some serious money.”

“Will do.”

Looking around the cargo bay, it was an absolute mess with chunks of rock floating around, as well as a large amount of dust. Fortunately, there was an easy way to deal with that. I secured the second crate before radioing Ben. “Ben, throttle forward for a few seconds and then use the attitude controls to move us starboard. I just want to get all the debris out of the cargo bay.”

“Doing that now.”

The engines flared up briefly and all the loose rocks and dust went with it, instantly cleaning up the cargo bay. I had to move over and stop some of the ore chunks from floating out, but other than that it was a good way to deal with the trash. Next time I would just have to place the lid on top and hold it down while he relocated the ship.

Mason was back just as quickly, this time pulling an asteroid that was about half the size of the first one. It took even less time breaking down the second asteroid as he got used to working the mining pod, and he soon went out to find something valuable. The search was longer, taking him a solid thirty minutes to find something worthwhile, with Ben following him on a parallel trajectory to cut down the travel time. Eventually he found something that would make us some solid credits, and would allow us to upgrade our ship a decent bit.

“Platinum, baby!” Mason cheered as he got close with the next asteroid.

It was about three quarters the size of the second asteroid, so we definitely wouldn’t be able to fill even one crate, but it was a nice start nonetheless.

“What’s platinum going for, anyways?”

“Well, it’s not worth nearly as much here as it on Earth in the real world, but still quite a bit. Something like sixteen thousand four hundred credits per ton.”

“What the hell? Why didn’t you look for platinum first?”

“Hey, we didn’t really come in with a plan, and platinum wasn’t easy to find. Hell, finding uranium and plutonium were both easier to find than this thing!”

“Let’s get started on breaking down so you can find some more, then!”

Though it took longer to find than the tungsten did, it also broke down a hell of a lot faster. Whether that was because there was so little waste or because it is a softer material, I don’t know, but Mason was back out there looking for another one about twenty minutes later.

“Hey, Ben, is there any way to know how much ore we’ve gathered?”

“Not accurately,” he answered. “It’s not pure, so the best you could do is get the weight of something like a cubic foot of ore and then multiply it by a thousand to get the total volume of one of the crates. Even then, there will be a bunch of air pockets that will decrease the accuracy. I can run some numbers, if you like.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. I was just curious.”

We filled up the six originally planned crates and discovered that we had just barely enough room to stack the crates one on top of each other. With the artificial gravity active it would have been impossible, but it was incredibly easy with it off. Mason used his clawed hand and simply lifted up the crate and pushed it on top. Once it was in the correct spot, I climbed on top and threw over the tether to tie it down.

Once we found that out, we assembled another crate and got back to work. Up to that point, we had gathered two crates of tungsten, one of platinum, and another three of titanium. The going price for titanium was about half the price of tungsten, but it was incredibly easy to find and we were working with somewhat limited time.

“Ben, you wanna check what niobium is going for?” Mason’s voice came over the radio.

“Sure, gimme a sec,” Ben answered.

“Hmm.. I’d never heard about it, but it’s going for six hundred sixty credits per ton. Apparently it’s used in creating heat-resistant alloys. Might be worth bringing it back if you’ve found a decent amount.”

“Be back momentarily.”

The asteroid containing niobium he brought back was roughly double the size of the first tungsten asteroid, and, from a distance, looked remarkably like gold. He had to hold it with his clawed hand as he slowly drilled it in half. When it broke in two, he gave the free-floating half a small nudge to send it away from the ship, and then pulled the other one inside of the ship.

It seemed like niobium was rather sparse in the asteroid he brought back, as we barely filled up a single crate after he broke up the entire asteroid. Deciding to ignore any further asteroids containing niobium, he headed back out.

“I need another price check, Ben. What’s tantalum going for?”

“An even two thousand credits a ton. It’s another metal that is used in alloys and electronics.”

“Well, I’ve found a small asteroid with a very high concentration of the ore. I’ll check around and see if I can find another one.”

There ended up being another one nearby, and he dragged both of them back with him. Both fit in the cargo bay at the same time, so he broke one down before getting started on the other. Just as he was ready to go out on another run, Ben’s voice came over the radio.

“Multiple contacts! I’m reading two Awaga-class cargo ships and eight Sabre-class frigates! They’ve powered shields and weapons and are scanning us!”

“Activate shields and start closing the ramp! As soon as it’s closed, re-activate the artificial gravity and start pressurizing the cargo bay!”

I had already put the lid on top of the crate, so all I needed to do was slide in the pins and then throw the tether over it so I could tie it down. Mason was doing the same, though he was climbing out of the mining pod so he could secure it to the floor. I couldn’t hear the fresh air entering the cargo bay as I worked, but the light over the door turned from red to green, signifying that it was safe to breathe.

“Status!”

“Four of the frigates just broke off and are heading towards us! The remaining four have taken up defensive positions around the two cargo ships!”

“I’ll be up there in a minute, turn and burn!”

“Turning and burning!” he answered as Mason and I were thrown off balance by the sudden movement.

After verifying that everything was secure, both of us ran over to the hatch and opened it. I began running towards the bridge, while Mason stayed back to close the hatch behind us. Hearing me coming, Ben activated the autopilot before taking his own seat.

I was fine with the ship going in a straight line as the enemy ships weren’t within firing range yet, which gave me time to set in the return course. As soon as it was set, I turned the ship in the direction we needed to go and jumped us into hyperspace. It wasn’t a moment too soon, either, as just before we jumped the two leading ships fired off a blue-tinged energy weapon of some sort.

It seemed like I was taking a lot of sighs of relief today.

“Did you get a reading on what they were firing at us?” I asked, turning to look over to Ben after I took my helmet off.

He typed for a few seconds on his console and then turned to me and nodded. “They had ion cannons. They would have quickly depleted our shields and hits against the hull would’ve drained our power, allowing them to easily disable our ship.”

“Man, this game is stressful. Hopefully we’ll be able to upgrade the ship a bunch, or upgrade to a brand new one,” Mason said from behind me.

“That crate full of platinum should net us a very nice payday all by itself,” Ben said. “If we have enough, then I think that we should definitely trade this thing in for a cruiser.”

“Why a cruiser? Won’t something that big require a large crew?”

“Not necessarily. A large part of everything could be automated, though that would probably cost extra. While you guys were loading the cargo, I was doing some reading. Apparently we can hire computer-controlled crew members to help man the ship. The AI in the game is pretty sophisticated, so much so that it is pretty hard to tell a player apart from an AI.”

“Or we could just pester the twins, your sisters and Tessa to play with us, Jonathan,” Mason said. “That would give us another six crew members to work with. Surely that would be enough?”

“It all depends on what type of weapons are on the ship we get,” Ben answered. “If we get a ship that fires physical projectiles, then we’ll need a bunch of people just to reload them and make things run smoothly. If we go with energy weapons or torpedoes, then those people aren’t really necessary. Besides that, we would need people in the engine room and other engineering areas. Manning a ship isn’t a simple thing.”

“Well, we’ve got time to think about it. We can always save our money and make a decision later.”

In total, our mining excursion lasted around eighteen hours, which was only four and a half hours in real time. Those sixteen hours in the game were absolutely worth it, though. By the time we got back to Zecciea and unloaded the cargo, we were over one hundred eighty thousand credits richer. That was more than enough to upgrade our cargo ship, though it wouldn’t be enough for even the most basic cruiser. We would need another fifty thousand credits, minimum, to get one. And that was if we traded in our cargo ship.

The girls would get us about thirty thousand credits if they all decided to join us, so perhaps we would see if they wanted to try out the game. Either way, we would definitely need to take some jobs or do another mining run. If we did the latter, then it would definitely be worth it to upgrade our engines and shields before going back out.

There weren’t any worthwhile jobs available, however, so after hitting up the bank to deposit the majority of our earnings, we rented a berth and logged out of the game. There weren’t any important tasks to set for our characters, so we just set them to defend the ship while we were gone, just in case someone broke into our berth and tried to steal our ship.

My stomach growled as soon as the pod opened, which made sense because we had played for almost eight hours straight. I looked around, seeing that all the pods around us were open, signifying that my mom, sisters and friends had likely already gone for dinner. I had wondered how we were going to get back to the base, but I noticed the two guards standing nearby. Funnily enough, it was Zogyr and Zaszi.

“Hey, guys!” I said as I got out of the pod and walked over to them.

“Boss,” they both nodded.

“Your mom said that you three were playing Battlestate. How’d you like it?” Zazsi asked.

“It was pretty cool. Got into a battle like an hour in, did a job and got some mining in before we decided to call it for the night. We’re hoping to get the girls involved so we can upgrade up to a cruiser.”

“Sounds eventful. What type of ship did you decide to start off with?”

“An Agawa-class cargo ship. We didn’t know what we wanted to do, so we picked something that would allow us to do a bit of everything. The shields were pretty good on it, but I didn’t realize that the weapons were so bad. We just barely managed to escape five pursuers before they dropped our shields, though I had to pull a pretty risky maneuver to do it.”

“What he means to say is that he ramped up the inertial dampeners and rotated the ship around so he could suddenly slow us down. Ben and I were no worse for wear from the g-forces involved, but he wasn’t so lucky. We had to put him in a medical pod and get him to a hospital before he died.”

“Picked a low gravity race, did ya?” Zogyr asked.

I nodded. “A Straesse. Apparently they’re one of the races in a newly-explored area of space on the other side of the galaxy. A low gravity species that have some pretty impressive mental abilities.”

“I’ve heard of them,” Zogyr said. “An interesting choice.”

After a few more minutes of chatting, and a loud growl from Mason’s stomach, Zaszi opened up a portal back to the base. All of us quickly made our way to the cafeteria and got in line for some dinner before heading over and joining everyone. After eating and chatting for an hour or so, all of us head to bed.

One thing was for certain, and that was that I was pretty excited for our training to begin tomorrow.