CHAPTER 009: Return

Adam Rytman

Shuttle/Pontifex-A System

Long War

17 April 2547, 06:23

There was no need to hurry the landing. It was already evening - we lived here according to ‘standard’ days to avoid deregulating our biological cycle - when King came back to Cutlass. And, frankly, we all could use some sleep. Which, especially in my case, had to be done in a different universe than Long War.

So I said goodbye to everyone and logged out. My body remained in the game, in the state of a de facto unconsciousness. Then I caught some sleep and returned as early in the morning as I could. I had stuff to do (outside my home) but that could wait until we finished the mission to the Alum.

We left on our shuttle. Sarah as a pilot, me and King as the main strike team, and ten Choir paratroopers that were supposed to hold the entry point and then help us clear the ship from the hostiles.

I didn’t ask her about details, but Sarah… she seems to be in the game almost permanently. Weird. But she also seems to enjoy flying the shuttle so I will not complain. If anything, I plan to find her new things to fly (unless she is just doing this so she can be alone in the cockpit).

“...Any questions?” King finished his briefing. The shuttle cargo bay was refitted into a passenger one for the duration of the mission, so there were many passenger seats lined up beside the walls, and with a big gap in the middle that could be used to move around.

On the seats were the paratroopers, all of them tough looking people with the same ‘combat’ equipment we used during our first battle on the Alum. Armours weren’t a problem - the Cutlass had a small production module that assembled them as long as enough materials were around - but weapons were a much different thing. Because of that, we armed them with various types of MAWs, including rifles, shotguns and submachine guns. One carried an anti-tank rifle.

“So… no space bugs?” One paratrooper asked. A loud choir of groans followed, and a soldier sitting next to him gave him a solid swipe on his head. The soldier looked older, so I guess the local equivalent of corporal something.

Looks like morale is high - the fact we were casual about stuff did help a lot. And we have a local sci-fi fan onboard. Great.

Out of ten paratroopers accompanying us, nine were humans. More or less humans as they were - according to Nymphae - still homo sapiens. A wider array of genes in the far future and so on. One of them had - natural - deep blue hair. According to Nymphae, an aftereffect of the age of boundless genetic tinkering before the 17 July Compromise limited possibilities a lot. And before it was revised (a lot of time later) and pretty much every genetic tinkering was outright banned - ‘after some terrible things happened’.

She didn’t know what exactly. Ugh. I’m not sure if I want to know.

The tenth was an elf. Or a walf. Which was some grammatical atrocity created via a merger of words ‘white’ and ‘alf’. Which was the local equivalent of an elf. Prettier (almost to a feminine level, since even average humans looked good because of said genetic tinkering) and horizontally aligned pointy ears. Thankfully, the helmets were adaptable.

“Not on this mission. On next ones… who knows.” King shrugged. “I can promise you, that if we encounter space bugs you’ll be the first one we’ll send against them.” Soldiers chuckled. “Now, for those of you who can use magic - you probably noticed already that you cannot use it. Because of that…”

“Uhm, boss?” The walf I mentioned rose his hand. “I don’t want to interrupt you or anything, but…” He snapped his fingers and suddenly a small glowing ball of fire materialized above his hand. “I can use magic just like I always could.”

King looked at me, searching for answers and help. I looked at Nymphae, searching for answers and help. Nymphae had her jaw drop, allowing me for the first time to see her shocked face.

“Ehm… Nymphae?” I asked in my thoughts.

“I don’t know!” She answered, still with total shock on her face. “It shouldn’t be possible! Pretty much every resource on the planet is exactly the same as on already explored Magic Planets. So the magic should be the s… wait a second. It’s impossible for magic to exist in the first place, right?! But if it’s not the nanomachine based magic, then… no way, it has to be even more advanced technology. This would mean that the ‘Precursors’ from the Pontifex Star System aren’t the same group as the creators of Magic Planets. But then, what exactly…”

I muted her. I understood the implant’s UI enough to do that. Just in time to see the announcement that my Clue number for the End of Reason quest jumped to one. Not like it tells me much - sufficiently advanced technology is impossible to discern from magic. But at least it told us about the relation between ‘our’ Precursors and the ‘other’ Precursors.

“King asked me, I asked our AI and it… kinda went bluescreen.” I said aloud.

King sighed. “Well, it’s not very intelligent, so I guess it’s normal to end up like that.” Hiding the truth about Nymphae continues. And we really had to do that, especially judging from the fact how tense the others in the room went after I mentioned an AI... They already knew what that abbreviation means. “This way or another, don’t be heroes with it. We don’t want to lose anyone because they thought they could fireball a Numbers’ to death only to discover they are fully resistant to it. We’ll have time for tests later on.”

Atmosphere cleared again.

I rose from my seat, putting the prototype MAW rifle on my place.

Mark IV Prototype

Type: Anti-Tank Rifle(?)

Ammunition: 7mm AT Rounds/Experimental Choir Power Cell

Manufacturer: None [Experimental Model]

An experimental prototype of a MAW rifle created by the improvised R&D group from the Choir of the Righteous on the planet Pontifex A-3.

Based on pulse weapon technology, it uses electromagnet-equivalent to propel relatively small (when compared to older, chemical reaction based guns) bullets with great speed.

Can work in a vacuum. Requires both ammunition to be launched and a power source for electromagnets.

It looked like a long, and primitive tube to which someone welded a stock. Not very representative… I could only hope it works. Preferably well, since I was the one who would carry it around.

“Where are you going?” King asked me.

“I’ll ask Sarah how long will the trip take.”

***

Shuttle/Pontifex-A System

Long War

17 April 2547, 06:28

The cockpit this time was separated. There was a nano-liquid door that could be closed from the cockpit to avoid the pilot getting killed by decompression of the cargo bay. I walked through it.

Sarah was lying on the pilot’s seat. She wasn’t moving. After maybe a second I noticed that she was physically connected to the system. The connection was in ‘soft’ mode, judging from the colours on the cable connecting to the back of her head. Pilotage skills for the win.

The soft mode was somewhere in between of using the control rod and having a full brain-computer link. You could take in sensor data - literally seeing them in your head - but you were still in control of your body and you were using the control rod (plus a lot of buttons) to navigate. This setting improved the precision of manoeuvres (though not as much as a full connection) while causing significantly lesser strain on your nervous system.

I stood beside her for a second. She seemed to be calm. She looked almost as if she was sleeping (with particularly good dreams, judging from the faint smile on her face). Almost - I could notice her making minuscule moves with the hand she had on the control rod. The neural connection was keeping her awake, and she was piloting the shuttle manually.

I was about to ‘wake’ her up… when I understood that I almost caused a lot of injuries to the soldiers in the cargo bay. If I suddenly grab her or speak to her, she will panic. And the shuttle is in the manual mode. I don’t know how good the inertia dampeners on the shuttle are, but if she pulls aileron roll on us uncontrollably…

I quickly retreated from the cockpit.

I could see King eyeing me curiously from the cargo bay. Ugh.

“Nymphae, could you wake her up? Gently?” I asked her.

“You know I can just tell you how long will the trip take?”

… WHY HAVEN’T YOU JUST TOLD ME?!

“YOU DIDN’T ASK!”

Ugh. She did that on purpose, I'm certain.

“Alright, so… how long will it take?” After all, I seriously don’t feel like interrupting Sarah. That’s literally the first time I saw her smiling (even faintly), and if she feels fine piloting manually with a soft neural connection on, she should do that as long as she wants.

I mean, isn’t the whole point of this game to make players feel nice? For a while, at least. Before they return to the ‘Real World’.

“We are already finishing deceleration. We’ll reach the target within one minute.” The pixie informed me.

The weird thing about space travels in Long War was that the only limit to speed during travels within a star system was the lightspeed. Other than that there was no concept of maximum speed other than that. But there was also no air resistance that would slow you down on its own. You accelerated to 15 000 km/s? Then you would fly like that for the rest of the eternity unless you had a means of decelerating.

Because of that, when you planned to travel from point A to point B, you would spend half of it speeding up and half decelerating. Since there were ways of using gravity generators to prevent everything on-board being absolutely obliterated by high acceleration, the average acceleration speed achieved of spaceships was… epic.

As in “500g epic”. Which meant that ships accelerated and decelerated 500 times faster than object pulled by Earth’s gravity while being on a sea-level. Which gave you an astounding 4,9km/s… gained every second.

The effects of the gravity generator (used to dampen the effect on the passengers) being broken during the acceleration/deceleration weren’t pretty. Though it also makes me wonder how space battles look here since I didn’t have time to explore that part properly.

Well, at least I won’t have to wait for long, right?

***

TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System

Long War

17 April 2547, 06:31

“Gentlemen, welcome aboard the TCS Alum.” I informed the soldiers after we landed and entered the ship through the hatch. “Passport clearance to the left, duty-free shop with souvenirs to the right. Expected weather: rain of hellfire.”

I got a few chuckles in return. Not a bad achievement, especially since it wasn’t the best product of my sense of humour ever.

We quickly secured the first big room we encountered and left the paratroopers there. It was their first space boarding - according to Nymphae they were rare, with exception of search & rescue (with some search & destroy elements) on wrecks after the battle - so they had to get used to few things.

In the same time, I and King proudly marched forward, guided by the rainbow line that Nymphae projected into our eyesight through implants. He was armed in an assault rifle while I carried the prototype rifle - though I also had an assault rifle.

Needless to say, my faith in the Mark IV Prototype was limited. And so was the enemy presence.

We took a while to actually encounter an enemy. A lone Soldier Bot.

He fired at us when he hid behind a door frame.

“Alright, I’ll test the Mark IV.” He nodded and began laying a suppression fire.

If we encounter an Elite next, all the testing will be for nothing - if a modern MAW couldn’t pierce its defences… According to Nymphae, Sorcerers could maintain their shield-like ‘magic’ only in one direction, so the best idea for taking them down was to attack from several directions at once… or use explosives that could destroy them even if they stopped the round. It will be the best to test the Mark IV on the first occasion we got.

I made a step into the doorframe and directed the rifle at the cover behind which the Soldier hid (how expectedly) under King’s fire. When he stopped it, the Numbers’ bot immediately stood up to return fire.

I pulled the trigger.

Second later I screamed as I flew back and rammed into the wall behind.

YOU DIED!

Cause: Mark IV Prototype

You can respawn immediately or logout.

Warning, dying again within an hour will cause debilitating debuffs!

RESPAWN

LOGOUT

WHAT?!

Wait a second. The recoil. I got so used to the limited recoil of Corporation’s MAWs that I stood in a not very stable position. And even then, this thing… IT WAS TOO STRONG!!! What on Earth was that recoil?!

I clicked on the respawn button and appeared in the middle of the room garrisoned with the paratroopers.

They were pretty surprised, to say it mildly.

“Technological gimmick that makes me avoid certain death by making me reappear in a safe place.” I answered their unasked questions. “Precisely the reason we went on reconnaissance alone.”

They looked at each other for a second before visibly accepting this ragtag excuse of an explanation.

“What happened?” The walf was the one that spoke. I wasn’t exactly sure about local military ranks, but he looked like some sort of combat sorcerer to me. He was also the most outspoken of them all, though the other soldiers seemed quite talkative when we weren’t around.

I explained. He asked me for the rifle. I gave it to him… because why not?

He looked around it for a few seconds before using some magic to open a previously unseen… compartment? I couldn’t see it well.

“Aha!” He said triumphantly. “Looks like the eggheads on the planet were so pessimistic about the strength of enemy armours they set the gun to highest possible velocity setting.” What?! “And they probably didn’t test that properly. That’s why I seriously hate testing stuff. It always blows into your face. I’ll set it to ⅓, try it like that.”

“Oh.” He gave me the weapon back and… yep. There was some sort of microswitch hidden under a metal plate that could be easily bent and removed. “Thank you.”

He saluted me. “Try not to blow yourself up again, ok?”

I only nodded.

He certainly isn’t a simple paratrooper.

***

TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System

Long War

17 April 2547, 06:45

“So, you’re back.” As expected, King waited for me near the place where we fought.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “It turned out that some jerkass on the planet set the velocity up to eleven. How did it work?” We already established that it worked well on me. Now, what about the enemy?

“Define work.” KIIIING. Stop giving me the thoughtful pauses, pleeaaaseee. “The round you fired practically exploded the Soldier’s chest before penetrating three ten inch thick polymer nanocomposite walls. It lodged firmly in the fourth one.”

“What on Earth?!” He just nodded in an answer. ”I don’t know how much Choir pays their engineers but they should give them a raise. Holy fucking shit!” I added as that was when I saw the Soldiers’ body. His chest ceased to exist. Head and shoulders lay on the ground, a few meters from the lower body that ended around the waist.

“They are still ages before mainstream Humanity when it comes to shock absorption, targeting systems and a built-in computer in their rifles on which you can play Tetris in free time.” Nymphae added, this time speaking to both of us. “But I have to admit the firepower is… substantial. I think it’s the combination of a focus on initial velocity and the ammunition. The calibre is almost twice as big as the Truthseeker MAW’s standard round. They are also quite advanced in terms of used materials. It’s pretty much a kinetic energy penetrator, very primitive, but made mostly of mithril.”

…?!

“Mithril is one of the augmented nanometals from Magic Planets that are actually good enough to be used in modern weapon-development.” Nymphae specified. “Silver, relatively light and insanely tough, hence the name. You require very advanced technology to work it. It’s easier with ‘magic’, so it’s on the very verge of industrial capabilities of a Magic Planet inhabitants. But they probably have a limited supply.”

That’s actually good! “This means that the locals can produce ammunition that will be useful to us, even if in limited numbers. But… why didn’t…”

“I wasn’t sure if it was the mithril since they had a different name for it.” She interrupted me. ”The properties seemed similar, but this world fits none of the four typical subtypes of Magic Planets. Most of the materials are unique as well. So I didn’t tell you.”

I should probably ask her about the subtypes... but not now. The same with the walf, but that’s the question I should ask King.

“We should proceed to the Heart. We’ll have time to talk over things later on.” I said.

Enemy severely lacked coordination and acted extremely slowly. It took around a few hours to figure out I was here last time and track me to the other side of the ship. Another weird action of the Numbers’, according to Nymphae - they were much better normally. But we shouldn’t take too much time, regardless.

King and Nymphae nodded. Heh.

***

TCS Alum/Pontifex-A System

Long War

17 April 2547, 07:00

A small detachment of Soldiers guarded the Heart room. Curiously, they didn’t defend the Heart itself, but the room and corridor before it. Because of that, we managed (after a longer firefight that was win through our exploitation of their limited combat AI) to capture it without causing irreparable damage to Nymphae’s former house.

“...House that also was the hospital in which I was born. A prison where I was imprisoned. And a mental asylum where I was mentally lobotomized.” Nymphae informed me. And then rolled her eyes when she saw my face. “It’s in the past now, and while I don’t plan to let it happen again, I’m not particularly traumati… what the heck?”

I don’t like that.

“Nymphae?” I asked. A second later I noticed the reason.

Something was changed. Obviously, the Heart on an armed cargo vessel - more than two kilometres long - was much bigger than the one on a 150-metre long frigate. But it was not only bigger but also…

I think that Numbers’ made some changes. A lot of reddish crystallite formations, connected with something looking like cables to the preexisting machinery.

“What happened here?!” I asked.

“I don’t know… but I think I understand why I couldn’t access most systems.” Nymphae answered me and flew over to the nearest crystal. “They seem to have partially hacked the Heart. But… they seem to have achieved that by cultivating these crystals that then began physically replacing the electronic systems of the Heart.”

“Let me guess, another thing that Numbers’ never did before?” They seem to change a lot when the mysterious attacker wiped out the Corporation.

“Yes and no. They used similar ‘hacking’ technologies to unify scavenged parts in their ships. They are one of the closest things to shipbuilding equivalent of Frankenstein’s monster in known part of Milky Way Galaxy. But they never did it on such a scale. Besides, they didn’t even do that to connect vastly different systems. They knew enough about ‘mundane’ electronics to hack it the old way. So why…” She was deeply in thoughts for a while. “I think I can retake at least a part of the ship systems now that I have an uncorrupted host nearby. Give me a second.” I looked at King and he shrugged in an answer.

Well then, let’s wait. And hope that no Elite comes in.

“Hmm… I’ve got control over security. Normally I should be able to unleash security bots on the enemy or just have them sucked out by sudden depressurization, but I only have cameras and internal sensors.” So, mission accomplished. The first part, that is. “There are about… eighty Soldiers and Grenadiers left. Some Infantry Bots. And one Elite.” ...Dammit. “It’s a Botnet. In short - a command hub, that seems to be able to take total control over many Soldiers and… coordinate them. Much. About forty of enemies is under its control, and… they seem much tougher and more intelligent than average.”

Wonderful. “It’s not tough on its own?”

“No, it’s immobile and requires the controlled units to defend it. Hmm. I have a Plan B. You must get to the ship Armoury.” She was silent for a second. “Not what I hoped for, but that’s the only way for you to have any chance with the enemy. Also… wait, that’s weird.”

I really don’t like that word coming from her. Especially when she is so occupied with things happening that she forgets to animate her avatar.

“These crystals… they can also serve as hard drives. A lot of place. They are going far beyond yottabytes. It’s… almost filled.” I’m not sure I can even imagine how much data this means. Entire Long War central computing had one or two zettabytes top.

“Let me guess - a detailed navigational map for half of the Galaxy?” Would be nice.

“Ehm…” She went silent for a while. “It’s a single set of coordinates copied quadrillion times. Or at least I can’t find anything else, searching through will take a while.”

“Coordinates? How far away?” Seems like a potential place to visit ASAP. To maybe figure out what the heck happened to Numbers’.

“It’s… a star system surrounding a blue giant, three hundred and twenty-seven light years from Pontifex.” Blue giants were short living (relatively speaking) supermassive stars that could be dozens of times heavier than Sun, many times hotter and up to one hundred thousand times brighter. I knew that much. Had a short astronomy period back in high school.

“How long will it take to reach it?” That’s what was important right now.

“With our current crew skill level? Six months. At best.” Yeah. I noticed that the FTL drive here wasn’t the fastest. It would take about 10 years if one wanted to fly from one edge of Human Space to the other end. And that’s in case of your ship not being destroyed, plundered or conscripted during the voyage. Or just vanished forever in the Hyperspace.

Nymphae mentioned that when I asked her about the hyperdrive. Six months wasn’t a sensible timeframe.

“But… wait a second, I found something more.” Nymphae added. “There is a partial navigational data of the Pontifex system. Pointing to the Precursor’s Hypergate at the Pontifex A-6-VI. And a complicated, while Precursor in origin, set of code I believe to be a key to it.”

Why bother with simple FTL drive when you can just scatter a series of instant travel devices throughout your empire? Too bad they paired each with another one, and you could only travel between them. And that most of them were destroyed or blocked so you could only pass through with a special key.

“Why do I have the feeling that I know where that Hypergate leads to?” I commented. “Copy it. We’ll try to figure out what to do with it later on. Now… lead to the Armoury.”

Time to kill the first Numbers’ Elite in our career.