In Search of the Uldans, page 17
part #2 of Galactogon Series
“Goddamn you, Surgeon, what the hell do you need to shoot your damn rockets for again? You’ll always have a chance to shut us in! They won’t reach us anyway.”
I ignored the marine, not understanding why nothing was happening. I pushed the button a couple more times.
“Engineer, why isn’t the rocket arty working?” The snake had promised me that either I would explode or the enemy would. But everyone was alive.
“I warned you: It’s unreliable, unfinished. You shouldn’t have used it to begin with. Anyway, pursuant to game rules clause 335.3, this weapon is being disabled due to upsetting the game balance. Thank you for taking part in testing a prototype, your costs for the revision and modernization of the Fire Flower Personal Rocket Artillery will be reimbursed. We wish you a pleasant game.”
“I see. Okay. Get back to the repairs. Over and out,” I said, frustrated.
I can’t believe they took my toy away! Oh you bastard developers. They popped in and quickly cleaned everything up, covering their asses. It’s clear as day that they had designed the arty to be used in open space, and didn’t consider that the specially gifted might employ it during a boarding operation. Now they had deleted the item from the weapons database.
I am not malicious, naturally, but I like to keep things formal and exact damages when damages are due. The lingering Zatrathi allowed me time to open a feedback form and file a complaint about “interference with the game process by the developers.” I can’t just let them mess with me like that unchallenged. So… “Changing battle conditions affected the balance of power. We were faced with a huge enemy army and found ourselves at an immense disadvantage. It was impossible to hold our lines, so I resorted to a weapon that I had received legitimately in the course of normal gameplay. I consider its confiscation illegal. I demand compensation and am ready to pursue my claim by any means available to me.”
“Your complaint has been received and is awaiting moderator verification.”
“And?” Graykill climbed out of his foxhole and approached me. “Are we going to spend a long time crawling around the cracks?”
“Get out. Armageddon II isn’t coming. The devs have taken away my new toy. You can rejoice,” I explained. “But I have another idea. Look, the Zatrathi have come up from the two lower decks, while the top one is clear. If there is no further damage on that deck, we can try to clear it and use it to get to the center. Shall we risk it?”
“Clearing it is not a problem but we are space marines, not ground infantry. We don’t have jetpacks.”
“But I do. I’ll take you with me and the rest can head back to the ship. The party has nothing more to do here anyway.”
“Do you propose that we just abandon all these armor suits here?” Graykill grew even more annoyed.
“No. I have some droids coming over to pick them up in 5–7 minutes. I’ll return the suits to you after the raid, so stop worrying so much,” I reassured the marine. “Have your boys help us clear out what’s left and then they can take some time off.”
I cocked my blasters. Several nimble Zatrathi warriors had begun to clamber through the debris. A dozen shots suppressed them, but new ones followed shortly. The NPCs had calculated their further behavior and respawning no longer scared them. It is a pity that the NPC warriors had no instinct for self-preservation.
Graykill began conferring with his team and a minute later, two beam cannons had been set up at the edge of the opening and began pouring fire on the Zatrathi on the lower decks. The return fire didn’t bother us much: The players spared no energy on their shields, nullifying the enemy’s numerical advantage. Before my droids arrived, I managed to clear and unlock the doors to our bay. The idea of stuffing armor suits through a tiny opening in the wall was a questionable one. The automatons brought with them a large panel to carry the goods. This was the engineer’s solution to the problem of transportation.
The marines’ comments grew markedly less subdued as the heap of equipment and materials on the improvised stretcher grew higher and higher. I unloaded all six hundred kilograms of raq from my inventory and opened another shimmering loot crate. Altogether, I had amassed several tons of lucre, which was now loaded on the panel. The droids yoked themselves to the load, and slowly, straining and with difficulty, dragged the lot of it back to the ship. That snake and her frugality had a greater influence on me than I could imagine.
Bones and the adviser, I sent back to Warlock as well. There was no point taking further risks. Bones helped the droids haul the armor suits and soon the metal convoy disappeared in the doorway.
“Why aren’t you going with them? Do you have a death wish, Sebastian?” I asked the thief as he was watching the convoy leave.
“I’m coming with you. Maybe the command center will have something more interesting than glass to steal,” the Qualian said stubbornly. “What kind of a thief am I if I pass on such a chance? This armor suit can fly, so I won’t be a burden to you.”
“You have no homeworld,” I reminded just in case, but the thief was no longer listening. He stepped over to the point where we would set out from. The two cannons did their work well—the lower decks were already empty. There wasn’t much loot, however, which indicated that the AI had improved and the majority of the Zatrathi were looking for other ways of reaching us. And if that was the case, we didn’t have much time.
Graykill ordered his guys to close up shop and head back to the ship with my droids. Then I picked him up and we jetted up to the upper deck. The marine definitely weighed a lot. Twenty meters of flight expended half my fuel. At least there wasn’t anyone upstairs and I could calmly replace the expended powercells. Sebastian, meanwhile, had some problems with flying. He hovered for too long, took overly complicated trajectories and managed to collide with things that were difficult to collide with. I was about to rise to meet him and tow him upstairs, but I didn’t feel like spending the fuel. In the end, the thief got close enough and Graykill and I managed to catch him and drag him to us. The suit’s medical unit considered it necessary to restore the Qualian’s strength. The thief gasped when the needle entered the neck.
“Forward now, on the double!” ordered Graykill, feeling himself in his element. I fell in behind, knowing full well that the marine had much more experience than me fighting in close quarters and I had better listen to him. Activating the suit’s afterburners, I tried to keep up with the commander. As he ran, Graykill set such a pace, you’d think there already was a pack of Zatrathi on our heels. Sebastian was not used to such exertion and his suit had no afterburners so he fell behind immediately. I fell back with him a little later too. The marine clearly had an advantage when running in a straight line.
“Commander, you run fast but you’ll just leave your squad behind you,” I called out to Graykill, huffing and puffing.
“Why you’ve already lost me my squad. Come on, rookie, put some effort into it!” I could hear by his tone that the marine was enjoying himself.
“I put in the effort on the toilet! What’ll be the benefit if I have to fight the Zatrathi while crawling from exhaustion? Slow down already. They’re not going anywhere,” I got completely angry.
The marine commander broke out laughing but slowed his pace.
“You’re a hell of a sprinter, marine. What’s with your handle though?” We still had another five hundred meters to go and I wanted to take the player down a peg. “Do you run better than you kill?”
“Meaning?”
“Gray—as in without pleasure or fantasy,” I continued.
“Gray, you say? Well, that depends on how you look at it.” Instead of taking offense, Graykill seemed to cheer up. “When you have fifty shades in your arsenal, you will have both pleasure and fantasy.”
“You’re not a web designer by any chance?” I frowned. “They are experts in shades.”
“Uh-huh, you’re a surgeon and I’m a web designer. Let’s just leave it at that.”
“I have identified a network outlet,” said Brainiac, who had been scanning the space around us in the meantime. After a short break we had reached an immense hangar. It was empty because all the fighters had scrambled. We encountered a hollow echo, scattered parts, repair equipment and a pair of small reconnaissance ships scattered among the flight deck’s bright markings. I connected to the network so that Brainiac could update our map.
Now it displayed the damaged areas as well. There were red dots all around us, filling all the available space. The blue ones, symbolizing our players, were slowly creeping towards my ship. It was clear that they wouldn’t make it back in time.
“They forgot to shut the doors,” I commented on a trickle of red dots catching up to our blue ones. As if hearing me, one of the blue dots stopped and doubled back. Minus one legendary armor. A voluntary sacrifice from Graykill’s squad for the benefit of the rest of the team.
“Brainiac, calculate a route for me to the command center and, as soon as everyone is on board, blast off and head for cover with our cruisers! Kiddo, I’m going to need fire support for my ship! Graykill and I will stay behind. Do what you must but the ship and your men must survive!” I once again estimated the number of red dots and gave up on any hope of coming out alive.
“Process acknowledged. Here is the calculated route!” Brainiac paused for a while trying to come up with some reason not to abandon me, but in the end he couldn’t think of anything. The dotted line led us through the hangar to the far door. It wasn’t far at all from there to the center. The last obstacle looked to be the fat red dots that stood at the end of the path. Clearly these weren’t ordinary warriors, which were much smaller. But before I deal with them further, I had better check in on my Qualian thief…
“Sebastian, do you see that ship?” I pointed at a spiky Zatrathi scout standing nearby. “If you want to survive, you’ll start it up and get out of here.”
“You want me to hack its security, start the engines without an access card and take off without hitting anything?” the Qualian echoed. “There may be problems with the latter.”
“Just take care of the first two things first,” I encouraged the thief. “Mind you, Zatrathi tech may be different than what you’re used to. Once you figure it out, let me know that you are ready. Now get to it!”
Sebastian clambered up the scout and disappeared in its cockpit to sort out the controls. The marine and I moved on. It was a longer run this time, but Graykill matched my pace. The door on the other side of the hangar had a sensor so that as soon as we approached, it opened on its own, allowing us to pass without difficulty. Full auto from my two blasters killed the black fogs hovering near the ceiling, but the loot didn’t fall and stayed up there. We went through several long corridors with turns and forks, and finally saw the goal of our entire enterprise—thirty meters ahead, a pair of brightly painted doors suggested that the command center was located right there.
“Well I’ll be…It’s like the nightmare of a drunk illustrator,” drawled Graykill, appreciating the obstacle between us and the doors. We’d never tangled with Zatrathi like this…It was clear now why the map showed a fat circle instead of a small dot for these creatures. Their three-meter-round torsos were supported by four elephantine legs. Their arms were thin appendages but their seeming weakness was compensated by quantity and dexterity. I counted six and each monster wielded them in addition to a pair of beam cannons. Their small chitinous heads whirled briskly right and left and were completely dotted with small black dots, which could be eyes. I had a vague suspicion that I had seen something like this somewhere. Brainiac came to my aid:
“I detect a resemblance to the warriors we encountered on the Uldan base. These specimens are larger in size, however, and resemble a crude Vraxis prototype.”
Indeed, looking at these creatures, I had the impression that a child had drawn a Vraxis warrior from memory and their overzealous parent brought the picture to life. Only, there was nothing childish about what these comic-looking warriors could do to us. They had shield generators in addition to their beam cannons too. Using the weapons we had on these boys would be a waste of time.
I opened my map in the hope of finding a detour. The dashed line, charted by Brainiac, led obstinately to the door, suggesting that it would not be possible to bypass the obstacle. Well, if we have to go through the door, we’ll go through the door.
The entire interior of the Zatrathi ship was a classic silver color, so the colorful doors seemed like an artifact. There was no symmetry or logic in the ornament to an outside viewer—there were just abstract blots of color, a bit reminiscent of lens flares IRL. The odd and unexpected flight of designer fancy only seemed to extend to the door and its guards. The Zatrathi did not react to us in any way, waiting either for us to approach them or attack them.
“Are you sure we have to go in there?” Graykill suddenly turned to me.
“The flight deck is behind those doors. If we manage to disable the ship’s shields, Marina will finish it off and everyone will get their rewards. If we don’t manage, the Qualian reinforcements will arrive and the raid will be over. It’s not much of a choice.”
“Take my armor suit, don’t leave it here and get behind cover.” Graykill waited until I hid around the corner and began to prepare. First, he activated all his shields, then he took something out of inventory and carefully inserted it into the slots of his armor suit. Zooming in as much as I could in my HUD, I made out oblong gray objects without any markings, and I guessed without Brainiac giving me a hint what they were. Like all players, Graykill could blow himself up if necessary, as he was about to do now, but first he added some extra pieces of raq to act as shrapnel. Shields did not work against flying physical objects. Small fragmentation particles could penetrate good armor, especially if it was located a few meters from the epicenter of the explosion.
Once he was ready, Graykill hunched like a sprinter and then rushed forward. Despite his speed, the appearance of the enemy did not come as a surprise to the colossi—they instantly aimed their cannons and opened fire at the approaching warrior. But Graykill wasn’t the head of Alexandria’s assault force for nothing. He dodged the incoming plasma balls so deftly that my jaw dropped—I had never seen someone move so smoothly in the game! It was incredible! Graykill rolled, vaulted, dodged, bounced and immediately sprinted forward, reducing the intervening distance to thirty meters. I made the last dash mentally with him. The cannons fired almost point-blank and my screens went blank for an instant. A bright white star was being born where Graykill had just been. I was so fascinated by the spectacle that I forgot to hide around the bend in time, and little pieces of shrapnel peppered my armor suit, leaving small dents. They could not penetrate my armor at this distance; however, all that was left of the guards and the door was two loot crates and a decorative cheese grater that had once been a door. In the foreground of the aftermath, stood Graykill’s suit of armor, solitary and empty.
New items: Sapphire token (2)
New items: Powercell (2)
New items: A-class Zatrathi Beam Cannon (2)
My recently unburdened inventory easily accommodated both Graykill’s suit and all the booty from the guards. There was not much of the latter.
The door, however, still held despite its myriad holes. According to Brainiac’s map, I would need to take the right-hand corridor beyond it.
“Brainiac, can you unlock the door?”
“Negative. Access to the command center is beyond my permissions. You must first locate a comm nexus in the secure area. The closest one is located behind the wall.”
Clenching my fist, I hit the door as hard as my suit allowed me. The door itself, for all its holes, managed to resist, yet the raq it was made of failed. The panel I struck broke at the holes left over from the shrapnel. I made it larger with another blow and was able to stick my hand through. Brainiac activated the space scanner on my glove and found the control panel. I reached my hand as close to it as I could. Then Brainiac did the rest—connecting to the network and entering the access codes. A klaxon blared and the door—with me attached to it—began to rise. I yanked with my shoulder, but I couldn’t get free. Luckily the sash was so damaged that the uneven surface kept sticking. Once I had pulled my hand out, I helped the stuttering motor lift the door and entered the ship’s holiest of holies.
After taking a few steps, I turned the corner and froze: a blaster muzzle at my chest. If it fires, my armor won’t hold. It’s too close.
“Delnarga kurr! Irrich siu ta lorey!” burbled the weapon’s owner and pulled the trigger.
“He said: ‘Die dirty filth. We never considered you sentient,” translated the snake as I flew back to the wall. My armor had withstood the plasma shot at the cost of its control unit, which blew out. The ejection mechanism activated, throwing me out of the suit. The enemy did not expect his victim to fly out of his armor like a zombie from a casket, instead of dying as he was supposed to. My foe’s surprise at this bought me a couple seconds. This was enough time for me to pull Graykill’s suit out of my inventory, slip into it and then calmly restore my health. The Zatrathi atmosphere was corrosive and fatal to players. I barely noticed the second shot from close range—Graykill had excellent armor. I grabbed a manipulator and suspended the Zatrathi in the air before me, disarming him with the other manipulator.
