In Search of the Uldans, page 37
part #2 of Galactogon Series
“I wish to see Hilvar, to report on a mission I have completed for him,” I replied, peering into the darkness above me. Somewhere up there, among the rafters, sat one of the chief pirates of Galactogon. The answer did not take long in coming.
“So you showed up after all?” The Pyrrhenians’ raspy voice sounded from above. “I have heard about your business, I have heard a lot about it indeed. The boss of the Red Rose has been begging, threatening and badgering anyone who will listen: He wants either your head or your ship. Hehe! It was a joy to see Derval’s face so shiny with anger. It’s been a long time since I’ve enjoyed a sight like that. Come in, let’s talk. Let there be light!”
The room flashed to life with a million crystal chandeliers. My lord! From outside, Hilvar’s residence looked like an ordinary barn, but when the lights came on I saw that this interior could compete with the most luxurious palaces of Earth’s elite. Everything was gold, stucco, heavy velvet, marble and leather. I grinned—the pirate adored everything expensive and rich-looking, but his taste was woeful.
The Pyrrhenian gracefully settled in one of the settees and a mechanical arm immediately popped out of its back and began massaging his barrel-shaped body. Another couple of robots began to serve the table, not forgetting to feed the owner—even in such trifling matters, Hilvar strove to appear regal. The ensuing sight, however, was stupid and ridiculous.
“I wish to congratulate you, young scallywag. Tryd has already apprised me of your success,” Hilvar began as soon as I sat down across from him. The robots weren’t putting anything in my mouth, so I had to be old fashioned and use my own hands. “Then again, Tryd overdid it and overstepped his authority. He will be punished. He had no right to grant you the title of pirate. Yet what is done is done. You are one of us now—not only in arms, but in spirit. Pissing off those gutter rats in the Red Rose is well worth it. You have pleased me, yes you have!”
You have received a new title: Pirate Rank I.
“Now you and I can do business. Even though you are still wet behind the ears, you have much promise. So why not start right away? How are you handling my mission? What is your progress?”
Without even trying to hide my smile, I handed Hilvar a report of the ships I had destroyed. It was pleasant to watch the pirate’s mocking, squinting eyes gradually round themselves off in respect. Hilvar even held the paper up to the light as if to check whether the report was fake or not or perhaps hoping to see some small print. But everything was real and official. I hadn’t simply completed the mission—I had far exceeded what had been asked of me.
Hilvar, meanwhile, played it cool. A false negligence drove the look of respect from his face and the pirate returned the sheet to me with a careless grin as if nothing special had happened.
“Well, let us assume that you coped with the first mission. Now you need to make a choice about what path you wish to take in your pirate career. Will you pillage in space or work planetside? Attack ships or search for hidden treasures. Which is your pirate’s dream?”
“What’s the difference?” I asked, curious. Hilvar began to explain:
“A space pirate captures ships and plunders their holds. This is how he makes his living. If you choose this path, you will be taught the weak points of all known ship classes, how to approach them better, how to board them and how to effectively block self-detonation. You, humans, are frequently guilty of this. The only catch is I won’t be the one teaching you all this. To follow this path you will need to meet Brax, the Corsican’s right hand man. Those two are the authorities on space piracy.”
Hilvar’s face flinched as he mentioned the Corsican.
“As for planetary pirates, that would be my line of work. Here you will be taught the art of finding extraordinary items in ordinary places. I will train you to look for treasuries, the hiding places used by the ancients. I will also introduce you to contacts who can help you sell stolen goods. It should be said that no one is going to forbid you from pirating ships. Selecting one path does not block access to the second. It’s all about specialization. Some things will be easier, some things more difficult.”
“The Corsican, of course, is an important individual, but I enjoyed my experience stealing information and looking for stories about the ancients. It is unlikely that I will find the answers to my questions in space,” I nixed one of my own earlier fantasies, trying to get Hilvar to open up as much as possible. There was no doubt which of the two options just proposed was the right one for me.
“Questions?” Hilvar swallowed the bait.
“Yes, several in fact. The first has been eating at me for a long time already. What is the KRIEG? Everyone but me seems to know and no one wants to talk about it. Second, what happened to the Uldans and where did they go? Their underdeveloped foes are alive and well, while the winged angels have not been seen for ninety thousand years. It doesn’t add up. Third, why do two great pirates who have fought side by side for many decades hate each other? And fourth, when will I finally get my next mission? My armor’s starting to rust from sitting in one place.”
Hilvar thought for a long time, wrinkling his forehead amusingly and moving his lips. He mumbled something to himself and squeamishly twitched his upper lip when he remembered the Corsican, but switched over to another question and fell quiet again. At long last the Pyrrhenian made his decision:
“I cannot help you with your first question. I do not know anything about any KRIEG. I do know some things about the Uldans, but you will have to earn that knowledge. I don’t really wish to recall the Corsican. It has been ten years…But if you are really curious, then there will be a mission for you: Go to the planet Shurtan in the Delvian Empire. There was once a pirate base there. Search it and find a video recording that was made on Galactic Date 3.33300.42. On that day, the Corsican accused me of treason and discharged me dishonorably from his service—all over something I had allegedly said on Galactogon’s public airwaves. Watch it yourself and you will understand everything…For my own part, I wish to say that the Corsican was wrong. Sometimes I think that he himself invented everything to set me up! I guess he was afraid of the competition, hehe…Anyway, if you do this you will cease to be small fry. I will assign you the third rank right away. And if you don’t do it…Well, you’ll go on like everyone else. That’s it! I have no more time for your idle conversations. Get out of here and don’t come back without that recording!”
New mission available: In Search of Cause. Description: Find the video recording and find out what happened between Hilvar and the Corsican. Reward for completion: Automatic completion of A Pirate I was Meant to be. Part 3. In case of failure, you will have access to mission A Pirate I was Meant to be. Part 2.
The light went out, and Hilvar ascended up to his chambers, grabbing a tray of fruit on his way. I had to make my way out in utter darkness. As I left the place, the bodyguards returned me my armor suit and escorted me back to Warlock. Hilvar wanted me to start the mission immediately, so I figured we’d blast off right away—yet it was not to be. The bribe had ensured that Lumara was counted as one of my crew and now I couldn’t leave the planet until my crew member had been treated. This gave me a day to calmly catch my breath and sort everything out.
The first thing I did was pull out the tablet I’d lawfully filched from the ex-viceroy of Belket (RIP). In the confusion of the last hours, I hadn’t had the time to examine it.
“Sebastian, can you hack this?”
“Are you kidding me?” The thief twirled the device in his hands. “It’s a standard interface. I’ll need five minutes, five-and-a-half tops. Consider it done!”
The Qualian began pouring over the tablet and all I could do was grin at his grumbling: “Who does this like that? Oh users—the weakest link! What? The password is ‘12345?!’ Amazing! I have the same combination on my luggage!” No more than a minute later Sebastian handed me the unlocked device with a sour face. His was that universal chagrin at having missed an opportunity to have a good old hacking time. It was not often that my thief got a chance to show off his skills as a black hat.
An inspection of the tablet’s contents uncovered a lot of interesting tidbits. First of all, the viceroy was a real asshole who had been spying for several guilds at once. His list of clients included the already familiar Fighting Breed, which had sold the viceroy the Zatrathi equipment several times. Considering the fact that the imperial adviser had an iron grip on the scout that I had captured, no one else had Zatrathi parts. Consequently, the adviser must have had his own distribution channel for the counterfeit goods. But there was no mention of this in the documents on the tablet. I also found several working drawings of country villas. One of the projects was worked out in such detail that there was no doubt—the viceroy had decided to rebuild his family home bigger and better than ever. Sebastian looked at the floor plans and strongly recommended I find this mansion and pay its basement a visit—the viceroy had clearly designed three secret rooms to store expensive things. It would be negligent of me to leave all those goods to the traitor’s widow. And, besides, the viceroy kept an archive of compromising information on his compatriots. There was no mention of the adviser in it naturally, but there were several memorable names that I had happened across among the Precians. Nothing too serious, but no one would praise them if this information were published. That was the extent of the useful info. There were no further passwords, nor bills, nor secret locations, nor contacts—the viceroy kept all that in his mind. The various trading accounts were not interesting to me as I understood little of them. But I knew who could use them. Having ordered Brainiac to erase all the personal information, I decided to sell the tablet to Kiddo or Gammon, depending on the higher bid. Money, money, money. Must be funny in the rich man’s world…
Later in the evening, when the boredom was starting to get to me, the medics brought back Lumara. She looked all right—her various cybernetics had been removed, exposing terrible scars where her wounds had been. The Delvian did as the doctors instructed, silently and obediently, but otherwise did not react to anything going on around her.
“We have treated her physically,” said the doctor who delivered the princess. “You will have to deal with her trauma yourself. There are no psychologists on this planet. Your Delvian thinks that she is a princess, the heir to the Delvian Empire, so we had to sedate her. I can recommend a good doctor. He performs an excellent lobotomy. Your crew member will forget all about her imaginary personality and generally keep her mouth shut. Obedience, politeness, joy—everything a gentleman requires.”
“That’s okay.” The prospect of having a personal slave in Galactogon did not entice me. “When will her sedatives wear off?”
“Just inject her with this. She’ll come to right away.” The doctor handed me a vial and then hesitated, shifting from one foot to the other. “Since there are no further questions, perhaps we should be on our way. We have a lot of work, lots of patients.”
I smiled and counted off several thousand more credits for the doctor. My ‘gratitude’ for the time spent on me, the attention and quality of services provided. Or simply the fact that I have too much money in my game account. By the way! An interesting thought—do the NPCs know my account balance? I don’t recall them fawning over me like this before I became a billionaire…
“Surgeon?!” Lumara fixed on me in surprise as soon as the snake administered the injection. “What am I doing here? Where is my father?”
I silently pointed at the screen where Brainiac broadcast our recent adventures. The downing of the Arbiter, our excursion to the palace, the conversation with the emperor, the rescue of the princess, the collapse. Lumara watched in silence and only the tears streaming down her cheeks spoke of her inner turmoil.
“What are you planning to do with me, pirate?” Lumara regained her composure amazingly quickly. The free-spirit princess was gone, giving way to a true imperial heiress. The Delvian understood and accepted the burden of her responsibility and she decided to bear this burden with her head held high.
I could understand her attitude towards me. As a potential, future empress, she already behaved in accordance with my current status of ‘enemy of the Delvian Empire.’
“Your father instructed me to take you to Nadin,” I shrugged. “If I don’t do this in three days, the Delvian Empire will cease to exist.”
“So what’s the holdup?!” Lumara replied indignantly. “Why are we still not in space?”
“Because we haven’t agreed on my compensation,” I said. “We have already discussed who I am. I’m no hero. I’m a pirate. Others can rescue princesses from the clutches of space dragons. My own skin is dearer to me.”
“You’re just like my brother,” the Delvian whispered. “He also thinks only about himself.”
“Let’s stick to the issue at hand. What can you offer me for my assistance?”
“You will receive the crystal and the pedestal.”
“Not an option. They are already mine,” I snorted, forcing the Delvian to freeze in shock. She recovered quickly enough, however:
“Everyone knows that you are looking for the Uldans. If I become the empress, you will gain access to one of the Uldan artifacts that the empire currently possesses.”
“No!” I snapped. “Your capital is destroyed, the treasury can be looted or also destroyed. The Delvians are currently fragmented and scattered throughout Galactogon. In return for taking you to Nadin, I want everything that the Delvians know about the Uldans. Items, information, lore. And that’s not the end of it!” I raised my voice, seeing that Lumara was about to object. “I want the empire to pay for the upgrades on this list!”
I showed Hansa’s second price list to the silent princess.
“If we can see eye to eye, you get to be empress. If not, you remain an ordinary Delvian. You can keep your emotions to yourself. I’m not going to take you back from some vague, heroic motives.”
“You will become the enemy of my empire!” Lumara threatened angrily.
“Am I not that now?” I asked sarcastically. “Just don’t forget—it was this very enemy who pulled you from the rubble. The empire’s friends weren’t around for some reason. And whether your empire even exists or will exist remains an open question.”
The princess tried to bargain, but I was adamant—it was either all or nothing. I knew that as a result, the Delvian Empire would be forever closed to me, but I could not act otherwise. The second level upgrades from Hansa were worth it.
“You will get what you ask for, pirate!” Lumara finally surrendered. A wall of warning text scrolled past, but there was nothing there that I objected to too much. The only upsetting thing was the time frame for the Delvians to provide me with the info about the Uldans. Whereas the Hansa upgrades were simple and straightforward (it was enough to deliver Lumara to the planet and she would pay me for the upgrades), the Uldan question remained problematic. The princess wanted a week after her coronation to gather together all the fragments of her broken empire. I had Stan rummage through Galactogon’s lore, but he could not find a clear answer for when the coronation should take place: The day after Lumara reappeared or a few years after the official mourning. In the end, I was forced to agree to her terms, since it was unlikely that as soon as the new heiress appeared, she would receive all the state secrets on a silver platter.
“Brainiac, set course for Nadin!”
My words surely caused a sigh of relief from the dispatchers. I was finally doing as Hilvar had ordered.
The Nadin system in Confederate space did not stand out in any way—it was an ordinary system with two habitable planets. After undergoing inspection and landing, I presented Lumara to the locals and everyone began running about, fussing, bowing and curtseying. It was the usual turmoil caused by no one knowing how to treat the heiress of the empire. At long last, a coordinator appeared who introduced himself as the chief authority on the planet and he solemnly brought the heiress out of the ship. All I got was a letter to Hansa stating that the Delvian Empire would pay for the second tranche of upgrades as well as a small monetary reward. The Delvian Dunkirk mission remained uncompleted, yet the news of a new hope shook Galactogon:
Rejoice oh Delvians! The ruling dynasty has survived!
+1000 Rapport with the Delvian Empire for all players who are not enemies of the empire!
The last bit was surely a gibe directed at me—Lumara made it clear that she had not forgotten about her promises. The dispatcher ordered us to leave the system immediately, threatening to open fire otherwise. I didn’t feel like ascertaining the limits of Delvian patience and decided to head back to Blood Island to unload all the excess raq in my holds. However, as soon as our departure had been confirmed, Sebastian stunned me:
“Surgeon, wait. I want to stay.”
The thief looked decisive and I asked for clarification:
“I want to stay with Lumara,” he explained, “and help her rebuild the empire. We had time to talk as we traveled. She offered me a position at court and I realized that I wanted it. She knows that I am not a pirate, but a thief. She knows that I have no place among the Qualians or in space. You said yourself that as soon as I want to leave, you would not hold me. It seems to me that I will be more useful here. Nothing personal—it will just be better that way. Goodbye. I assume I’ve earned my armor suit.”
