Continue Online (Part 3, Realities) (40 page)

The steering wheel used for our ship jerked to one side again. Four enemy craft went cruising by us fast enough to give Dusk whiplash. The
[Messenger's Pet]
lowered his head while hissing and groaning. Jeeves sat back pressing buttons on his console.

"Strawberry cupcakes." I kept muttering. It helped distract me from the tenseness between my shoulders.
[Mechanoid]
s may be robots, but I was not. We managed to clear nearly all the distance toward the
[Knuckle Dragger]
. I tilted back up to Jeeves. "These bombs, will they do a lot of damage?"

"If we can get them into vulnerable parts of the ship, yes," Jeeves said.

The ship in front of us was huge. It looked exactly like an aircraft carrier, in space. Endless rows of jets lined the underside. Turrets poked out from every angle, rotating freely to cast little bolts of hate in our direction. Vulnerable seemed to be a difficult word to apply to our enemy's moving fortress.

Another giant blast painted the landscape in white. It was enough to destroy the wire mesh visuals for a moment. I flew blindly praying that no one was in our way.

"Please tell me you've got a suggestion," I asked.

"Iron's almost down." Jeeves provided a status update as a third weaker explosion went off. We had to weave away from the main ship four times now. "Diamond and Aqua are trying to recover his vessel, but it will take too long."

Ruby's trio of destruction was reduced down to a duo. They zoomed through picking off another few fighters in rapid succession.

"There are a lot more of them as well." Jeeves' male butler voice sounded dry, almost bored. The female one was shaky and worried.

"They keep coming out!" I shouted in frustration.

"Unit Hermes, are you able to do anything?" Treasure's face popped onto our screen. Her sweet voice pleaded with me and the golden markers were flaring with desperation.

"Going to try!" I angled the
[Wayfarer's Hope]
straight for one of the launching platforms that ships kept coming from. "Jeeves, shields! If anyone can distract those guns that would help."

The crimson colored
[Mechanoid],
Ruby, popped into view. She nodded, but I barely took note of it. Two red streaks zipped by trailing smoke. It looked strange on the wire mesh overlay that Jeeves had running.

"Jeeves, I'll get us close. You drop it!"

"Gladly, User Legate."

We carved a path through the fog. I tried to stay on target with Jeeves' suggested path. Thankfully Jeeves had somehow picked up this navigation skill otherwise I would be totally lost.

The path abruptly changed directions. I yanked hard on the wheel and pulled us over a jutting portion of the
[Knuckle Dragger]
. They were on the move toward our ship! Giant return shots pounded out with powerful vibrations that could be felt even at this range.

"New target! That cannon!" I jabbed at the screen. It was in badly outlined frames, but even lower graphics painted a clear enough picture. Cannons jerked as heavy ordinance went into long tubes to be launched into space.

"Affirmative, User Legate." The yellow path curved as Jeeves updated our programming. I pressed the brakes, spun us in a sharp turn upwards along the ship's side. Thankfully the
[Knuckle Dragger]
didn't curve and wiggle like the
[Leviathan]
did. Instead, we were forced to dodge gunfire from turrets and a ton of other ships.

Ruby zipped by again, she was alone now. Opal and whoever hadn't survived. I frowned while thinking of the losses. War wasn't pretty, and these were my fellow
[Mechanoid]
s dying in droves. I checked the map briefly and saw our numbers were about half of what they used to be.

The enemy kept coming.

"You got it?" I shouted to Jeeves. The pounding echo of our cockpit couldn't curb my excitement.

"One moment." Jeeves' voices were mixed up again. The male calm and professional, the female was somewhat nervous.

I pulled the craft still on Jeeves' marker. Dirt or some other particle lingered in space. Super advanced robot science must have found a way to throw up a mist cloud even though we had no atmosphere. A countdown timer on one side showed twenty seconds for whatever Jeeves was doing.

He had control of our ship. Small arms came out on either side and looked childish in the wire mesh view. Large round barrels were placed against the cannon's hull. Both arms tweaked and pressed at parts of the explosive cargo. The cannon kept firing, oblivious to our grand plan for destruction.

"Ah. I would suggest fleeing quickly," the AI said behind me.

"Voices!" A new countdown appeared. This one flashed an angry red. I pressed the gas pedal to rocket us away. Our only goal was to escape, and I blindly charged right along the giant spaceship's hull.

The circle indicating certain doom hit zero. Our ship rumbled violently. Pieces of cannon flew past. Dusk continued making angry noises. One large piece of debris slammed into our ship spinning us out of control.

"Jeeves!" I shouted while trying to get our bearings. We were spinning too fast, every time I tapped the engine it added a new twist of confusion. Dusk sounded sick behind me. His long tail twisted into loops as his nails tried to find purchase.

"Shields at maximum, engine output minimal, engaging repair systems," Jeeves said.

Dusk was completely livid. I could hear him squawking madly in what had to be dragonish curse words. Jeeves looked unruffled. My belly felt nauseous. Even though the ARC feedback didn't include internal organs spinning around, it didn't stop my head from hurting as the horizon tilted.

Our wire mesh interface went away. The normal battleground came back into existence. I could see a full-color spectrum of shattered
[Mechanoid]
crafts. For every one of our race's broken bodies, there were six of the enemy's. Pieces of circuitry and gore floated by the screen and I almost retched.

I was getting used to the ARC's capability for realism but every so often it would catch me off guard. Living in such a world hadn't completely desensitized me.

We were doing well with blowing up the cannon. I could see both
[Wayfarer]
s moving forth steadily. The Seven provided substantial fire support for the Eight. My eyes tried to scan the battlefield and our interface map. Things were bad, but not terrible. We could recover.

A heavy blast winged us. My hands jerked the
[Wayfarer's Hope]
around to face our attacker, two small one man ships. Close enough that we could see the pilot's face. Part of me wanted the wire mesh system back, it helped make things less realistic.

Jeeves had no such issues pressing the trigger. We were lucky these weren't actual players or they would have plenty of tricks. Or been smart enough to keep moving.

"We're almost there." Treasure's status report came. "Casualties at sixty percent. Most damage is repairable. The Wayfarer Eight is still taking mild fire."

"What next?" I asked.

"Unit Hermes, Unit Jeeves, good job on the cannon, can you contribute more?" she responded over the group intercom.

"How many of those do we have left?" I asked Jeeves while trying to get our ship moving again. Most of our energy was pooled into the shields and repair functions right now.

"One remaining, Unit Hermes. They cost a lot of resources to make properly. The protective casing is even more expensive," Jeeves said while poking at buttons. The strength of our shields dropped a bit and speed picked up.

"Is it as powerful?"

The AI nodded.

"Treasure, we have a more, but need a target," I told her.

The
[Wayfarer Seven]
had reached the warp station hanging in space while the
[Wayfarer Eight]
limped along behind. The
[Knuckle Dragger]
was content to let our giant ships push by while delivering as much damage as possible. Their purpose appeared to be slowing us down, but not actually stopping us at all costs.

"It is recommended that you take the other ships' warp drives offline. This will allow us time to recover on the other side," Treasure said. "We have little support left to help you out."

There was a swarm of ships powering back in our direction. Ruby's red streak of mayhem was nowhere to be seen. Iron's battering ram crew was gone. Dim colors in the distance and on my map indicated that Treasure and Diamond and a few others were hovering close to the
[Wayfarer Seven]
.

"Can we make it back?" I idled our engine for a moment and stared at the oncoming mass of ships.

"It is unlikely," Jeeves said. "Our ship has sustained massive injury. Drive and shields are at less than optimal status. Our continued battery is not helping."

"Treasure, we will try, though it may cost us our ship." And me, Dusk, Jeeves. I didn't like the idea. "Can you spare anyone to pull us out?"

"If we can," Treasure said. "Our current outcome projections are unfavorable."

"You sure about this, Jeeves?" I looked in the reflection at him again as we did circles in worry. The approaching ships were getting closer, we had a few seconds left to run or go all in.

"Do not worry about me, User Legate. The primary purpose of our existence in this reality is to complete your goal."

That wasn't its only reason for being in here. Hal Pal wanted to grow and experience challenges. This certainly qualified. Though I worried what might happen if its character died. Either way, recalling to the ship might result in failure of both the mission and our shared desire to live.

"Alright. All in it is!" I shouted, feeling absurdly excited for this kind of madness. There was a certain addiction to the virtual thrill ride.

I pulled us around, aimed for the giant carrier and prayed to the Voices for assistance in this latest reckless move.

"What are we doing?" Both of Jeeves' voices sounded worried. I reached up for Dusk and pet the little guy on his head, just for luck. It made him do that half chirp, half purr noise.

"Personal delivery! Get me the biggest opening in that ship's ass end we can find!" I stepped on the go faster pedal and drove us straight for the
[Knuckle Dragger]
's rear end. If this game was going to provide me such a silly title, by the Voices, I would use it for every extra ounce of damage available.

"Ah. Reckless endangerment once again. Very well," the AI said.

"Full shields, cut the engines, we're riding this out!" I shouted and grabbed Dusk. The little guy hissed in confusion as we reached insane speeds diving for one of the starship's launchpads. "Hang on!"

Cripple the big ship first. Survive second. Reunite with the
[Wayfarer]
fell down to third. If we got both
[Wayfarer]
s through and managed to reconstruct on the other side, our goal, my goal, wouldn't be a total loss. There were no options left. Rules for preventing panic attacks came to mind. Focus on one thing at a time.

Hopefully, my kamikaze piloting wouldn't get us wiped.

Session Fifty Five – Raiding Party! ♪

"More shields!" I shouted. Dusk kept making noise. The enemy craft loomed close and showed no signs of growing larger. Our craft rattled as it barreled through some vague shielding.

"I am trying," Jeeves said with a calmness I didn't feel. "Engines at zero. Weapons at zero. Shields exceeding maximum suggested range."

"Add more!" I looked at a small icon where the shield practically shone blue. It wasn't enough. We needed to slam into this ship like a cannon ball.

We were too far gone to try anything else.
[Wayfarer's Hope]
hit the wall hard. The shield hit zero almost right away. Our ship shuddered and crumpled on one side, reducing the cabin space. Wearing a seatbelt was the only thing to keep my melon from crashing against the newest interior remodeling. It wasn't enough.

Outside the windshield, I could see where we clipped metal walls, ships, and yellow repair machines. We kept spinning through the carrier's hangar like a pinball gone wild. Human workers looked on in horror. Various less sophisticated robots tried to go about their tasks only to be bowled out of the way. Stains splattered into our front window during violent bouncing.

I felt sicker than ever before. My stomach threatened to crawl up and explode. This was more intense than the scariest amusement park ride ever because we were still crashing. The only reason I didn't black out is because it was expected, and
[Mechanoid]
s didn't believe in getting knocked out by a little thing like violently colliding with another ship.