Universe Online - Enter the Game: Complete Edition (15 page)

*Crackle, crackle, static*

The radio in the console buzzes to life, and I nearly jump again.  Thankfully the gravity and being buckled into my seat keeps me from doing so.

Instead, I react quickly and start boosting the receiver strength and have the computer zero in on the signal.

*static* “... anyone can hear me, please respond!  This is Site Prime on Drune, requesting assistance!  If anyone can hear me, please respond!  This message will repeat!”

A guy's voice comes over the radio, and I'm startled a bit, to say the least.  Site Prime? Drune?  Okay, that has my attention.

I check the computer's results on the signal, and boost the broadcast antenna before letting out a breath and responding through my suit.

“This is Allec...  Rex from Archon Station to Site Prime, please respond.”

I never did choose a last name during character creation, but it was the first thing that popped into my mind.

I repeat the broadcast twice before I receive a reply on the same signal frequency.

”Archon Station?  What?  How?...  No matter.  Please, we need assistance.  Help. Any help you can offer.  The life support in Site Prime is failing.  We will be out of breathable air in a week.”

Damn.  They're in just as bad a shape as I am.

“Site Prime, can you explain?  Drune is a lush planet.  Why are you relying on a life support system?”

I cannot help but ask the most obvious question.  This was getting a bit too much for me to swallow without more information.  I'm not sure if it’s a trap or what.

”Eeeh...  Archon Station...  You don't know?  Wait.  It doesn't matter.  It's no secret anyway.  It was the Drex.  They bombed the planet 500 years ago after we were forced to abandon Archon Station.  Only those of us who made it into the shelter Sites survived.  Drune is a barren radioactive wasteland.  All the other Sites have gone silent by now.  Site Beta died out more than thirty years ago.”

“Only we remain.  A mere two thousand Drune Rex.”

“Please, I beg you.  Please help us.”

Now it makes much more sense.  The Drex bombed an entire world into slag.  An entire lush planet was basically made uninhabitable.  And after 500 years there are still survivors.  My chosen races people.

“Site Prime, I'll try to help as much as I am able.  I only have access to a Mining Tug, so evacuating your people in time is impossible.  But I do have access to parts and some equipment that can be used in repair work.  Send me your coordinates and see if you can find someplace for me to set down and I'll do everything I can.”

There are no other options.  If I don't help them, who will?

I long ago got over seeing NPC's as mere AI's or artificial beings.  They live their entire lives within this universe.  They are as real as any player is.  And it smells like a quest!

”Ah!  Thank you, Archon...  No, it’s Allec Rex, right?  Thank you.  I'll transmit the data on this frequency.  As well as a list of parts we need to make a full repair.  Anything less and we can keep the life support working longer, but it'll only buy us time.”

“We'll prepare the landing bay, and we have a stockpile of fuel and other goods we'll prepare for the travel.  Thank you again.”

I could hear the sudden hope in the man's voice, and for a moment it chokes me up.

“Site Prime, confirmed.  I'll grab what I can and let you know my ETA when I reach Drune orbit.  Allec, out.”

*DING*

Whoah.  It is an A+ ranked quest!  That scares me a bit, but there's no helping it.  I take another breath and nod to myself, checking to see if the computer has received the information yet.

It seems I'm to save an entire race of people.  I have work to do.

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“This is Cristy Anthems at Universe Now, your leading source of up-to-date information on Universe Online!  Sorry to interrupt our usual programming, but we've just received breaking news!  Every player in Universe Online just received a notification that a player has accepted a Rank A+ Quest!”

“The game was only launched less than three days ago, but has proved to be wildly popular. Millions of people have jumped ship, and its popularity is soaring into orbit without an end in sight!  But in that short amount of time, how could a player have come across an Rank A+ Quest?!  We don't know, but we're going to find out!”

“Details are scarce, as the notification only said the quest rank and some other information.  It involves a race called the Drune Rex, but nothing else is known.  If anyone has any more information, please feel free to let us know!”

“Once again, this is Cristy Anthems at Universe Now, your leading source of information about Universe Online!”

The TV switches back to its regular programming on Universe Now, the only dedicated TV channel that deals with Universe Online at the moment.

“Hehehe.  Allec is having so much fun in that game of his.  Even I'm tempted to join in, now that I've gotten to see what all the fuss is about.”

Karren was watching the news about the game while keeping up with Allec's daily needs.  With him logged into the game, there's no way for her to speak with him, and she's feeling more than a little left out and lonely.

The idea of jumping into the game with Allec was appealing.  Definitely appealing.  Seeing him active and mobile was a thrill she cherished.  But she knew that she wouldn't be able to get to him starting out.  Not yet, anyway.  Unlike others, she was able to see the live stream from Allec's Dive Pod, and thus was able to read about the quest.

A naughty smile crosses her lips as she pulls out her cell phone, an ultra-modern sleek thing.  She makes a good wage working in the hospital and for Allec especially.

“Yes.  I have information about the Rank A+ Quest that was just reported.  Yes...  I cannot reveal much, but here's a few juicy tidbits for you...”

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Description of Archon Station

Archon Station

The structure of Archon Station is fairly simple, in regard to most.  It has an outer ring that's ten levels from top to bottom.  It’s the primary housing and ship docking terminal, with both external docking assemblies and internal hangar bays.  It’s shaped roughly like a torus, a donut.  Except for the inner side, which is flat.

The outer ring is also heavily armed, armored and shielded.  Like a perimeter defense network.  Laser turrets on top and bottom, evenly spaced along its entire length.  Quick-launch bays for fighter craft and missile launchers built into the internal structure.

The second ring is both larger and broader.  It’s fifty levels (floors) from top to bottom.  It’s connected to the outer ring via eight multi-level corridors, spread out like spokes in a wheel.  The second ring houses the primary storage facilities, workshops, manufacturing compartments, engineering and barracks.  Training facilities are also located there.  It’s also home to the station’s distributed power core system.  It’s shaped like a classical round station, except its angles are gently curved around its middle length before becoming sharper toward the inner top and bottom.

Like the first ring, the second is flat on its inner side.  Armored and armed as well, except with heavier, more power-intensive weaponry and shielding systems.  If the outer ring was a fence with a security gate, the inner ring would be the steel wall that'd require a whole battering ram to get through.

The third part of the station is the Control Tower.  It’s a long cylinder that extends both above and below the surrounding station rings.  Its 'top' end is pointed, like the tip of a spear, while its bottom end appears flat, except with more circular girth than the rest of the tower.  Like the weighted end of a quarterstaff.  There's also a larger cylinder around its middle, where it’s connected to the rest of the station.  Its surface is oddly smooth and flat when compared to the rest of the stations structure.

Any more information would be spoiling it though.  Haha.

The station is made up of metal, light colored sheets of high-strength steel and other elements.  Its armor tends to be heavier, thicker, and darker in color; covering the vast majority of the station like scale mail.

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Fun Fact #6: The user's willpower, or mental fortitude, does have a very real consequence in Universe Online.  The desire to do things can bring forth the desired outcome… For a price.

I quickly check the details of the quest, and purse my lips a bit.  The Quest Rank scares me.  It’s a common thing in all sorts of role-playing games, and not just VR's.  Usually starting with Rank F for the most common and easily achieved, each progressively higher rank is harder, tougher.

It can take entire guilds (or Companies in Universe Online) to complete Rank B quests, much less A's and S through SSS ranks.

Universe Online isn't any different in that regard.  To players, Quests are simple things, rather from trivial tasks of gathering a specific object or filling a job’s quota.  To NPC's, quests are jobs.  They receive and complete dozens of them themselves, and it’s used as a system to involve the NPC's in the going-ons of the game universe.

It’s a long, long way from simply seeing a character standing in front of a door or behind a counter in a shop, doing nothing but talking in rote responses to anyone who comes by.

Especially here in Universe Online.  They are far more active than most would think.  They think, they feel.  They need to eat and sleep, rest, train, and learn just like anyone else.

To me, they are people.  I never really make a distinction anymore.

Others still scoff at it, except when facing down a ruler or armed guards.  Hahaha.

Back on task, I check my position near Archon Station, and plot out where I want to go.  I see my short mast and the solar array from where I'm at in space.  The reflective metal plates of the construct shine brightly in the darkness, even when compared to the stars wheeling around the heavens.

I need to check a few things and gather up whatever I can before starting on this quest.

So I set course and pilot the Mining Tug to the station.  Along the way I experiment with the controls of the Tug and even spin myself out at high speed in order to get used to the feel of the loss of control and the struggle to bring it back to a smooth trajectory.

I learn that the gravity generators also act as inertial dampeners in most cases.  The power load tends to spike quite badly however, and I still end up feeling up to 5G's worth of force on my body when they can no longer keep up.  But that's mainly because I've set their generation to 30% of Earth-normal gravity.  At 100%, I'd probably only experience about 3G's at max.

Or at least until I get to velocities greater than ten thousand miles per second.

Then the generators cannot keep up and the inertial load gets bigger and bigger inside the hull.

Better not do that then, if I can help it.

I think the downsides have more to do with the fact that the Tug is over 500 years old and hasn't been properly maintained other than its original specs.  I'm able to pull up basic information about the Tug, but without ship-related Aptitudes, either in constructing or piloting, the information I receive is limited.

There also aren't any real weapons installed.  There's a laser emitter built in as part of the mining tool, but that will only work at really short distances and its output is really low when compared to real laser weapons.

Besides testing out the Tug and piloting it to get hands-on experience at the controls, I have the ship computer using the scanners to see if I can get a better picture of just what is going on with Drune. I have almost no information regarding the planet itself. My race history stated that Drune was a lush, fertile world, roughly as big as Old Earth, but with only about 1/3
rd
of the gravity.

Other than that, nothing.

Thankfully the scanners work over this distance, and I get basic information rather quickly. At least, what I assumed was basic information. Geological surveying was not in my list of skills.

Okay, I'll summarize. Drune's planetary core lacks the heavy metals that Earth's has. It has a functional geomagnetic field, but it's weaker than Old Earth's. The atmosphere was also originally less dense, although terraforming over decades had remedied that. The planet is also tectonically stable, with very little volcanic activity. Weathering and other natural processes had turned most of the continents into vast, fertile plains, with only a few small mountain ranges.

Decent sized ice-capped poles.

The original life found on the planet was simple multi-celled plant life and small animals. Or rather, xeno-animals. The introduction of Earth-native species didn't upset the established ecosystems all that much.

The planet also lacks any real tilt/wobble in its axis, so its two seasons, winter and summer are both long and relatively mild. Vast wetlands and jungles wrap around the equator, and there isn't any real deserts to speak of, although there is steppes and tundras near the poles, but both are far milder than on old Earth.

Altogether, the original information I'm able to pull up about the planet lists it as a verdant wonderland with a vast quantity of space for agriculture and expansive planned cities.

Estimated population was hovering around 5 billion people.

That was reality more than 500 years ago.

The planet now is a whole lot different.

For one thing, most of the atmosphere is gone. The bombardment from orbit cracked the rather thin planetary crust and caused massive damage. The atmosphere was one of the first things to go without the sustaining technology that kept it dense. The surface has been slagged into a radioactive waste.

The picture that comes up makes me bite my lower lip. It’s like a dream of a nuclear nightmare caused by World War 3 that never happened on Old Earth. Even the oceans are dead, stagnant and putrid green in color easily seen from orbit.

It’s like Mars had met Fallout, right after the nukes had gone off, and had a twisted and hateful offspring.

It is literally that bad.

Shit. I cannot even imagine what it’s like to live there now. Even underground, in shelters built to survive for hundreds or thousands of years.

It’s the worst case scenario of any sentient being able to come into space.

Damnit. And the Drex did it. Did it all, without any sign of remorse.

No wonder almost every sentient race in space curses the name Drex.

I shake the information from my head though and continue my way back to the station in a more pragmatic approach. There isn't any time to dally about.

Getting close to my home/hold, I realize there's a problem. The Tug is too big to fit into the rather small hole punched in the hull. The storage hold doesn't have any real external access; and checking what I can see, there isn't a docking bay or airlock within three hundred feet. Damn.

Glancing around the cockpit, my gaze settles on the mining controls, which are off to one side with its own chair. Hmm.

Should I cut into it? I purse my lips, tempted to do so.

In the end I decide not to. Instead, I settle the tug along the middle length of the welded strut I'd built for the solar power array. It’s just barely wide enough to fit, according to the computer.

As in inches. Not feet.

Going to be a very, very tight fit. Also I need to be careful not to hit the array. I'd rather ram into the hull than damage my only source of power right now.

Wait, why am I even thinking of that!

A glowing light-bulb had just appeared over my head.

The Mining Tug has four robotic arms, one on each side. That can rotate around the hull and have a full range of motion, befitting the name 'tug'. They're used to haul things, move equipment and the like.

I end up slapping my forehead in a face-palm. Or try to, at least. The helmet is sort of in the way. The Tug's storage is also capable of bottom loading/offloading, too. There's no need to set it down. Just grab the strut, lock into place, open the hold and toss shit into it.

A much better alternative.

Yeah, I go with Option 3. And it’s a lot easier to achieve than either of the other two would have been. It would have taken hours to cut into the hull to get into the hold with the Tug's mining system; and I probably would have smashed my solar power array into bits if I had tried to actually land it there.

But getting close, killing my speed and momentum, then using the arms to grab the strut and finally pulling the ship into place 'over' the hole is a hell of alot easier and far less time consuming.

I check my internal battery supply as I lock the grip into place after shutting off the engines.

I'd had just over 50% battery power, and its down to 47% now after my flying out in space. Not bad, but I definitely need to charge it some more. I'll let it do that while I'm loading supplies in.

I unbuckle myself from the seat and open both the storage hold and the refueling hatch from the cockpit before making my way down into the living deck. From there, I cycle through the airlock, which is automated now with power back on. From there, I'm back out in space; and have to grab hold of the Tug's hull to angle myself down enough to toss my ass back through the hole in the station's hull.

Ah, home sweet home. I really am going to have to figure out a way to get the Tug inside though. I get high radiation readings every time I go out into space in nothing but my suit. That makes me more than a little itchy. I'd rather not turn into a mutated horror or a piece of jerky.

Okay, first off, power. I check Bub, and am happy to note that it’s hovering around 32% charged. The rate of usage is really dropped when I turn off the systems in the escape capsule, so it has been storing battery power the entire time I was gone. Adding a new power cable is easy; but I have to go back out into space in order to connect it to the Tug's import adapter.

With that done, and my skinny ass back inside as quickly as possible, I pull up the list of required materials for the repairs that was sent to me. And promptly flinch. I flinch so hard at the list that I bounce back a bit in the zero-g.

Damnit! Fucking damnit.

High end materials, electronic parts, filters, repair materials for the storage tanks. Whole atmosphere processing units to be rebuilt from scratch. Piping, wiring, mechanical parts, metal supports... Just what the hell have these guys been doing for 500 years to make the system basically require a full rebuild!

Site Prime sent me schematics of the shelter and everything related to their life support system. It’s massive. The sort of thing you'd need in a really big ship... or a space station, to think about it.

Hm. It probably was originally intended to be used in such a manner. Perhaps even for Archon Station itself or another one that was in the process of being built. But still!

That's way too much! I don't have access to even part of the materials or resources required to do that!

I'm about to have a fit, seriously! A fucking stroke or some shit.

Hmmmm.... Hmmmmm.... I take deep breaths and try to collect myself all over again. It definitely tests my mental fortitude. I have to rethink this whole thing. There's no way I can gather enough materials and build enough parts on top of all the repair work in less than seven days. It'll have to be simple. Just to buy time.

Time, huh.

Something I seem to be short on ever since I started Universe Online. Either rushing to do one thing or another to survive or building what is required to advance myself.

Damnit. And the game has only been out a handful of days. Not even that, in truth!

I stop though and decide to eat another meal while I think about it all.

Another watery slurry ration. What I wouldn't give for a burger right now. Heh.

Or a cigarette. Even though I don't smoke.

Smoke, huh. Atmosphere. Air. Water. For some reason something is telling me that's a way to go. But I cannot track down the thought right now. I'm simply too agitated.