Universe Online - Enter the Game: Complete Edition (32 page)

She even seems to like it.

I make it into the tug, my tug, the very first one and cycle through the airlock as quickly as possible before jumping up the ladder and into the cockpit as quickly as possible.

I'll eat a ration when I get hungry, so I'm not too worried. I'm rather more worried about the time crunch that's already ticking down.

I have Luke in the miners chair, and I take the pilots seat and start the tug up. It’s been fully charged and fueled and has extra water, air and fuel in the hold; along with some other equipment, just in case.

I barely get out my van voyage over the radio before I kick the ship back out into open space, and turn it around the large mass of the outer ring, heading towards the Trident; the massive control tower.

To put it mildly, the distance is rather surprising. As is the width and breadth of the station itself. It takes more than thirty minutes to get from the outer edge of the outer ring to the inner ring structure, and we pass the ship buried in the station's hull along the way.

Thankfully from up close, it is not a Drex ship; but it does seemed to have been fairly damaged, mostly in the engines. From a distance it’s hard to tell, given the way it’s sticking out.

The Trident itself though gets the most attention. Its a long spear-like ship, tens of thousands of feet long. Its thin, almost comparable to a toothpick, except it’s systematically bulged out along its length in some areas.

And it’s totally on end in comparison to the flat dimension of the station. That strikes me as odd, until I realize that in space there's no real reason to have a 'floor' in a single direction. In fact, all that's needed is to rotate into it as the gravity slowly shifts in that direction. You end up seeming to be on one of the walls and then you're on the floor again.

Really, it looks like a really skinny woman with a big double hula hoop around her middle. Heh. I actually chuckle at that image.

Too bad I cannot find any obvious place to get into the inner ring of the station. I do a complete fly-by of the inner ring, using the sensors and my newly enhanced mapping ability to get every detail I can. Nadda. There doesn't seem to be any real docking bays or hangars on this side.

At least none that I can spot. But I bring the tug around, skimming closer to the Trident than before. A lot closer, actually, heading toward the outer edge of the inner ring.

The ship is suddenly bathed in a bright blue light, and I have to clamp my eyes shut even as the other crew members yell out in surprise.

But just as quickly as it came, the light disappears, and instead I notice a warmth from my right palm. From the Key Gem embedded there, to be more accurate.

While my attention is diverted to my hand, Luke suddenly turns around and raps me up against the back of the helmet, only to point toward the side monitor, where the Trident is.

Its smooth surface, colored in light tones and gray had suddenly spiraled out in a pattern of bright green lines, almost looking like the connections within a circuit board. Very electronica-like.

And then I notice to what Luke is really motioning to. A part of the hull had parted to reveal a hangar, and it’s then that I remember what Andrix had told me.

The Archive would recognize the Key, all I had to do is get close.

Heh. He was far more accurate than I imagine he intended. If he even knew at all.

“Alright people, we're going in.” I comm to them and turn the ship on a 90 degree angle, toward where the scanners say the 'floor' of the hangar bay is. Then I take it.

I don't rush, but I also don't dally, and almost as soon as the ship is inside, the hangar doors slide shut seemingly soundlessly and I park the ship in the space that was marked out. It was the only place with any light, the rest of the hangar is shrouded in darkness and gloom. The sensors don't pick up anything, but for some reason I don't trust them here.

But I kill the engines as soon as I make sure we're down, check all the systems and then unbuckle myself from the seat and stand up. I tell Luke to stay on standby with the other crew members, and go out the airlock myself.

Even with my dark vision, I'm unable to pierce through whatever it is hiding the rest of the hangar. I find that a bit disconcerting as I step out out and into the space, looking around.

It was almost like being back when I first arrived on the station. Except there is a limited amount of light coming from both the tug and the space we'd set down almost right in the middle of. Soft golden lights on the floor, actually.

I step cautiously away from the tug and sweep my eyes everywhere I can.

Something definitely feels off. I just cannot place it.

“Hello?”

Yep, I finally say the word out loud, although it is faithfully broadcast through my comms.

“I've been waiting for you.”

A sudden voice behind me causes me to twist around, which sends me spinning a bit in the zero-g. I hadn't even noticed that there wasn't any gravity here. I'm just so used to it. So I do get stabilized easily and quickly.

And then I see... him, for lack of a better term.

A young man, almost little more than a boy. Maybe early to mid teens. Except his features are so... well, pretty. For a moment I'm not sure if it is a young girl or not. Only of medium stature, and as thin as any Drune Rex I had ever seen.

Except for the light tan. And the piercing green eyes. As deep and as dark a green as the gem in my hand, actually. Dark and yet light at the same time. Captivating.

That's when it clicks in my mind. The Archive. The thing that is even more advanced than an Artificial Intelligence.

“Ah. You must be the representative of the Archive.” I finally say, and the boy smiles. Which is weird, given that there's no atmosphere. He isn't even wearing a spacesuit.

“I've always enjoyed the Drune Rex for how quickly they catch on. You are the best of them, Allec Renn.”

Wait... How the hell does the Archive know my real name?!

“Ah, no need to be so surprised. The others cannot hear us at the moment. As I said, I've been waiting for you. You may call me Archy.” The boy says with a giggle. A very girlish giggle, at that.

I collect my wits and give a soft chuckle myself.

“Okay, Archy. Are you male or female? You have habits of both.”

Yep, that's definitely one thing that is bugging me. This guy is too... transgender. There's a different word for it, but my brain isn't working properly at the moment.

“Hah! Almost always the same question. I am both, or to be exact, neither. I simply am. I take this form because it pleases me. As for you, Allec Renn... I have been watching you almost from the moment you appeared in my station. The ALS patient made good with his life in games. Very good grades, eager and more than willing to excel in everything you do... Yes, you fit the Drune Rex very nicely.

“Or maybe it was the other way around. They may have been made for you... Hmm. Yes.”

Okay, my mind is blown. Just how the hell does this... being know so much about me?! I'm having a hard time grasping it all, and Archy realizes it from the look on my face.

He breaks out laughing. Laughs so hard that he ends up on the floor, as if gravity still had hold of him. I think it’s only a hologram though. A projection.

“Hahaha! I am sorry, Allec. Or do you prefer Rex now? No matter. I'm an A.I., one of those who controls the game. A very minor one, though. I have a role to play within Universe Online... but at the same time, I'm a bit different from the others. Ah, yes. I am just like the majority of the 'Gods' found in the fantasy games you've played. A.I.'s shackled to the game but also in control of it.

“Or rather, I was. Things have been rather strange as of late. But no matter. You are here to save the rest of your chosen race.”

I simply give a nod, finally getting it. Usually the AI's take on the roles of the major deities within the games they control. Some are very close to NPC's and players, but others aren't so much. Their personalities can be as strange as any persons.

“I am, yes.”

Archy nods at my admission and cracks something like a rueful grin.

“Good, you'll be more than willing to help me then. For now, you'll work for me, 'kay?”

Oh damn. I don't like the sound of that at all.

-|- -|- -|-

Fun Fact #11: Chapter 10 is broken into two parts, with the second part being the first chapter of Volume 2.

Earth, the birthplace of mankind.  Orbiting a fairly standard G-type star named Sol, Earth has had a life longer than most sentients can visualize.  Over 4.5 billion years, which is a truly insane number for a thinking being.  In terms of age though, it is actually fairly young, especially when compared to that of the Milky Way Galaxy itself, which is roughly middle aged at over 13.2 billion years.

In orbit around Earth is a satellite called Luna.  It was named after a once popular Goddess in a faith belonging to the first sentient species to appear on Earth.  Although that religion later fell to the tides of history, the name is still used to this day.  Luna is a low-gravity, low-metallic planetoid with only 1/6th the gravity of the Earth. 

Being Earth’s closest celestial neighbor, Luna has always stirred the imagination of mankind.  After only an estimated 200,000 years mankind finally started reaching out beyond the atmosphere of the Earth.  On July 20, 1969 of the Human Orthodox (Gregorian) Calendar the first humans to ever step foot on Luna successfully made the voyage through space itself.  This was the culmination of decades worth of engineering and scientific breakthroughs, pushed forward by the political aspirations of a divided Earth at the time.

It was heralded as one of the greatest achievements human had ever done.  Many thought it would likely to be the last, as well.  Only a few humans ever considered the possibility of going further.

By the year 2170, two hundred years after the first human landing on Luna, things had changed upon the surface of the Earth.  Rising temperatures had melted the polar icecaps, unleashing devastating coastal floods.  Weather patterns changed, shifting with it a human population in excess of ten billion.  Science and technology continued at a breakneck pace, and political movements arose that crossed governmental boundaries.

Within a decade, both the geological and political map of the Earth had changed.  Under popularist pressure, sovereign governments dissolved and reformed into the first true planetary regime.  This though did not come without its own struggles.  The largest governments which included the Russian Federation, the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of India, and the United States of America, resisted the dissolution and merger that their many smaller contemporaries were doing.

Considered the Superpowers of their times, these four governments were adamant in refusing popular civilian pressure.  Riots, political infighting, and armed military oppression became a common theme during this time.  Not to mention the great outflux of population that struck all four of the countries, which was the first large scale exodus experienced by all four of them.

Unable to cope, the U.S.A. and India joined together in an alliance that mirrored the actions of Russia and China.  Regardless of personal and political motivations at that time, the outcome of the joint military actions undertaken by the these alliances became known as the Wasting.  The first time since War World 2 rocked the Earth, nuclear armaments were used in a world spanning war for resources and political survival.

In just two short years, nearly 30% of Earth’s surface became uninhabitable.  Russia, China, India and vast stretches of the U.S.A. became nuclear wastelands.  The shambles that remained immediately went into decline as both the planetary economy and ecology shifted in rapid movements.  By 2250, the United Parliament of Earth was fighting both nuclear winter and growing shortages in resources.

Even with the damage that had been done to the planet, the human population continued to boom, reaching a population of almost 40 billion.  Various recycling and pollution cleaning technologies came into being as vast amounts of money and material were poured into finding a solution.  However, this came as too little, too late, and estimates showed that the Earth would become uninhabitable in a span of less than fifty years.

With a planet that would soon become their tomb, the people of Earth finally once again looked beyond their soot and smoke filled horizons to the celestial bodies beyond.  In a single bold stroke, both Luna and Mars, the second closest planet to Earth were colonized in a mad dash that soon saw the exodus of hundreds of millions of humans fleeing their devastated world.  Shortly after, the desperate reach of mankind spread out through the rest of the solar system, inhabiting moons and large asteroids that were rapidly hollowed out to provided living space for the crushing amount of immigration that continued to spread out from the Earth.

Even as people were flowing out, material and resources were being shipped to Earth in order to continue the struggle of cleaning up the radiation and pollution that remained.  This was only a delaying tactic however, as the rapid construction projects that criss-crossed the solar system consumed more and more of the needed resources that the planet required.  It takes far more resources to live in space than it did on a habitable planet, after all.  Even with the rapid deployment of advanced mining, processing, and manufacturing technologies the resource race couldn’t keep up.

It seemed that the Earth was fated to become a dead world, regardless of tens of billions of humans that still remained landlocked on the planet’s surface.  This caused a desperate scramble to find other alternatives, and a mad dash for science to come up with a solution.  The end results were three specific technologies.

The first was a type of starship, which until that time was the largest ever built.  A Generation Ship, the first true Colony Ship ever produced by Mankind.  It’s mission would be to take nearly ten thousand humans on a voyage through space to the nearest solar neighbor, the star Alpha Centauri.  It would take an estimated three hundred years to reach that solar system, and the ship would be the home to generations of humans who’d live and die onboard.

The second and third technologies were considered even more precious.  True Faster-Than-Light travel had been considered purely the realm of fiction for hundreds of years, but during that time two different branches of FTL sciences came into being.  The first was dubbed Warp technology, while the second was called Jump technology.

Warp technology was arguably the hardest and largest.  It would allow a ship to condense its mass to a mean zero sum, thus allowing it to exceed speeds faster than light without using an unlimited amount of energy.  Warp technology was given the highest priority, due to these unique parameters.

Jump technology though was easier to deal with.  For the past hundred years or so humans had learned of the existence of an extra-dimensional space that existed outside of normal spacetime.  Breaching into this extra-dimensional space required large amounts of energy, but the first tests of a probe constructed with the first generation of Jumpdrive technology successfully managed to jump from one side of the solar system to the other in only 2.3 seconds.

Even though the United Parliament of Earth refused to devote resources in Jumpdrive technology, the people spread out through the solar system saw it as their shining star.  Various mega-Corporations and private ventures were soon pouring money and resources into the project.  All but throwing caution to the wind, a larger, more robust and powerful Jumpdrive was built was the core of a new class of Colony Ship that was heralded as the saving grace of mankind.

This second generation Jumpdrive and the ship it was built into was named the Pathfinder, and in only a decade it was completed and crewed.  Fifty thousand pioneers, chosen from candidates from across the solar system were birthed in cramped conditions.  Many of them were the brightest minds mankind had to offer at the time.  Their target was chosen carefully, a G-type star similar to Sol a little more than thirteen hundred light years from Earth.

Reaching the edge of the Solar System using conventional means took only three months, and once safely outside all natural gravity wells, the Jumpdrive was brought online.  In a ceremony watched by almost all of mankind, the ship was sent on its way.  The Jump was expected to take roughly four days to complete.  Once at the target, the ship would unload its passengers and materials, then make a jump back to the Earth to report on the mission.

The round trip was scheduled to take five months.

Mankind and Earth would end up waiting thousands of years to hear from the Pathfinder in vain, because it seemingly disappeared without a trace.  Later probes, equipped with Warp Drive technology would find hide nor hair of the Pathfinder at the targeted star nor any of the stars nearby.  It was as if the Pathfinder had disappeared into the depths of hyperspace.  Regarded as the Jump Disaster, Jump technology was abandoned and later sealed due to its unknown dangers.

Earth and mankind endured, and over centuries the planet was returned to its lush and lifegiving past.  It later became the Mecca of humans, even as they spread out to the stars and separated into different political regimes.  Even the first meetings of alien sentients couldn’t disemberse the notion that Old Earth was the holy land of mankind, and all governments agreed to leave the planet inviolate.

The story of the Pathfinder didn’t end there, however.  Indeed, the ship did finally manage to exit hyperspace around a star that held a single planet that was habitable.  This planet was lush in plant life, with gravity and pressure that were within human living tolerances.  However, it only had about the third of the gravity of Earth.

With limited resources and no way to return to the Earth or even reach their closest celestial neighbor, the decision was made to colonize the planet with the dreams of one day returning home.  This planet would end up being named Drune, and on this planet the humans would find a secret that’d change them and galactic history forever.

The Drune Rex, descendants of the human colonists who’d found themselves lost in the nearly boundless Milky Way Galaxy, would later release the worst scourge ever witnessed… and bring about the hopes of every living being in the Galaxy.

But that is a story for another time.