Singularity Page 8

  Virodeshian Pirate Frigate (Elite)

  Level 3 Frigate

  Attributes

  - Virodeshian build (outdated)

  - Overall Length: 15 meters

  - Estimated Mass: 21 Standard Mg

  - Estimated Volume: 375 M3

  - Estimated Processing Power: 65 PHz (base clock)

  - Estimated Reactor Power: 45 sMW

  Perceived Resource(s)

  - 50/50 HP

  - 50/50 Active Shielding (Internal and External Module)

  Perceived Passive Defenses

  - Armor: 25

  Perceived Weapon Systems

  - Medium Blaster Cannon Turret x2

  - Light Torpedo Bay

  - Light Laser Cannon

  Virodeshian Battlecruiser (Elite) (Reported Stolen)

  Level ??? Battlecruiser

  Attributes

  - Virodeshian Navy build

  - Overall Length: 250 meters

  - Estimated Mass: 788 Standard Mg

  - Estimated Volume: 300,000 M3

  - Estimated Processing Power: 345 PHz (base clock)

  - Estimated Reactor Power: 550 sMW

  Perceived Resource(s)

  - 400/400 HP

  - 1200/1200 Active Shielding (Internal and External Module)

  Perceived Passive Defenses

  - Armor: 200

  - Anti-Lock Defense Matrix

  Perceived Weapon Systems

  - Heavy Turret Node x6

  - Assault Drone Bay x2

  - Heavy Torpedo Bay x4

  - ???

  The stats on the battlecruiser were more powerful than anything I had personally encountered. Even with the four torpedoes we had ready to launch, it wouldn’t be enough to punch through its shields and bring down the behemoth. Our torpedoes cost a fortune, and the idea of losing them without a return on investment was unthinkable. Worse, our scanning systems weren’t able to identify equipped modules on either enemy starcraft without consuming the processing power we reserved to deal with the electronic warfare debuff afflicted by the battlecruiser. I wasn’t about to make Brandon’s job exponentially more difficult for a little more information.

  “Look, the pirate frigates we took out might have bounties on them. We can’t take this battlecruiser—it’s too tough.” Brandon must have read the stats too. He was probably right, but if we could somehow recover the stolen battlecruiser and return it to the Virodeshian Conglomerate, the pay would be astronomical. Only I was sure we wouldn’t be able to survive a single solid hit from the battlecruiser’s weapons and they were out for our blood now, probably more than before now that we had killed most of their friends. How had these grimy pirates managed to steal such an impressive naval ship?

  “The battlecruiser is stolen. If we can get it back—even if it’s falling apart at that point—the score will be huge,” I said, hearing how greedy and fanatical I sounded. This wasn’t just a desire for great wealth, it was the desire to escape what would become a self-imposed obligation if I couldn’t escape Stacy’s theoretical grasp that seemed to be closing in.

  “Kyle, this is crazy. Our torpedoes are rated at 135 damage to shields with 45% piercing hull damage. Even with all four, that doesn’t add up to the twelve-hundred points of shielding or the four-hundred hull points on the battlecruiser, and I sure as hell can’t make up that difference with our guns before they’re depleted.” Brandon was trying to talk reason into me. He didn’t—no, he couldn’t understand why I needed this score. The bounties, if they even existed at all, on the pirate frigates we had already taken out wouldn’t be enough to make up for all the time we’d already spent on this endeavor.

  I gritted my teeth, committing internally to the faintest origins of a working machination. “We can do this, we just have to make the torpedoes count.”

  “Dammit! You’re going to get us killed. Play smarter,” Brandon hissed. Something about his words broke through to me. I had always considered myself to be level-headed, but that wasn’t the case now. I was making irrational choices, and they were going to cost us everything if we didn’t get the hell out of here.

  I was about to respond, but my attention was drawn to the only remaining frigate as it approached for another hard pass. Our shields were ticking back up and approaching full capacity, but I knew for a fact this pirate captain was a good pilot and could inflict some heavy damage if I didn’t fly better. I had given up any hope of winning this encounter—the definition of winning had changed. Now, the best outcome would be to escape this region of null space with Exowurm intact. I had no intention of losing my ship today.

  The frigate twisted in front of us, corkscrewing out of Brandon’s line of fire with a terrifying burst of acceleration. “Dammit, Kyle, I lost him!”

  “Shit,” I grimaced, whipping my head to the left to catch a glimpse of the enemy. Bright trails of blue energy burned from the frigate’s twin propulsion emitters, almost doubling the ship’s speed. It disappeared from my sight as I attempted to correct our flight path. I took a panicked breath, pulling to the right with my flight joysticks in a last-ditch effort of damage prevention, but it was already too late. We were too far out of position to dodge the attack from such a short distance.

  Withering blaster fire ripped into our shields, tearing them down to zero in a fraction of a second before smashing into Exowurm’s unprotected hull with devastating damage. The enemy frigate had significantly boosted its damage somehow, and now we were paying the price for my arrogance. Warning messages flared as I ripped our trajectory out of the frigate’s blaster fire and flight path, climbing hard to avoid another barrage from the lingering battlecruiser as it trailed behind. The resulting acceleration forces inflicted serious strain—all too lifelike as my flying became increasingly erratic to try to escape a losing situation.

  I quickly glanced at our stats, devastated when the true grim reality of our situation hit. 0/100 active shielding, 44/100 HP remaining on Exowurm’s hull. Our systems and modules were mostly intact, but we wouldn’t survive against another hit like that. The shield systems would take a lot of time to recharge to a point where they’d offer meaningful protection again, so it was on me to avoid getting hit, and it was on Brandon to prevent the enemy frigate from getting into position to hit us again.

  As the battlecruiser fired again, an idea surged into my mind, although I had no idea what to expect. The best defense against firepower of that magnitude was to get the hell out of the way. You didn’t take damage from what didn’t hit you; that was just simple physics. The second thing I did after another powerful burst of speed and crazed, uneven flying was to try to cast my Mana Shield spell on Exowurm itself, something I had never had reason to attempt before.

  Mana Shield casting failed!

  - Invalid target: Exowurm.

  - Requires character target to cast.

  The failure wasn’t surprising. I was only able to cast spells because of my Strexian implant chip, and we didn’t have anything like that installed in the ship itself. Magic integration in conventional space battles probably wasn’t possible without Strexian ship modules, and I didn’t even know if tech like that existed. I couldn’t channel my Mana Shield spell to boost the shield HP of our ship, nor could I spend my mana to boost the output or performance of its installed modules and systems. The dwindling resources of the ship were all we had to get out of this nightmare.

  Brandon was practically snarling now, as he fired our railguns at the frigate, managing to glance it a couple times and prevent another attack run on us with strained difficulty. “One more hit and we’re done, Kyle. Get us the hell out of here unless you want to float!” There was an icy rage in his voice, cold and even.

  “I know. We’re leaving.” Only, it wasn’t going to be easy now. The battlecruiser probably wouldn’t be able to match our warp speed, but the frigate had a good chance, and I wasn’t exactly eager to engage in FTL combat. It was nasty, and even the slightest deviation from navigational coordinates could
send us rocketing into an asteroid the size of most planets. The Virodeshian frigate had a lot more tricks up its sleeve than I predicted, and the terror of the situation was sinking in now.

  Just as I rerouted all the power from our shield module to our warp drive, another warning flared on my UI. It was a timer counting down from nine seconds. The enemy battlecruiser had launched a barrage of guided missiles at us.

  10

  “Shoot the missiles with the blaster cannons!” I yelled. If that didn’t work, I had nine seconds until I would have to say goodbye to Exowurm. At least I have insurance. It was a grim thought deeply rooted in reality. This was a game, but I would lose months of wages working at Rollings Mining Company in real life if I lost this ship in-game. We hadn’t earned enough to even come close to recouping the investment price of this ship—especially since Eternity Online launched a couple weeks ago and Exowurm was pretty high-end in terms of what was available to most players for the time being. Over half of our in-game liquid wealth was tied up in inventory we had aboard the ship too. It wouldn’t be covered by my insurance.

  Brandon activated the rapid-fire blaster cannons on either side of the ship, toggling off the railguns and storing them in the ship’s hull before squeezing the triggers with a death grip. A massive volley of bolts erupted from our guns, surging toward the oncoming cluster of missiles. I magnified the image in my rightmost display, watching as blaster bolts collided with the missiles and bounced off in a spray of blue sparks. Seriously? The missiles had active shielding on them, of all things. They were too small and fast for Brandon to hit with his railguns, and the blaster cannons weren’t doing enough damage to take them out.

  After five more seconds of sustained fire with no effect, I made an executive decision, taking down Brandon’s weapon systems to route as much power to the main capacitor as possible. Aside from the engines, basic AI node functions, and life support, everything was offline so I could try to accelerate this process. It would take 15 seconds to charge the capacitor with enough juice to activate the warp drive and get the hell out of here. Before I turned the ship, I spotted the three missiles approaching us, brilliant blue wisps trailing behind small, spear-like shapes slicing across the void. I could see them with unmagnified vision, and that wasn’t a good sign.

  We were accelerating as quickly as I dared. None of my available spells would do me any good in this situation. I pressed the acceleration up to 9Gs, fully expecting to pass out before the warp drive kicked into action or the cluster missiles atomized us.

  Seven seconds until missile impact, 12 seconds until the warp drive kicked in. The clock counting down to impact was slowing, but it was still dropping, even as I pressed the limits of my body with my crazed flying. Had the battlecruiser fired torpedoes at us instead of missiles, we probably could have escaped. Torpedoes were designed to fire at larger, slower-moving ships. Missiles were made to kill smaller ships like ours.

  “Do we have cargo to jettison?” Brandon asked, like this was some kind of action movie with low production value. I didn’t care what kind of missiles they were—it wouldn’t take much to pop our ship like an overfilled balloon at this point. From their velocity and acceleration, it was clear the missiles weren’t cheap. The Virodeshian Navy hadn’t skimped out on dishing out eCr for the good stuff.

  I cursed. It wouldn’t work, the missiles were too smart. But that gave me an idea. “Wouldn’t do anything. Brandon, use the signal jamming module. Boost it with everything you can. Hit the missiles one at a time and maybe they’ll veer too far off course to correct and hit us before we warp away. Get ready to switch targets on my mark.”

  “On it!” Brandon shouted. Warning messages flared as the debuff from the battlecruiser afflicted us in full capacity. As my colossus friend painted the first missile, I pulled up and watched with satisfaction as the missile continued on its current path, not reacting to our changed direction.

  “Switch every time I swerve,” I amended. I was fully expecting the first confused missile to correct its flight path right after Brandon switched targets; the name of this game was making up the difference between collision time and time until our capacitor had enough charge to activate the warp drive. It was a zero-sum game, and there could only be one winner.

  The timer to impact was counting down from three seconds, but we were stalling it out, making the time burn almost three times as slow. The warp drive still needed eight seconds, the difference seemed too large to make up. The exhaustion from the acceleration forces was soaking through my EVA suit and the protection it offered. Blackness swarmed my vision, and my body struggled to pump enough blood and oxygen to my brain. I pulled back on the accelerator, dropping us from the crushing 12Gs to 10 to try to keep from passing out. It slowed the effect, but I wasn’t going to make it much longer, especially as I kept changing directions to throw off a missile every half second.

  “Warp drive active! Punch it!” Brandon called out in triumph.

  I pressed my arm forward, grabbing the lever to warp us out, but a blast wave of impact stopped me short. The air pressurized and imploded, incinerating my EVA suit as though it was nothing more than a flimsy piece of cardboard.

  Exowurm has been destroyed by (Elite) Virodeshian Battlecruiser’s Homing Missile.

  You have been killed by (Elite) Virodeshian Battlecruiser.

  As a level three character, you are not yet subject to the full penalties of character death. Your insurers have been contacted with claim paperwork for any relevant gear or items insured for potential payouts. Any items or gear not equipped and not in your player inventory have been lost.

  Please choose your death penalty:

  - 12-hour respawn timer.

  - -75 XP (Currently at Level 3, 93/100 XP)

  I was standing in a sea of black now, removed from my previous surroundings. I had no control over my character. I had no user interface and had no way of contacting Brandon. The missiles had wiped us out. Exowurm was gone and wasn’t coming back. By the swift finality of the death, I knew there was no way Brandon had survived the explosion. My stupidity and recklessness had cost us everything, and even with the insurance money I’d get back, I had flushed months of hard labor down the drain.

  The XP penalty was much greater than what we could accomplish with the rest of the play time we had remaining for the night. We’d spawn back at the last stations we’d synced with, but we wouldn’t own a starship, and I had no idea how long I would have to wait to claim the payout for the loss of my prized Exowurm. Frustration and anger—mostly at myself— threatened to boil over. I couldn’t go back to Stacy now. It was what I was trying to avoid, but the thought of seeing her again caused unbelievable confliction in the depths of my being. It was too much.

  I selected the 12-hour respawn timer as my death penalty. Might as well reduce losses as much as I could. I was certain Brandon would select the same thing.

  Selection made—death penalty has been applied. You are now being transitioned out of Eternity Online and into normal sleep. Please stand by.

  11 – Interlude

  [Roughly Three Years Ago. 02:11:13 UXT, August 12th, 3143. Salgon Slums]

  Even wearing the stained sweatshirt, she was beautiful. Stacy’s long auburn hair was braided and pulled back, strands of hair that were dyed black accented her sharp, cunning face. She took out the earpiece from her case, sliding it into her ear before pulling the synthetic jacket over her sweater and zipping it most of the way up. It was too big on her, at least by three sizes and hung off her slender frame, nearly dropping to her knees. But it was warm enough, and it had seen her through two winters since we’d scrounged together the credits to buy it.

  She pulled her hair down the back and pulled the rainproof hood over her head, inspecting her dataknife one more time, her brilliant blue eyes lingering on its glimmering blade before she slid it into its sheath. It was hers now, but I almost wished we could just pawn it and walk away from this. That knife was worth three months where we cou
ld live happily and escape the hell of the Salgon Slums, thousands of feet beneath the icy surface of the planet in the poorest urban cityscape. But if we pulled this off, we’d have a clean slate. I could take care of her and be everything she needed without working at the factory.

  “You’re sure about this, Stace?” I tried to keep my voice level as I asked one last time, knowing that she wasn’t going to change her answer.

  “I’m sure. This is what we’ve been waiting for,” she told me, her gentle voice soothing the growing anxiety pitting in my stomach. The handgun she’d given me felt heavy in its holster which I’d anchored to my belt on the side, tucked under my coat to conceal the blocky, unfamiliar shape. I only had the faintest idea of how to use the weapon, but the instructions weren’t complicated compared to what I was used to. Turn off the safety, pull the slide, point and squeeze. Like a bolt fastener. It wasn’t really all that different.

  Harsh light caught in the droplets of cold rain as they dribbled off Stacy’s coat. I followed her through the grimy, neon-lit alleyway, watching our steamy breath vaporize in the frigid night air. I had to remind myself why we were taking this risk. No more work in the factory repairing century-old manufacturing equipment while putting my life at risk on a daily basis. No more Stacy feeling guilty for not working because she couldn’t find a safe job that didn’t require her to take off her clothes.