Edge of Reality Page 18

  "2017, launch clearance granted. Commencing countdown. You have one intersecting course, a Stighawk freighter at azimuth 30, declination 18."

  I could see it already. My mind had received and processed the data.

  The power field began to fade. The air was pumped out of the docking pod. The power feed clamps reverberated, unlocking. Dozens of pipes and cables disconnected themselves from the hull. I could feel it!

  "2017, prepare for launch."

  The countdown neared zero. The electromagnetic catapult shot me into the void.

  I just can't describe the entire scope and novelty of the feeling. The acceleration forced me into the seat as the station plunged out of view. The bright dot of the freighter on the intersecting course grew rapidly, gaining shape. Maneuvering thrusters, I dove deeper, flying at a five degree inclination regarding the ecliptic plane. We passed each other within a hair's breadth.

  This was mind-blowing. I knew that my maneuver must have looked clumsy and amateurish but still it filled me with some ecstatic, boundless freedom. Everything I'd ever experienced before had faded into insignificance next to this, shrinking into bleak shadows in my memory.

  The initial launch had given the ship enough momentum to continue on its way. Mentally I switched from one hemisphere to the other. Now I could see the station. I commenced the maneuver, watching the thrusters spew cloudy jets of gas from the starboard side. The stellar view shifted unhurriedly. Once I had the station in my crosshairs, I activated the compensating thruster.

  I was going back!

  This was way too slow and fluent for combat maneuvering. Then again, I hadn't got used to the ship yet. My perception came in jerks: too powerful one moment, too weak the next. I knew that the slightest twitch of my hands, the slightest pressure of my fingers could cause the course to change. I tried to steer it a little more to circumnavigate Argus and immediately went into a spin. In the split second that it took the autopilot to correct my mistake, my blood ran cold. Had I been maneuvering in the thick of a ship formation, or even worse, caught in the whirlwind of battle, the consequences would have been unimaginable.

  Gingerly I leveled up the course. I was woefully unready for any close-range maneuvering.

  I pulled myself together.

  Sixty seconds since launch. I sent a docking request and located the landing beam. The station loomed back into view, the docking pad speeding toward me. My vision blurred.

  Then reflexes kicked in.

  I expertly manipulated the controls. The ship turned aft to the station. Thrusts began to pulsate. Acceleration forced me into the seat. Speed control. Thrust.

  The station was within three hundred feet. Slowly the ship drifted toward the pad, banking slightly as it entered. I felt the magnetic dampers kick in. A dull thump. The ship vibrated as the clamps grappled it.

  Ninety seconds since launch.

  It felt like a lifetime, birth until death.

  The tension wouldn't let go. The hair under my helmet were dripping with sweat. I was ecstatic.

  I was in game. I was a pilot!

  * * *

  The station's living quarters were nothing like all those "hotel" rooms.

  It was a fully restored and functional area adjacent to the Market Deck to house lone players unaffiliated to any of the clans, mainly pilots and well-to-do vendors.

  My module consisted of a lounge with three doors. Now both Arbido and Charon had a room each to themselves.

  Arbido had wangled a few screenshots of the Dargian station out of me plus a couple of logs. Now he was very secretive, spending all his time online preparing some sort of economic miracle.

  I was still euphoric after my first sortie. The moment I removed my gear, I hurried over to see Charon.

  He was gradually coming back to life. He was still very weak after we'd pulled him out of his hibernation with the metabolites I'd bought. He could barely move and couldn't think straight. Still, he reacted to my arrival by opening his eyes and turning his head.

  "Zander..."

  "Hi, man."

  "I've been following your test run," he looked pleased with my success.

  I perched on the bed next to him. "The ship is too good for words."

  He stared at me, cocking his head to one side and growling pensively without noticing it. "When are you going to keep your promise? We are going to liberate the Haash, aren't we?"

  "Absolutely. But it might take a bit of time."

  "Why?"

  "You're too weak still. And I need to practice some more."

  "I'm much better already!"

  "Charon, we're going to set them all free, trust me. And we'll beat the crap out of the Dargians, I swear. But it's not going to be easy. We'll need to call up a raid. It'll take money. And a lot of it."

  His eyes glistened unkindly. Holding onto the wall, he scrambled to his feet.

  "Where do you think you're going? You have to stay in bed!"

  "I'm going to talk to Arbido," Charon was definitely in a decisive mood. "He knows how to make money."

  I didn't say anything. If he could befriend Arbido, that would be excellent. Besides, we really had to get the rest of the Haash out. That went without saying. But no matter how badly Charon wanted it, putting a raid together could take some time.

  We had to think everything over and find some people we could trust. We wouldn't pull it off the two of us, even if we managed to buy another ship.

  * * *

  For two weeks already I'd been practicing combat maneuvers.

  The Technologists clan kept receiving their data from me. The implants worked without fail, growing more dependable with every passing day as they kept merging with my nervous and metabolic systems.

  Today I was supposed to practice with five dummy drones. It had taken me a lot of arguing with Charon and consulting with the mechanics, but finally I'd had the weapons upgraded. Apart from the lasers, I had an anti-fighter turret and two EMPs. I'd had to order another battery pack and some ammo storage modules but in the end it was worth it. I'd already had the chance to fully appreciate kinetic weapons. In close-range combat against well-armored targets protected by power fields they were indispensable.

  More experienced pilots cast funny looks my way. They didn't seem to agree. I could understand that: they had already become one with their ships, unwilling to introduce any changes. A newb always plays a smartass until his first sortie.

  I wasn't listening to them, though. I just hoped that my fresh approach to the weapon layout might help us all survive at a later date.

  Now the drone was banking this way and that, doing some complex aerobatics trying to throw me off its tail. A tiny, agile target. I had special training generators installed on all of my weapons to make sure I didn't destroy my targets. The drones were too expensive. Simulating the kill was more than enough.

  I caught it in my sights as it completed yet another maneuver and unloaded my lasers into it. Four piercing beams made the target's power field shimmer. Normally this was a preparative measure aimed at bringing the shields down. Simple, really: no reactor in the world was capable of keeping shield batteries charged for the duration of a combat. The shields were obliged to lose power — and then, suffering constant pressure, they would deplete their charge and would momentarily go down.

  I still remembered my experiments with my Shield Belt (I was never without it these days).

  Let's see now. The drone in front of me was desperately banking this way and that. I fired brief preemptive bursts of my pulse guns.

  Got him!

  The missiles that would have normally evaporated with the fully-charged power field impact now went right through the weakened shield, white-hot, hitting the drone.

  The target wasn't destroyed but it was seriously damaged. The impacts scorched the drone's hull and its sensors. Now its maneuverability was seriously limited as both aft and starboard thrusters were crippled. As a result, its very next maneuver sent the drone into a spin.

>   I stepped on it, shortening the distance and keeping the target within the attack cone. Two lasers kept hitting it non-stop until the shield dropped to 10%. A few more bursts of the pulse guns. Done him!

  Combat duration: seven seconds?

  This was unbelievable. Normally, a combat between two equal fighters lasted five minutes at least. First you had to remove the enemy's shields depriving him of power, then either chase the desperately fleeing target or catch the banking ship in your sights and then shoot it down. I wasn't in a hurry to make my logs public. I had a few things to analyze first. In a real-life combat it might have taken even less time. If its purpose is survival and not some grudge you have, you don't need to finish your enemy off. Just damaging his ship is enough, forcing him out of the picture, especially when there is a considerable disparity of power.

  Most pilots weren't going to like it. This was no teamwork in any shape or form. They didn't like to let the damaged ships go, either. But at the moment, I was simply trying to suss out this new weapon setup and its potential. Just practicing some skills I might need in the future. I already knew enough about the Phantom Server to realize that whoever wanted to make it here had to think out of the box.

  A sensation of danger swept over me before the aft sensors kicked in. Two drones were coming up my backside.

  I banked, strafing out of their line of fire, and performed a pylon turn facing the enemy, my fighter preserving its momentum flying aft first.

  I shot the first one down straight away in one powerful combined volley.

  Its wingman was too close to its leader; it now had to swerve trying to avoid all the debris, thus giving me a few precious seconds extra.

  It began to spin in an ever-widening spiral, heading "forward" in regards to the ecliptic. I chased after it.

  I was getting better every time. I knew of course that a drone was a drone. I'd no idea how long I'd last confronted with a proper fighter pilot. But this was yet to come. I still had another couple of weeks to practice my reflexes and reaction, improving my pilot skills.

  * * *

  Twice the drone escaped the attack cone. It had lured me about twenty thousand miles above the ecliptic plane before I finally shot it down.

  Now I had to get the drone back. It wasn't going to be easy but this was a very useful skill for a fighter pilot. How else were you supposed to collect loot in outer space?

  The Haash ships consisted of three modules. This diagram might give you some idea of how they looked:

  )II(

  The cockpit was located in the center of the craft. The two side sections carried two autonomous reactors and the weapon modules. After all the improvements I'd introduced to midships, it also held the pulse guns, their accelerators securely armored. The weapon modules didn't affect the ship's aerodynamics which allowed it to enter the atmosphere if necessary.

  The small cargo holds were located at the back of the side sections, next to the towing beam generators. My objective now was to grab the drone with the towing beam, then switch off the power shield momentarily while opening one of the aft hatches.

  This was something I hadn't quite mastered yet. I did everything by the book but it took me five to seven seconds to land the captured ship in the hold. You couldn't afford this kind of time in combat. They'd shoot me down before I knew it. I'd seen professional pilots do it: they just sped past their quarry, grabbing it with the beam and went on fighting, switching momentarily the aft power field emitters, showering the enemy with fire while stuffing their holds with loot.

  I still had a lot to grow.

  Six seconds.

  Too long. I had to try to do it at full speed. The problem was, the Haash ship's power shield wasn't divided up. This was a serious drawback. I had to install more power field emitters to enable me to divide the defense between the two hemispheres so that I could redistribute the power when necessary.

  I opened the holds and set the drones free.

  I had another hour of practice left. This time I was going to practice attacking a large ship. I had two proton torpedoes slung on their mountings: it wasn't yet viable to install launching tubes. I didn't have guidance systems, either, but considering the sheer power of the proton charges they weren't strictly necessary.

  The five drones linked up, docking onto each other.

  A holographic image of a large military freighter lumbered onto the screens — very decently armed and equipped with ten-megawatt shields. Both the sensors and my own field of vision (which was spherical now with the implants I'd received) generated and registered the craft's signature.

  My objective was to disable the shields using the first torpedo while driving the other one into the ship's engine compartment. The rest had to go according to plan. To assault an immobilized ship, you first had to nuke its space weapon defense systems.

  I approached the target.

  The torpedoes sitting in their mountings were real. But this time I was going to launch their holographic copies. It would be stupid wasting expensive ammo for training's sake.

  The "freighter" had noticed me and activated its laser turrets while trying to maneuver out of my sights. While analyzing its trajectory, I locked on to it, simultaneously controlling the area around it.

  My dedicated practice location was quite near to the station. And still I shouldn't forget that the Outlaws' territory was a mere twenty light seconds away. At any moment, real danger could come from that direction. Which was why even practice sorties always demanded a full load of ammo and a complete battery charge.

  Most asteroids you couldn't even see: they merged with the darkness of space. Only occasionally could you notice tiny little sparks as the light of the system's star played with the blocks of ice.

  The virtual "freighter" changed course sharply, trying to avoid the attack cone. I beat him to it. The proton torpedoes were ready for action. Everything was under control.

  An alarm beeped. Staying on course, I quickly scanned my sphere of vision.

  Some strange signatures had appeared in the asteroid belt area. The naked eye couldn't have spotted anything out of the ordinary but my mind was now short-wired to the ship's sensors, allowing me to notice even a barely visible shimmer.

  The drones continued on their maneuver. I contacted them, ordering them to heave to. No more practice for me today. I was too curious.

  I killed the speed and activated all the monitoring systems. I also switched on camo mode and maxed out the shields just in case.

  Below me to my right floated the ancient starships, Leviathans of the universe or rather, only their enormous empty shells gaping with impact damage. The Dargians had long stripped them of anything that was worth salvaging. Argus crafters used to frequent them for a while cutting out whole sections of their cargonite armor, but the Outlaws' forays had quickly put an end to this practice.

  A cluster of debris floated nearby — with the Titan, the corporation's flagship, at its center. Some distance away I could see the silent procession of the dead cryogenic platforms and remains of the colonial freighters. Hundreds of Dargian ships destroyed in the epic battle circled them, making an outer frame of this mammoth techno graveyard.

  This area was an arena of regular skirmishes between the Outlaws and Argus pilots. About a year ago, the Engineers' clan had managed to unearth, amid all the debris, two relatively well-preserved Founders' frigates which were now being restored at the station.

  The shimmering spots I'd noticed were getting brighter. What was going on? I changed the scanners' focus.

  It was a gas and dust cloud.

  Now where could it have come from? I downloaded all the data on this particular location. There was no record of it being there before.

  The first thing that jumped to my mind was that it had probably been formed by the collision of two larger asteroids. In which case, why hadn't I noticed the impact itself? None of the instruments seemed to have registered it, either.

  This was truly weird. It was as if a g
ood dozen asteroids rich in metals had been suddenly dispersed, their atoms losing their bond with each other forming a cold nebula in a matter of seconds.

  At least that's what the ship's sensors were trying to suggest. But I knew that in order to blow these gargantuan boulders to dust you needed indecent amounts of energy.

  Had I just witnessed one of the Founders' yet unknown technologies being used by the Outlaws?

  If so, what was its purpose?

  Zander, get real. This is a game world. Its developers can make anything possible.

  True. My initial anxiety subsided, replaced by acute curiosity.

  In the meantime, the cloud began forming hundreds of swirling patterns as matter started clustering together. I watched, unable to take my eyes off its mysterious metamorphosis, when I started to realize: each of the hundreds of clusters was gaining shape and structure.

  I focused on the one nearest to me. The skin on the back of my head began to prickle as I looked at the translucent opaque outline of a materializing spaceship.

  A Phantom Raider?

  Images from the promptly downloaded databases flashed before my eyes. I had no doubt left. This was a heavy Phantom Raider.

  * * *

  There were hundreds of them.

  The ships materialized swiftly. Knowing the Raiders couldn't intercept the laser communications system, I quickly sent word down. I just hoped they wouldn't notice me. This prompt warning could save hundreds if not thousands of lives.

  It looked like I was witness to some major global event in the making.

  I felt uncomfortable. From what I'd heard, the most that the Argus pilots had ever had to deal with were about a dozen Raiders which was considered a large battle.

  The swirls of materializing starships weren't opaque any longer. Two hundred and fifty heavy raiders exited the cloud all at once, accelerating in synch and falling into formation, docking together creating a complex spatial structure of twenty-five ships clustered together to shape a sphere with three long sickle-like "wings", each of them comprised of seventy-five Raiders.