SPINWARD

An Artificial Dream
State Novel

I.M.WAUGH

Copyright © 2016 I.M.Waugh

All Rights Reserved

This
novel is DRM free

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Unlocking

Chapter
2: Game On

Chapter
3: Red Blue Pink Black

Chapter
4: The Daily Grind

Chapter
5: Phat Loot

Chapter
6:  Jester’s Tears

Chapter
7: Outfitting

Chapter
8: Be very quiet

Chapter
9: The Proposal

Chapter
10:  Junk

Chapter
11: Achievement Unlocked

Chapter
12:  Videodrone

Chapter
13: We’re in Business

Chapter
14: System’s Edge

Chapter
15: Engage

EPILOGUE

Chapter 1: Unlocking

5, 4, 3, 2, 1…….

Unlocking

Susan smiled and did a little
dance in front of her phone after seeing the game status change, yes, yes, yes
it’s actually happening.

After the months of delays and
rumours Spinward, the hotly anticipated Dream Box MMORPG from Snow Storm
entertainment, was finally launched at 20:00 GMT March 3rd 2036.
Susan, to her mum anyway, Su to everyone else, sat on edge her bed in her
pyjamas clutching her phone and watching the progress bar on the app inch
across the screen, willing it to move faster and get to the next stage, ready
to play. Two rather tense minutes later, would’ve been quicker if I could
afford to upgrade this old Samsung she thought, the bar hit the end.

Oh now it’s checking for new
content, what a zero day patch?

The phone appeared to read her
mind and the status line changed again.

Downloading new content,
1.7gb/s, Estimated time 12 minutes….

Su sighed and put the phone down
on the bedside cabinet, a battered piece 20th century piece of Ikea
that had seen much better days, and went to window to watch the wintery rain.
The wind rattled the old sash window as the rain drops streaked down, glad the
Landlord fixed the leak, only took him three weeks she grumbled to herself.
Does it rain in Spinward she thought?

Snow Storm had been
uncharacteristically tight lipped about their new product, only releasing concepts,
hints and grandiose claims about it, it’s set in Outer Space, it’s skill based and
it’s the most immersive game ever created, but very little detail. Online
pundits were divided, vapour-ware, overhyped, under- hyped, will fail to
deliver, will be the best thing ever, will be the worst thing ever, nobody was
letting on. Even the small cadre of external Beta testers were keeping quiet,
but they were almost certainly locked down by an iron clad NDA. But all this
seemed to work, anticipation was at an all-time high, the streams, boards and
social media pages were buzzing with excitement and Su really really wanted to
play.

Su looked back at her phone, 1.5gb/s
7 minutes now and went through a her pregame checklist, warmest comfiest
pyjamas, those blue ones with the little coffee stain that won’t come out,
check, lucky pink bed socks, check, old Primark dressing gown that really
should be replaced, check, Ok, arse kicking outfit all present and correct.
Bed, cabinet, wardrobe, all still there, all really needing replacing but
cheapskate landlord won’t do it until they completely fall apart, check. Phone,
battery charged, 93%, should be enough, emergency wakeup link to the smoke and
burglar alarms, green, good so now the precious.

The Dream Box seemed rather out
of place in the run down flat, an almost new piece of state of piece art mid-21st
century technology contrasted with the dilapidated furniture. Su gave it a
little pat, it was by far her most valuable procession and every hard core
gamers dream, literally.

Only five more payments of, Oh
My Gawd, nearly as much as my rent to go and it will be obsolete when I’ve paid
for it, Su sighed. This stupid game had better be worth it.

The Dream box, Su’s particular
one was an LG 250sx LDSM, was officially known as a Lucid Dream State
Manipulator but everyone called them Dream Boxes, a device capable of inducing
an artificial lucid dream state in a sleeping person and taking them into a
shared interactive environment for all 5 senses. Vision was photorealistic and
sound the highest fidelity, but touch, taste and smell weren’t quite up to the
real world, they would be by the next generation the manufactures promised.

The Dream box was actually a 2
part device, the Dream and the Box. The Dream part was the  head unit, it
actually looked more like an overstuffed pillow and even had a washable fabric
cover on it, but inside was the latest soft tech with ultra-high resolution EEG
sensors and neuron manipulators. It worked sort of like a pillow too, the user
rested their head on it and closed their eyes and were taken in to the
controlled dream state.

The other part, the Box, was a
sleek 30cm rectangle of dark plastic with a single status LED on the front,
currently green, and a wake me button for emergencies. Inside nestled a multi
qubit quantum processor linked to more conventional computing power than pretty
much the entire sum of the world’s processing power for a significant part of
the twentieth century, it was capable of creating simulated realities almost
indistinguishable from the real thing. Su kept hers in the sock draw.

The two parts were separate
because the boxes’ heat and RF emanations could interfere with the delicate
dream mechanism of the head unit. Like most specialised hardware in the
mid-21st it didn’t bother with its own user interface or network connectivity,
instead a very low power Bluetooth connection linked the head unit to the box
to and the box to the to users phone. On the phone an app linked the Dream Box
to the outside world to provide network access, security, software updates and
social media connections.

The app flashed.

Game Ready.

Finally thought a relieved Su,
she locked her room’s door and tapped the Ready to Play icon, then lay on her
worn duvet cover and nestled her head in the high tech pillow.

‘To sleep, perchance to dream,’ she whispered to herself
and closed her eyes.

Su opened her eyes suddenly and
sat up with a start, her tiny room with its cheap furniture in a crumbling
Victorian pile near the Hasting’s seafront was gone, replaced by an
ultra-modern white, almost too white, bedroom. Su had to blink a couple of
times before it all came into focus. Even after playing these dream games for
over three years walking up in game was always a bit of a shock. Now dressed in
a luxurious white robe Su yawned and got out of the virtual bed, not a bad
entry room, she thought.

‘Welcome to Spinward Player’ a
neutral voice emanated from nowhere in particular, ‘Please place you hand on
the table for verification.’

Susan walked up the glass table
she swore wasn’t there a second ago and placed her hand on it, back in the real
world unseen biometric sensors in the dream unit took readings and compared
them to the records saved in Snow Storm’s cloud to find the player’s account.

‘Please speak your pass phrase,’
the disembodied voice requested.

‘The blue ridge mountains of Virginia
ate my hamster,’ replied Su confidently.

Over a split second Cloud
servers distributed across data centres in Iceland, Hungary and Vietnam
compared the biometrics and pass phrase to those on the databases, logged the
successful access, created a player account and started the billing cycle.

The outline of her had glowed
blue and a soft chime emanated from the table.

‘Verification complete, account
details and billing created. Hello Susan Wakefield, please read the EULA and
accept its terms if you wish to proceed.’

The document appeared on
floating pane of glass hovering above the table. Does anyone actually ready
these Su wondered, waving her hand quickly and repeatedly to scroll the massive
document of impenetrable legalese down to the bottom to get to the Accept/Decline
buttons. Accept was tapped. Well they probably now own my first born and or
immortal soul Su philosophised, this game had better be good.

‘Licence Accepted,’ the voice
sounded out happily. ‘Now please select your realm.’

The legal document was replaced
by a long list of servers, all indicating high populations.

‘Your character will be locked
to this realm and its game rules, please select carefully.’

Her hand movements were more
deliberate this time.

Nope do not want Asian, Oceania
or American locations. Nope don’t want Mandarin, Japanese, German, Russian or
French languages. Nope do definitely don’t want open PVP, Role playing, hrmm,
nah that can get a bit heavy so let’s just find a standard one, ah, there right
at the bottom, European, English Language, Consensual PVP, Standard Server.
Accept.

‘Due to unexpected demand there
is currently a queue for that server, wait time is estimated at twenty three
minutes, chose another server or wait.’

‘Unexpected demand? This is the
biggest game release of the year, hype has been building like mad, media
channels going on about it like nothing else and servers like this are bound to
be chosen by at least seventy five percent of the players in the UK. How on earth
can demand be unexpected?’ exasperated Su.

‘Answer not understood,’ replied
the neutral voice, ‘Please select other server or wait.’

‘Ok, Ok. Wait it is then.’

‘Thank you for waiting,
estimated wait time is now twenty five minutes. In the meantime please enjoy
these complimentary beverages and foodstuffs and take a moment to read the game
manual and safety advice while you wait. Snow Storm Entertainment apologies for
any inconvenience’.

A plate of sandwiches and a
glass of clear liquid slide out of nowhere onto the table and the floating
glass screen widened to show the interactive manual in landscape format.

Su nibbled a sandwich, hrmm
Cheese, ish, sort of, not bad, I’ve had worse dream food. She took another
larger bite and started paging though the manual.

Section 4.2 Skills

Spinward has no levels, just
skills, which are split between game character skills and the actual player’s
skill, though the split varies.

Physical skills are mostly
player based, for example aim a laser pistol at a target and pull the trigger.
If your laser pistol skill is low or you do not have it, an unseen dice roll
will deflect your aim slightly, wereas.at higher skill levels a small amount of
assistance will be given, guiding your aim. The effects are subtle and if you
were pointing the weapon in completely wrong direction the game won’t help you.

Verbal interaction skill and
appearance affects conversion results with AI NPCs in a similar way, but
obviously have no game effect on other players.

Technical and mental skills are
more governed by characters skills, for example to repair complex machinery the
player gets a significant bonus if the correct tools are placed in the correct
locations, but the actual repair success or failure will be mostly determined
by game rules and character skill levels.

Physical attributes provide
skill bonuses were appropriate.

Skills can be improved by
practicing them and by doing training within game. Some skills have mandatory
training requirements and examinations. Many advanced skills require relevant
basic skills to be at certain levels before they can be obtained. Maximum
number of skills learnable is limited by the characters intelligence statistic.
There are no classes, any combinations of skills can be learnt by any player.

The detail skill listing are
covered in Appendix 6 but be warned, this is not the complete list, some skills
will have to be discovered though play.

Flicking over to the appendix Su
started to skim the skill list and a few builds came to mind. I’m definitely
going to need some first aid and weapon use skills, moving to specialise in
pistols perhaps? But things like entertainment, specialising in playing guitar,
no not really a priority she mused. Though it’s nice they have that sort of
stuff there, just killing stuff can get a bit dull after a while.

Section 7.3 Snow Storm Store

No
game affecting items can be purchased from Snow Storm Store, only cosmetic
items are available.

Oh thank you Snow Storm, no play
to win this time.

Section 11.0 Factions

In Gal year 5611 the major
factions in the Carina–Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way galaxy are rearming and
rebuilding after the catastrophic AI wars.

All players must choose one of
the major factions when creating there character but relations with others factions
both major and minor can be built during game play

11.1 Major Faction: The Grand
Duchy of Sagittarius

Led by the Grand Duke Altar III
from Sigma Sagittarii IV, the GDS is a class-based society were the wealthy
hereditary aristocrat class live in luxury while the free merchant classes and
the indentured proles work the factories, mines and farms and serve as enlisted
troops in the Grand Duchy’s extensive military. The GDS’s outlook is
militaristic and expansionistic as it suffered the least of the main factions
in the AI wars due to its preference for using human labour. They now seek to
fill the power vacuum and expand into other territories.

Oh let me guess, they all have
English accents, wear fancy uniforms, are all uptight and are the really bad
guys?

11.2 Major Faction: The Canopus
Co-prosperity Sphere

Formed from a cabal of nine
Corporations and Oligarchs the wealthy Coprosperity Sphere seek profits,
growth, materials, markets and above all power but are prone to infighting
between themselves which has noticeably limited there expansion. Though
significantly damaged during the AI wars their economy has recovered far faster
than expected. All citizens of the CCS are employees of the nine whose wealth
and power is determined by their position in the corporate hierarchy, with
senior management living in absolute luxury and lower class workers little more
than slaves.

This is the “No these aren’t
meant to be the Russians and Chinese honest” faction then Snow Storm? Bet they
all wear suits.

11.3 Major Faction: The Carina
Free Federation

Led by the Symposiarc Clauson
and the Federation Senate from Eta Carinae II they
lead a group of partially self-governing systems aligned to the principles of
personal freedom, free trade and democratic process. The CFF’s economy was
successful and dependant on robotics and so it suffered heavily in the AI wars.
They are still recovering and starting to rebuild their economy and military,
but other factions are manoeuvring around them looking for weakness.

So this is the democratic plucky
underdog good guy faction? Bet they speak American. But if they are all for
freedom, why did they suffer so much in these AI wars or does freedom only
apply to humans?

So no AI or Aliens then Su
wondered, not even ones that are mostly human but have odd bumps on their
forehead? Su searched the manual, nope just humans. Bit dull thought Su,
perhaps they’ll be in an expansion? Though playing something non-humanoid via a
Dream Box might just too weird, she supposed.

Just as Su was moving on to the
manual section about space flight an orchestral chime filled the white room.

‘Spinward is ready to play,
please step though the doorway to begin character creation,’ the voice
announced.

She looked up from the manual,
an open doorway has formed on one of the opposing wall.

‘Ohh this is it, we’re in.’ Su strode
towards the door smiling.

Another white room, almost
featureless apart from a low silvery grey low pedestal in the centre, which Su
was already standing on it by the time the voice had managed to say please step.
She knew what was coming.

More floating glass panes
formed, two full length, one in front and one behind and third smaller panel
just next to her right hand. The larger planes shimmered for a second before
displaying a figure, or more accurately, a reflection. Su saw herself, or at
least a pretty good approximation of herself in the panes. The white robe she
was wearing in the previous room had vanished leaving her in some very plain
but substantial white virtual underwear.

‘Please morph your features to
suit your game character,’ the voice droned,  ‘Snow Storm Entertainment do not
recommend deviating more than 20% from your natural shape, doing so may cause
disorientation, dysphoria, loss of balance and general discomfort for the
player both in the real and dream worlds, for which Snow Storm Entertainment do
not accept liability for’.

Standard boilerplate. Dream
games always started you with your own body shape which you could morph to
change your height, weight, hair, facial features, musculature and even sex,
but some people found changing the avatar to far from their natural body shape
caused problems inside the game and out.

Su had tried being a muscular
Amazonian, a voluptuous goddess and even a man in other games, but always found
it disconcerting and never kept these characters. Over long or short limbs
especially made walking really odd and the having body parts she wasn’t born
made in game life rather difficult, as did going to the toilet the morning
after a gaming session.

So virtual Su, what shall we do
with you then...

She looked down to her slightly
saggy midriff. Abs, I want abs she thought. Her hand slid across the sliders
bringing in her waistline. Hips can come in a bit too and did another wave of
the controls. A little bit of muscle I think and with a tweak of a setting she
had an athlete’s tone. Pasty white skin that never sees sun can get a little
bit of a tan, she picked a colour from the palette, eww no, too orange, than
one, erm OK. What else can we do? Jawline and cheekbones just a bit sharper
please, lips a touch fuller, oh no, not that much now I look like a pop Idol,
no, just a little, there we are.

Scrolling though the settings,
ahh, the infamous boob slider, they always have one of these, so what happens
if we push it all the way to…

‘Oh My Gawd’ said Su out loud
with an embarrassed laugh as she looked over newly morphed body, her breasts had
ballooned out to the size of large footballs. Nope not doing that, no way, not
ever and she moved the controls back to default. Looking down again at her
normal B cup self, she looks around sheepishly and then nudged the controls to
just a single cup size bigger.

Looking at her new body, this
could be me, she thought, if I went running everyday like I keep telling myself
I should, stop eating all those tasty carbohydrate based snack foods, cut out
the cider and wine and join a gym. She let out a sigh. So anything else we need
to change she wondered while looking at her new body’s reflection, oh yes,
hair, let’s get styled.

Spinning though the forty
available hairstyles proved a little disappointing, nothing really great, guess
they hide the really good one in the cash shop she tutted. It took her longer
than expected to narrow down the choice down, but it came to a short list of
Medium bob three, Short spiky six and Long wavy four, she tried them with
various colours.

Long was wild in red and the
Medium bob was dangerous looking, but, oh, we’re going to be in space aren’t we,
what happens in zero gravity, or in a space suit helmet, long hair will get
everywhere, short and spikey it is, but what colour? Not my natural mousy
brown, so blonde perhaps? No not platinum, darker, dirtier, but with some
highlights, yes I think we have it.

Su squinted and got the game HUD
to come up, the real time display blinking away in the corner.

Arggg its half past one already,
better hurry up. Eyes, erm yes light yellow green, goes with the hair, makeup,
just a touch and I think we’re done. She hit the confirm icon.

‘Body deviation level twenty two
percent are, please go back or confirm choice. Note Snow Storm Entertainment
will not be held liable for any discomfort this level of deviation incurs,’
warned the voice.

‘Twenty two percent are you
serious, it’s a fifteen at most,’ replied Su with a frown. She tapped the
confirm icon rather harder this time.

‘Appearance in game can be
changed by certain NPC merchants and players with the correct skills, but be
warned an internal currency change may be made for these services,’ informed
the voice. ‘Please confirm again to go to the next stage of character
creation.’

I’m going to wear out this
confirm button in a minute thought Su.

‘Please choose character name,
enter a First Name, a Last Name and a Nickname. First Name Last Name combinations
must be unique and please refrain from profanity or recognised trademarks,’ the
voice explained.

‘Oh dear, and I so wanted to be
called CocaCola Cuntbiscuit,’ Su replied with just a slight amount of sarcasm.

She racked her brains for a
name, why was this always the hardest bit about character creation she
wondered? Her first three attempts got rejected, three of them because they
were already taken, the fourth was simply not allowed but she couldn’t see why.

Fifth attempt. First Name :
Callisto   Last Name : Hudson   Nickname: Cal

‘Name accepted,’ boomed the
voice. ‘Please note names cannot be changed in game unless a rename token is
purchased from the Snow Storm Store. Press confirm to continue.’

Click, again.

‘Welcome to Spinward Callisto Hudson.’
The voice almost sounded happy this time. ‘Please allocate your initial thirty
points to base attributes.’

So what have we got, Su went
through the attributes in her head. Strength, Agility, Dexterity, Stamina, Charisma,
Intelligence, all usual suspects then, but what no Wisdom? Suppose we haven’t
got manna or clerics in the space so not required. Strength, well its zapping
people with laser guns not whacking them with swords so not really necessary,
though it’s likely to affect your carry weight limits isn’t it, so can’t have
it rock bottom, so erm 4. Agility and dexterity two separate stats, that’s
confusing, guess I need both for dogging and shooting, 7 each. Stamina, required
running around? Does it determine hit points, are there even hit points? Erm 7
then. Charisma, Oh who needs that it’s only for vendors and NPCs anyway, 2 and
Intelligence, ah this affects maximum number of skills, want this high, 9 and
that’s, oh 36 points. Damm, erm well AGL, DEX and STA back to 6 and INT to 8,
no still 32,  STR down to 3, so one more point to loose, erm, Stamina down to 5.
Not a Min Max build but very INT and DEX based, super smart Cal will just have
to shoot first.

‘Please be aware that base
attributes can be increased or decrease in game permanently or temporarily
though items and training. If you are happy with you initial allocation pleases
press confirm.’

I’m getting bored of this
confirm button, click.

‘Cal please select your starting
faction.’

Three versions of her appeared,
the first was wearing a buttoned up, almost Napoleonic style, military dress uniform
and stood to attention, a subtitle “The Grand Duchy of Sagittarius” floated in
front of it. The second in a rather severe but oddly asymmetric looking
charcoal business suit clutched a tablet and glared at her. The subtitle read “Canopus
Co-prosperity Sphere” and the third, in a baggy jumpsuit and a tool belt, stood
rather workmanlike and was titled “The Carina Free Federation”.

So who to choose, uptight fancy
uniforms who want to invade everyone, money mad suits who want to own
everything or those freedom, well as long as you are human, loving salt of the
earth underdogs… Su pondered. Oh lets go with the federation of whatsit
underdogs, lesser of three evils I guess, plus if the Devs are going to favour
one faction, this is going to be the one isn’t it. Outfit looks comfier too.
She reached out and tapped the third image.

‘Starter faction Carina Free
Federation selected, please note the chosen starter faction only affects
starting location, alliances to all other factions can be built in game. Please
press confirm to continue.’

Click, again. After which the
three doppelgangers faded out and a chair slid into view.

‘Starter faction selected,
please prepare to enter the world of Spinward,’ informed the voice.

‘What no class selection, or
skill allocation, just straight in?’ Su replied a little confused.

‘Question not understood, please
prepare to enter the world of Spinward.’

‘Uh? Erm so just sit in the
chain then.’

‘Yes, please sit in the chair.’

She was really getting a bit
narked with the voice. Moving over to the all-important chair, which actually
it looked more like a slightly worn out airline seat. Memories of a rather
disastrous Hen weekend trip to Prague on Easy-Jet suddenly came to mind as she
settled in.

‘What th….’  The rest of the
words never came out, Su eyes closed and she fell into blackness.

Chapter 2: Game On

Cal opened her eyes suddenly and
sat up with a start, only to be stopped by a seatbelt across her lap. She was
still in the airline seat, but now appeared to now be on medium sized airliner
with several rows of them, about half were filled. Looking down she found she
was now wearing a slightly baggy light grey jumpsuit festooned with large
pockets, something heavy was in the forearm one. Looking around she could see
about half the people on the plane were wearing in similar jumpsuits, new
players like me she guessed. A rather excited young man sitting two seats away
turned to her and gave her the thumbs up.

‘This is incredible, wow it’s
all so real, it’s amazing, I’m Tod by the way, what’s your name, where are you
from,’ Tod blathered but before Cal could answer a voice came over the PA.

‘This is your Captain speaking,
we have achieved are orbital trajectory and are now on final approach to Upsilon Carinae Gateway Station
and will be docking in approximately four minutes,’ announced an American
accented female voice. ‘Please remain seated with your seatbelt on until we
have docked, but in the meantime, please enjoy the view.’

The roof of the cabin shimmered
for a second before going transparent, everyone looked up and gasped.

‘Oh wow,’ exclaimed Cal, ‘it’s
not plane, it’s a spaceship.’

Even Tod shut up and looked up
in awe. Above them hung blue green planet, half in darkness, half in light with
white clouds rolling across continents. Rising over planet were two suns.

‘That’s U Carinae A and B.’ Tod had recovered his voice. ‘And that must be Upsilon
Carinae four below, it’s the only one in the habitable belt, I think they call
it New Dakota’. His further attempts to impress Cal with more of his
astronomical knowledge got cut short by the Captain who had left the PA on.

‘Upsilon Carinae Gateway Control this is NDA Shuttle
twelve niner four on approach Cleep.’

‘Shuttle twelve niner four this
is Upsilon Carinae Gateway
Control we have you on active. Please come to one two seven dash forty five and
reduce velocity to one twenty for approach to docking bay one four Cleep’

‘That’s a roger Upsilon Carinae Gateway Control,
coming round to one two seven dash forty five and reducing velocity to one
twenty Cleep.’

The NASA like Qunidar tones are
a nice touch thought Cal. As the shuttle rolled around to its new heading a new
sight came into view, which again garnered several more gasps.

Upsilon Carinae Gateway station was huge, over two
kilometres long Cal guessed. The top was a large flattened dome like structure
in an off white colour with lights shinning from a thousand windows. It sat on
top a long spine, giving a sort of mushroom like appearance. The spine seemed
more industrial, being mostly grey and full of docking ports and booms, pods,
pipes, structures and unidentifiable greebles. Ships large and small surrounded
the station, flittering about like fireflies with blinking red and green navigational
lights. Quite the starter location thought Cal.

‘Final approach looks good
Shuttle twelve niner four Cleep.’

‘Confirm Upsilon Carinae Gateway Control, we are in the
slot five by five Cleep.’

A twin line of blue holographic
landing lights stretched out from the lower station guiding the shuttle towards
a huge double doorway which was slowly opening. It looked like they wouldn’t
open fast enough, but the scale was deceiving, and the shuttle glided through
the docking bay doors with tens of meters to spare, before coming to a rest
hovering over a landing pad inside the cavernous docking bay. Slightly over
complex undercarriage unfolded from belly of the streamlined shuttle as is
slowly descended onto the pad. It landed with the tiniest of bumps.

Cal felt the little landing bump
and odd twinge, like gravity disappeared for a second and then the whole
shuttle did a little wobble as the undercarriage took its weight. Artificial
gravity stuff Cal assumed, but still quite a smooth landing, Ryanair isn’t that
good.

‘Welcome to Upsilon Carinae Gateway Station,’
announced the Captain. ‘Thank you for flying New Dakota Aerospace and please
remember to take all your personal items when you leave.’

The seatbelt light went off and
Cal’s lap belt clicked open and retracted itself into the seat. Another chime sounded
behind her and another voice, probably a machine’s, sounded out. ‘Pressure
levels equalised and atmosphere verified, please stand away from the opening
hatch’. With a hiss then a whirr a thick walled hatch slid out and moved  away.

Most of the passengers just got
up and shuffled towards the exit, the grey jumpsuited players were less sure,
most were still in their seats looking around. Cal wasn’t one of them and
followed the more confident passengers, NPC’s she assumed, into the station.
The other players followed her lead. The hatch led into a glass walled jet
bridge with flashing yellow signs directing the passengers to the arrival area.

From the windows, Cal could see
the bay was huge, easily four hundred meters across and fifty high, a whole
indoor airport. Several craft, some sleek and aerodynamic, other boxy and
lumpy, sat on pads while space suited workers, trucks and robots fussed around
them, connecting and disconnecting fuelling hoses and loading and unloading
cargo while others did maintenance and kicked tires. So when do I get my space
ship wondered Cal, hope there’s not some awful month long grind for one.

The jet bridge led into a very
basic arrival lounge with worn plastic seats and a couple of vending machines
in the corner.

‘Wow, it’s like Gatwick in space,’
said one of the grey suited players. Cal agreed.

‘Erm, new starters over here
please,’ announced a balding man with a scruffy little beard holding a tablet
from the corner of the room. ‘Yeah you lot in the grey, get your asses over
here, I don’t want to have to shout.’

The bored looking functionary
tapped his tablet as the players started to shuffle over to his position. ‘Hustle
people, look this is the only orientation you are going to get, so get over
here and listen up.’

He waited another few more seconds
for the stragglers to gather before starting his speech.

‘Right here we go. This is the
seventh time I’ve had to do this briefing today and there are two more shuttles
on approach, so I’m going to keep it quick.

Welcome new workers, that’s you
guys in the grey by the way, to Carinae
Gateway Station. You’re a bunch of unskilled nobodies from the boonies who have
somehow managed to scrape together enough credit to get yourselves on a shuttle
going up the well and are here to make your fortune here in the big black. I’m
Administrator Johansson and am the lucky person whose job it is to start you on
your way.

The good news is we’ve got
plenty of work. You know the history of this place, got hit hard in the AI
wars, that caused a lot of damage and lot of people died and it’s taken a lot
of work to get it back to where we are today. But we aren’t quite all the way
there yet, so that’s why we need you guys cause we can’t trust the machines
anymore. The best work is for people with in demand skills and you guys don’t
have them, but you can train if you have the credit and to get that credit you
can find manual work. The docks need people, as do the clean-up crews working on
the damaged sections and the Commercial deck always needs couriers and
fabricators. Also the arboretum people need some help with the managing the
green and sorting out its little pest problems and of course for those with
slightly more open minds and fluid morals, the Red deck always needs willing
people for this and that. So get to work, get some credits, get some gear and get
some training.

You’ve all been allocated
accommodation, work clothes, an implanted ID chip and a pad hooked up to the
local network. Yeah the accommodation isn’t up to much, those greys aren’t
exactly stylish and the pads are really old ones, but all of that can be fixed
with credits. Your personal accommodation details and the station guide book
have been forwarded to your pads.’

Some of the audience looked a
bit blank.

‘Your pads, you know those dark
green plastic rectangular things you were given before you boarded the shuttle
that fit into the forearm pocket of you jumpsuit. What, were you all asleep or
something when they were being handed out?’

That actually got a few laughs.

‘Anyway, that’s it losers,’
cough, ‘workers, go get to work, turbo lifts to all decks are that way.’ And
with that he dismissed the small crowd.

Oh that’ what that lump is. Cal
unzipped her forearm pocket and pulled out a small cheap looking pad.

What, even Gran would think this
thing primitive, it’s like some sort of turn of the century stone age PDA, we
are in the far future and the consumer electronics are worse than they are now?

Cal thought about it for sec, on
the other hand, well, it’s probably easier to simulate and sort of traditional
in a way, nobody had anything like an iPhone on the Starship Discovery did they.
So where’s my room then?

The menus were rather awkward to
navigate, but after a few taps her tablet it coughed up a location - Room
17-04, Accommodation deck seven and it drew a primitive map which Cal followed
to the appropriate Turbo lift.

So what makes them Turbo?

Turbo lifts appeared to work
just like regular lifts, it took less than half minute to get from the hanger
to Accommodation deck seven. Elevator music was still there in the far future
and a tinny tune accompanied Cal for the whole journey.

What is that tune, I know it,
it’s it’s, Oh gawd, “I lost my heart to a Starship Trooper” isn’t it. Now I’ll
have that as an ear worm for days. Cal part blamed and part thanked her
Grandparents for imparting on her more knowledge about 1970s, 1980s and 1990s
pop music than anyone of her generation really ought to have.

The lift door swished open and
Cal stepped into Accommodation deck seven and immediately regretted it. Deck seven
seemed to closely resemble a rather dodgy sink estate, it looked in a right
state of disrepair. Lights flickered, water, well she hoped is was water,
dripped from pipes, graffiti was everywhere and Cal swore she just saw a rat.
The admin guy was right about the accommodation not being up to much.

A few other jumpsuited new
players were wandering around, most were around consulting there pads and
looking a little nervous, though one appeared to have a hand gun and was moving
rather more purposefully, he’s got the right idea Cal thought.

She decided to find her room
quickly as two rather dodgy looking characters in a dark corner seemed to have
noticed her. She hurried along looking for section 17. Two corridors and a
flight of stairs later she found the door for section 17 and tapped in 04 on
the worn keypad while nervously looking over her shoulder. A rather long two
seconds later the panel bleeped and the door opened with a hiss. All the doors
seemed to hiss.

The room wasn’t quite as bad as it
was on the outside, though it was possibly smaller than her one in Hastings. No
windows and not a proper door, so Cal assumed it was probably instanced.

So what have we got, single bed
and one pillow, wardrobe, shower, desk, all the essentials. But it wasn’t
somewhere she planned to spend much time in. Sitting on the desk was a simple
black one strap rucksack and a green box wrapped up in gold ribbon.

Ah my starter gear, finally.

Inside the rucksack Cal found “Brown
Casual Pants”, size small, “Blue Casual Top”, size small, two “HiNRG” food
bars, a small repair kit and a mini med kit with eight charges.

What no rusty short sword then?

The lack of even a basic weapon
disappointed her and casual “Pants” description grated. She squinted and got
her game HUD up and eye flicked to the Settings menu to change the language options.
“British English”, that’s better. Now when she examined the clothes this
description came up on her HUD.

Brown Casual Trousers: Kinetic
Armour 0: Energy Armour: 0 Stun Armour: 1 Condition: 99%.

She put the clothes back in the
rucksack. They, she decided, were vendor trash and planned to sell them at the
first opportunity but the med kit and toolkit were probably more than useful,
definite keepers, especially as they seemed to fit in the cargo pockets on her
jumpsuit perfectly.

Cal turned her attention to the
package. She was expecting something after paying an extra ninety quid on top
of the basic game’s price for a “Lucky Dip Starter pack” and this looked like
it. The ribbon came off with a touch and the box opened in a shower of little
stars.

Inside was, oh, that is that it?

There was a little chit with
two thousand written on it, it glowed when she touched it then disappeared with
a bing sound. Checking her Inventory via the HUD she could see her balance was
now up to two thousand five hundred credits. The next item was a bit odd, a
pair of bright green pants, pants in the British sense of the word, so with a
practiced eye flick she brought up the description on her HUD.

Rare
item: Lucky Pants: Increases chance of finding legendary, rare and uncommon
items for 7 days.

Better put them on then.

Cal unzipped the jumpsuit and
found she was still wearing the plain white underwear from the character
creator, but all attempts to remove it proved futile, they were stuck to her.

So I’m supposed to wear those
green ones on my head or something?

Then she had an idea and flicked
up the HUD, half a dozen error messages sat in the bottom left corner of her
vison.

Removal of undergarments not
permitted outside of over 18 restricted areas.

‘F~@#’

Profanity not permitted outside
of over 18 restricted areas.

‘Double F*%&’

Random sets of quiet syllables
came out instead of the desired Anglo Saxon.

So I can’t take my own knickers
off and I can’t swear, wonderful.

She glared at the help icon on
the HUD and searched how to enable over eighteen content.

Section 19.1 Adult Content

Snow Storm Entertainment has a
commitment to family values and does not permit vulgar language or behaviour in
Spinward. This restriction applies to all areas by default and is only lifted
in a fixed number of specific adult only areas. Only players who have a
verified age of 18 or over (UK settings) may enter these areas. Adult areas
have no effect on game progression. Owners who have a verified age of 18 of
over can enable Adult content in areas they have administration rights for,
this includes personal residences and vehicles, but once it is enabled non age
verified players will not be allowed to enter.

The admin menu for her residence
proved only to be accessible through her clunky pad, scrolling though the
options she eventually found the setting she was looking for.

Enable Adult content in
current residence: Y/N

She jabbed Y.

‘Fuck wank shit,’ she shouted to
the world, grinned and proceeded to remove her underwear.

‘A Brazilian? Really? Is that
absolutely necessary Snow Storm?’ Cal asked the game world after seeing her
avatar naked. Not expecting an answer she sighed and put on her new pants.

Last item in the package was
another smaller white box with lurid green lettering on it. Inside the box was
a smallish multisided object made out of a shiny grey metal maybe twenty
centimetres across weighing about a kilo. One of its facets was black and
recessed and protruding from it was what looked like 3 camera lenses, one was large
and the other two quite tiny.

Cal turned the odd object over
in her hands. What is this? She wondered turning it over and over before she
spotted a tiny switch on one of the facets marked On/Off. Being the curious type,
she flicked it to On.

The rhombic dodecahedron leapt
from her hands and floated up into the middle of the room oblivious to gravity.
It started making odd little bleeps and buzzing sounds while spinning slowly
around until the camera lenses faced her. The object tilted for a second then
righted itself, then moved in a little closer and let out a series of bleeps
and bloops.

‘Are you a drone or robot some
kind?’ Cal asked.

‘Bip Bip Blit beep bbeep Ro Ro burt
blip YES!’

‘And you have a name?’

‘Bub bub bilp EyeDeee  Bee one
one Tee dash four five seven zero nine three Aay dash two Bee  YES!’

‘What a mouthful, erm I’ll just call
you Blit, that OK, you understand?

‘Blit Blit Beep boop YES!’

‘And I’m Cal, you were in my
box, so do you belong to me?’

‘Rrr RRr Xcess Regggrrrr bip bip
bip Ozzzrrr Burp caLEEEStooo HUUUdSSSon YES!’

‘So I have a robot. What do you
do then Blit?’

‘Bleeeeep Boop Blep bip bip
Brzzzz YES!’

‘Oh, you make annoying bleeping
noises, wonderful’. Cal accessed her HUD and got the robot’s description text.

Semi-autonomous drone unit:
Type BX-12 Serial number B11T-457093A-2B Weapons: None  Sensors: Basic radio
optical and audio  Class: Player Pet  Kinetic Armour: 2  Energy Armour: 10  Stun
Armour: 4  Condition: 100%

‘So you’re my pet then.’

‘Bling Bop NO! YES! YES! Brzzz
NO! YES!’

‘Whatever, just follow me and be
quiet, OK.’

‘Vrrzzt vzzzrt YES!’

So some in-game cash, these ugly
pants and a floating pet that goes beep, all for ninety pounds, what a waste.
I’m never buying a pre-game package again, never never never and I mean it this
time.

Cal, somewhat disappointed with
her purchase, intended to write a splash complaining about it on the game’s
main stream in the morning, pointing out its poor value for money and the fact
if you were under 18 and bought it, there now way for you to actually put the
lucky knickers on.

Picking up her rucksack Cal ventured
back into the run down Accommodation deck, ready to start questing.

One corridor down on the way
back to the turbo lifts, it began.

‘Hey Lady.’

Cal looked around, there was
overweight balding guy in a brown jumpsuit dragging a broom beckoning her.

‘Yeah you in the grey, wanna ern
some cred?’

‘Sure,’ replied Cal confidently
and walked over to him.

‘So Hi, yeah, I’m Max, the janitor
around here and you, being a concerned citizen, might of noticed we have an
unauthorised infestation of non-human life forms on this deck.’

‘Eh?’

‘Rats lady, we got rats. Dunno
how they got here, us being in space and all, but we do and they’re making the
place look untidy, you know what I mean. Anyway, I’m a busy man, got important
janitorial stuff to do, so if you could help deal with the problem, I can make
it worth your while.’

‘So you want me to catch some
rats for you?’

‘Yeah go bag about ten, and I
mean bag, don’t leave more mess for me to clean up.’ he handed Cal a plastic
bag.

‘So what you are saying is that
you want me to go and kill ten rats,’ replied a bemused Cal.

‘Yeah lady, go kill ten rats,
you have hearing problem or sumthing?’

‘No I heard fine, it’s just that
I wasn’t expecting such a cliché for my first quest,‘ Cal replied. ‘So what do
you want me to do, kick them to death, you see I’m a bit unarmed at the moment.’

‘No weapons, shesh, it’s a
dangerous galaxy lady, you shouldn’t wander around here unless you are packing
some heat. Here take this, it’s only a loaner mindst.’ Max reached into his
coverall and produced a small pistol which he handed to Cal. ‘Now go get on with
it.’ And with that Max trudged down the corridor dragging his broom.

Cal examined her new weapon. It
was compact and seeming made from black plastic, the grip has no trigger guard
and sat in the middle of the receiver instead of towards the end. The receiver
itself was a fairly featureless lozenge with only a trio of cooling vents and
basic sight for details, she squinted to bring up its game stats.

Light laser pistol MK-103: Damage
Kinetic:0  Energy:6, Stun:0  Condition: 82%   Range: 15m  Action: Semi-automatic
Ammunition type: Energy - rechargeable micro e-clip.

So this is my rusty short sword
then.

She lifted it up in a well-practiced
two handed grip, practiced from playing dozens of on-line shooters, lined up
the slights on a mark on the opposing wall and squeezed the trigger.

The gun responded with a sharp
crack and a pencil line of red light shot out from it and hit the wall leaving
a dark mark accompanied by a slight whiff of ozone and burnt plastic. Cal grinned
and sank into her shooter stance.

‘Let’s go bag us some rats then.’

She had been tracking this
annoying little squeaker for a minute or two, it had just ducked into another
corridor. Cal followed it, gun up.

There you are, got you now.

The rat seemed obvious to her
and was investigating a piece of garbage on the floor. She lined it up dead in
the sights and fired.

Crack, Crack, Crack.

The rat turned to look at her,
chittered and then ran off. What’s up with this stupid gun Cal wondered. I had
the furry little bastard right in my sights and the shots went all over the
place. She looked down the muzzle trying to see if anything was out of
alignment or broken, which she knew was actually pretty dumb thing to do with a
loaded weapon, in game or not, but it all looked OK.

Oh wait, skills. Remembering the
manual page from earlier Cal opened up her personal head up display.

Ranged Weapon Skill
increase:

0.1

Ranged Weapon Skill
increase:

0.1

Energy Pistol Skill
increase:

0.1

Flicking over to her skills
tab

Ranged weapons:

0.2 – Unskilled

Energy Pistol
specialisation:

0.1 – Unskilled

So I won’t hit much until I
level these then, great.

Five minutes of stalking and
eight shots later Cal finally hit a rat. The single shot was enough to reduce
it to a lump of charcoal. She picked it up and dropped it in her bag, slightly
disappointed it didn’t have any loot. As she was doing so another rat dashed
across the corridor. Now more confident, Cal swung her pistol around, this will
be number two she thought and fired but instead of the expected crack the
weapon just emitted a soft chime.

‘What? You’re meant to go crack,
not bing you stupid little gun.’

She pulled the trigger a few
more times and it just repeated the chime. Then it dawned on her, out of ammo. She
worked the little catch on the end of the grip and a small battery pack slid
out, it had a little a blinking red light on the end. Do I need to buy more
ammo she wondered inspecting the clip.

Oh it’s rechargeable, I see, so
where do I plug it in?

The e-clip fitted neatly into a
wall socket she found in the next corridor and forty seconds later the little
LED on the end of it went from red to green.

Right, back to the rats.

Cal got four more rats with the
next twelve shots, thankful the weapon was shooting a little more where she actually
aimed it now, but she was slightly concerned over how long it was taking to
find rats to shoot. It seemed Max had been busy recruiting pest controllers, as
there was at least four more players in grey jumpsuits and carrying identical
pistols all chasing vermin in her immediate vicinity, the furry little things
had started to become scarce. As she was recharging for the second time an idea
formed. She opened up her rucksack and pulled out one of the energy bars, unwrapped
it and broke off a chunk. Creeping down a less used corridor Cal threw the
chunk a few meters. Thirty seconds later five rats were nibbling on it.

Rat AI is spot on Snow Storm.

She grinned and lined up her
weapon. Four rats for six shots this time, nice, but where did that last one go
she wondered.

‘Oww! ‘ A sharp pain in her leg
made Cal shout. ‘What the?’

Rat five had taken chunk out of
her leg and was lining up for another.

Three panicked shots later and
the last rat was charcoal. Cal dumped it in the bag indignantly and checked her
leg. There was a little blood on the jumpsuit but the wound appears to have
closed up. Cal was glad this was just a game, if that had happened in the real
world it would be still bleeding and I’d need at least five different shots in
case it was carrying anything nasty.

She found MAX on the next level,
he’d just waved off another new player with the same speech she got. She strode
over and triumphantly handed him the bag containing ten rat shaped lumps of
charcoal.

‘Ten rats, just as you asked.’

‘Sure these were rats?’

‘Yes I’m sure, pay up.’

‘Yeah OK, here’s fifty.’ He took
her palm and tapped two pudgy fingers on to it. Cal heard a little chime and
noticed her credit count had risen.

So that’s how you do cashless
transactions then.

‘Only fifty, it took ages to get
those things and one bit me, you can spare a bit more,’ negotiated Cal.

‘Ah Ok, you drive a hard bargain
lady, I aint got no more cash, so just keep the gun OK.’

‘Erm well…. Oh Ok, that will do’

‘Your choice, It’s a piece of
junk anyway. My second cousin Macy works on Industrial four and prints them out
of the works fabber when the boss aint looking. Anyway if you’re looking for
more work go see my brother in law Chuck down in the dock three, he’s always
looking for people.’ And with that the quest giver wandered off.

Knowing a direction to a new
quest hub when she heard one Cal quickly recharged her new weapon in another one
of those oh so handy wall sockets and headed back to the lifts.

The lifts weren’t where she
thought they were. We might have taken a wrong turn here she thought, all these
bloody corridors the same. Cal thought the Devs had been cutting and pasting of
the environmental graphics a little too often.

‘Smooosh,’ a voice mumbled out
of the darkness. ‘Got any Smooosh.’

Two figures dressed in torn
clothing and dirty rags lurched out from a dark side corridor. ‘Need Smoosh,
give me Smooooosh,’ the second one droned. His eyes looking wrong, very wrong.

‘You will give us Smoosh,’ said
the first angrily as he pulled out a knife.

‘S£&^,’ cursed Cal. She reached
for her sidearm knowing how this was going to go down.

The two were way faster than
they looked and closed on her in a second, the first slashed at her head with
his knife. Cal instinctively raised her arms to protect her face and the blade gashed
her left forearm.

‘Ahhhh.’  The level of in game
pain was rather higher than she expected and the blood slightly too realistic.
Cal winced and stepped back quickly.

The two leered at her with
twisted grins and splatters of her blood on their faces. ‘Now get Smooosh,’ they
said in unison and closed in for the kill.

‘F&*% Smoosh,’ replied Cal
as she lifted her weapon. Three quick body shots and the one with the knife went
down. The second panicked and turned to run. Cal calmly put two shots in the
back of the fleeing junkie’s head and he collapsed in a heap.

Cal nursed her arm, again the bleeding
had stopped quite quickly but she was feeling a bit unsteady.

Dam this game is a bit too
realistic sometimes, how many hit points did I lose this time?

Her HUD said she was now at seventy
percent health and had a minor wound penalty. Cal pulled out her little med kit
and held it to her injured arm, thumbing the button. It glowed green for a
second and her health bar rose. It took three goes to get it back to one
hundred percent. Cal guessed she had to use so many charges because she hadn’t
her levelled first aid skills. The kit’s readout showed she had only five light
nano heal charges left.

‘Nano technology, shorthand in
sci-fi games for magic,’ she snorted, but decided she better stock up on these
nano health potions anyway.

Cal calmly checked the junkies
bodies for loot, a reflex action learnt from far too many RPGs. So many in fact
she was slightly worried if she ever encountered an actual dead body in the
real world the first thing she would was to go through their pockets. The
junkie’s knife looked a bit rubbish and the condition was only fifteen percent
and the clothes were the wrong size and a bit nasty as well so she stuffed them
all in her rucksack to sell later. They did have a couple of credit chits on them,
which added another thirty to her balance, that was better than nothing.

The lift down to docks three
took a couple of minutes, accompanied by another tune. Rocket man, Elton Jon, 1972,
there’s a running theme to this lift music she realised.

In her downtime, Cal took a
minute to look up Smoosh in the online help.

Smoosh: Nythol Kapa Dextromine,
more commonly known a Smoosh is a highly addictive narcotic chemical usually
taken in pill form and is highly illegal in all major polities. Usage gives a strong
feeling of euphoria, but regular consumption causes brain damage, mostly in the
upper frontal lobe, leaving addicts with highly reduced metal capabilities whose
only goal is to find another fix. Smoosh heads, as addicts are known, are often
highly aggressive. Citizens are encouraged to report violent Smoosh heads in
their vicinity to the local authorities.

Or I can just shoot them,
they’re basically just zombies aren’t they.

Dock supervisor Chuck Karson did
indeed have a lot of work, as did Systems Engineer Martinez and Load Master
Baker. Three fed-ex’s, four bug hunts, a repair job, one wiring puzzle and two goes
at loading a cargo shuttle later Cal needed a breather.

She found her way to the dock’s
rest area. It looked like a transport café with plastic tables and chairs, a TV
showing some sort of sport and bored looking woman wearing a less than white
apron behind a food counter. The cook, Margret, turned out to be a vendor, someone
who seemed to have unlimited funds to buy all the trash players collect. Cal
emptied out her rucksack. The clothes and knife she’d gotten earlier got her
seventy credits, some assorted machine parts she had found got one hundred and
twenty, the rather gross bug antennas another fifty and that plus the credits
she’d got doing quests put her funds were well over three thousand, not bad for
a day’s work she thought, so she asked the server for the food menu.

How much? Seventy five credits
for just a sandwich?

Looking though the prices she
realised the assumption she had made that a credit was worth about a pound or a
euro was way out, it seemed to be worth more like 10p. She wasn’t as well off
as she thought and decided to skip lunch.

Bloody cash sinks. Better get back
to work then.

Chuck had more jobs for her.

‘Is this going to be a standup
fight, sir, or another bughunt,’replied Cal with a smirk as she quoted her
namesake.

‘Bug hunt,’ replied the super.

Did he just pick up the quote
thought Cal, if so, great programming.

‘Red mega roaches are all over
the inspection pits and are freaking out my workers, get down then and get zap
me a dozen of them and I’ll make it worth your while,’  he offered.

The eighty credits he offered
for the job didn’t sound like a lot now, but the pistol skill gains had been
coming in and Cal had started hitting pretty much what she aimed at now. Twelve
bugs, twelve shots she thought, a five minute job and climbed down into the
shuttle inspection pit.

Bug number nine was proving
troublesome, not only did the little buggers like to hide in the smallest and
dirtiest wiring ducts, they were rather hard to hit, or were getting harder to
hit somehow. The first seven bugs went down with a single shot, number eight
took two and she’d taken two shots at number nine so far and both missed. Her
aim was dead on but it was like in the rat hunt earlier, but the gun just
didn’t shoot where it was pointed. Could it be damaged?

The bug skittered across the
decking and she took another shot. Wide, again and that’s my twelve. What’s up?

While the clip was recharging
Cal inspected her, up to now, trusty pistol. It looked OK on the outside, her HUD
said its condition was eighty one percent and her energy pistol skill was up to
2.1: Competent.

So why can’t I hit stuff
anymore?

Then she noticed a small blue
bar at the bottom right of her HUD that was a lot longer than it used to be.

Fatigue: After physical
exercise and repeated skill use players build up fatigue points which are
displayed on the blue bar on the bottom right corner of the standard HUD. When
the bar reaches seventy players will start to receive negative penalties on
their skills, at ninety the penalties will be severe and at hundred all skill
use is stopped and only slow movements are allowed.

Fatigue points can be
recovered through eating and drinking appropriate foodstuffs and beverages,
watching entertainments or resting on a seat or bed. While the player is logged
out fatigue points will reduce by ten ever hour not spent in game. This rate of
loss is trebled if the player leaves their character sitting or lying on a bed
in a safe area. The player’s Stamina characteristic, training and certain items
or consumable buffs can reduce fatigue point accumulation.

Cal’s fatigue bar was at seventy
one. So I’m getting too tired to hit stuff then Cal concluded, enforced down
time mechanism’s suck.

The last three bugs took up all
twelve shots in her clip and Chuck paid up begrudgingly, that low Charisma
score seemed was kicking in and the blue bar had gone up another notch. Cal was
pretty sure she had a couple of real hours in game left and didn’t want to log
just yet, so just rest for a bit and eat something to make this bar go down? The
sandwiches in the rest area didn’t seem to offer any fatigue reducing buffs and
if she had to just sit somewhere there must be somewhere on this station a bit
more interesting than that greasy spoon.

Chapter 3: Red Blue Pink Black

Red deck or Blue deck, Red deck
or Blue deck, Red deck or Blue deck.

Cal dithered over the deck
selection at the lift. Blue deck was the commercial area, stores, eateries,
vendors, everything necessary to extract credits from a players account. Red
deck’s description was pretty much the same, apart from the fact it was one of
these adult only zones, so everything to extract credit with but with more bad language
and nudity, oh and a PVP zone to boot.

Blue would be safer, less erm
visual and generally just more dull, Cal decided. She patted her pistol and
with hey it’s only a game, what’s the worst that can happen attitude, pushed
the red button.

The lift opened to a large
atrium with one or two people milling around. The entrance to the Red deck one proper
was quite obvious, an imposing airlock door opposite that was covered in red
chevrons. Even more imposing were the two rather large uniformed security
guards who stood either side of the door. Each carried enough hardware to equip
a whole police firearms unit. Suddenly Cal though her laser pistol didn’t seem
all that good.

A muscular man in tight white
tank top strode up to the door, aiming just to walk in, but the guards quickly
moved to block his path.

‘No validated account, no entry,
no exceptions,’ the guards boomed.

‘It got lost in the mail,’ the
guy responded in a slightly high pitched voice, ‘I’m nineteen, total truth.’

The guards simultaneously
levelled there oversized rifles at him. ‘Move along Sir.’ There demeanour was
absolute and there weapons unwavering.

‘F&$* you C^&£~, I’m
gonna level up power armour skills come back and blast the s&£# out of your
F~&@/< Aholes, see if I don’t.’ And with that he stomped off in a huff.

Cal figured he was about twelve.
She wasn’t feeling quite so confident now as she walked up to the door, even
though she was definitely twenty four and had the ID and mental scares from
growing up as a dorky teenager to prove it. One of the guards looked her up and
down and gave her a nod.

‘You be careful in there now ma’am.’

‘I will, thank you Officer.’

The airlock seemed to take a
while to cycle, during which some warning messages about adult content, drug
use, alcohol use, nudity and bad language popped up in Cal’s HUD demanding she
confirm if she really wanted to enter. Having survived Hastings’ old town on a
Friday night in high season on several occasions, she doubted there was
anything in there that could actually shock her and clicked Confirm. A second
warning about PVP came up, yada yada yada seen it all before, she scrolled down
and clicked confirm again. Player v Player wasn’t anything new to a seasoned
gamer like her either.

The inner airlock door opened
with a blast of gas and Cal stepped into a neon jungle. It ticked all the
buttons for your clichéd cyber red light district. Dark, warm and humid with
gusts of steam blowing up from vents. Pink and red neon signs flashed
advertising bars, night clubs, weapons and anything and everything to get you
drunk or high. The only other light was old style florescent tubes that flicked
intermediately, under which hung out your usual range of hustlers, lowlifes, punks,
razor boys and girls and hookers of all seven sexes, all seemingly wearing a
uniform of black leather, latex, PVC and fishnet accessorised in chrome and
steel. At least half of them were wearing sunglasses. Some glared, some leered and
others expressed distain, lust, malevolence or fear. One brave soul proposed
marriage.

Most of the inhabitants appeared
to be NPCs but one or two of the hookers were probably players going by the
fact they were simply in their basic underwear or naked. Those fancy cyber
outfits the NPCs wore probably cost quite a bit of credit guessed Cal. The
breast and dick physics are pretty accurate though.

Most games these days seemed to
have these adult zones, sneak a bit of porno sim into your safe looking game
world all locked up behind age moderated firewall and business boomed. Some
players never left the red zones and simply partied all night, converting a
little real cash into game credit every now and then if they could by means
fair or foul to fund their hedonism. Almost as good as the real thing many said
and you can’t get arrested, stabbed, an STD, cirrhosis of the liver or an
unwanted pregnancy in the virtual environment. They had their point and Cal had
experimented a little in other games, as did pretty much every player old
enough to try to some degree. A certain night in the Old Red Tiger Tavern in
Mornville came to mind, but it wasn’t really her thing, it just felt too fake
and mechanical, shooting stuff or hitting it with a sword was wear the fun was.

Overall, a bit overdone was her
conclusion after a five minute stroll through Red deck, but I guess the level
designers were having their fun, but her Cyber Goth friend Pan would love it
she thought, I’ll drop her a message tomorrow.

In Spinward access to mail,
messaging, external sites and social media was locked down, the world outside
the game didn’t exist for the players. It was for immersion the Developers said
and it did work, but could be a little weird for people used to twenty four
seven connectivity. Su had grown up connected and had her own smartphone at
three, her life in the walking world pretty much depended on being online so
she found the locked down dream games an escape, she didn’t have to be Su anymore
and didn’t have to try and keep up with the incessant digital storm. Here she
was Calisto, in her own little world, which, although it was set in the future
with space ships and lasers and stuff felt more like her parents or even
grandparents era where going on to the internet was actually an effort and sometimes
not even possible!

So where does one go to get a
drink and see some entertainment around here then Cal wondered as she walked
into a larger public open space lined with bars, shops and clubs. An
advertising hologram seemed to read her mind and a translucent
anthropomorphised pink cat girl flashed up in the middle of the square. The
partially transparent and partially naked cat girl span a pole enthusiastically
extolling the delights of the Pink Pussy Club only fifteen meters away, but when
she spied Cal she leapt off her pole to her meet her.

The cat girl leant over and
whispered into Cal’s ear, ‘Special offer just for you hunny bun, first drink on
the house.’ And with that she disappeared in a flash of pixels.

Really dodgy sounding club
thought Cal, but hey, a free drink, free drinks for the win and she wandered
over. Cal would have given clubs like this a very wide berth in the real world,
but in game, again, what’s the worst that can happen?

A flicking neon sign showing the
same stylised cat girl led her down into a basement club. Inside was dark and
smoky, little booths upholstered in black and pink leather hugged the edges of
the room with a chrome lined bar on one side and a catwalk edged with twinkling
pink lights on the other. The catwalk led out to platform in the centre of the
room that had a dancer’s pole under a spotlight. A young woman, a player going
by the grey jumpsuit, was trying to spin around it, but she slipped and landed
in a heap and started giggling. There were another three or four other
customers, again players by the look of their outfits, sat in the booths, most
ignoring the hapless dancer and instead ogling the scantily clad waiters and
waitresses who patrolled the club’s floor.

Classy Cal decided. Na not
really. She went up to the bar to claim her free drink. The almost too muscular
barman who didn’t appear to be wearing much more than a pair of shorts and cat
ears stopped polishing a glass and turned to look at her as she approached.

‘Here for your free drink Honey?’
The barman’s accent more than just a bit camp. ‘Just choose anything thing from
the menu,’ he said, pointing a laminated page on the bar top.

Cal didn’t recognise anything on
the cocktail menu and ordered one at random.

‘Good choice.’ The mixologist took
three bottles off the shelf and started his show. He practically juggled the three
bottles of spirits around his head before putting a dash of each into a tall glass,
then he added a scoop of crushed ice, garnished it with a cinnamon stick and an
umbrella.

‘Et Volia,’ he smiled and pushed
his creation over to her. Cal smiled back and took the dark drink over to an
empty booth. The drink smelt OK, so she had a sip.

Oh, um, is that liquorish I can
taste and er mint and does that third flavour even have name? Bad choice, were
all cocktails in game like this?

One upside though, she noticed
her fatigue bar had shrank a little. Cal forced herself to take another sip and
winced. If I can finish this then I can probably get back questing she surmised,
but it’s going to be harder work than killing rats.

She was half though the
cocktail, each sip seeming getting worse when one of the waitresses tottered
over to her. The waitress towered at least two meters high. Cal looked up, she
had endless legs clad in sheer black tights perched on a pair of ankle breaking
platform stilettos, around her body was a glossy pink PVC bunny suit, complete
with a little furry cat tail on the bum. The shiny fabric hugged her tiny waist
and strained to contain her huge breasts. Further up a pink collar was wrapped
around her delicate neck and her face, all kohl ringed come hither eyes, high
cheekbones and bee stung lips was topped by a main of tousled honey blonde hair
and a pair of fluffy cat ears.

‘Hi, I’m Jen and I’ll be your
waitress tonight, can I get you anything?’ came from her glossy lips as she
bent down to meet Cal’s eye, her breasts only just managing to stay in the
uniform. But the voice came out wrong, there was this slightly mechanical
quality to it, it took Cal a second to realise what it was.

‘Erm no I’m fine thanks,’ she
replied, slightly dismissively.

‘Oh please.’ The seductive look
dropped, replaced by a face full of dejection. ‘I’ve been at this quest for
over two hours now and these shoes are killing me. I have to get ten people to
buy drinks and have only manged seven so far.’

The waitress plonked her bum down
on the leather couch to take the weight off her slender legs and rested her
head in her hands. ‘I’ve tried loads, I go up to guys and they’re all
undressing me with their eyes and I pout and ask them what they would like and
suddenly they blank me? Well all apart from this one guy who said I was his
type and bought four drinks. I had to get him thrown out in the end, he kept
grabbing my arse and asking where I lived in the real world’

‘Sounds like a jerk, as for the
other guys well, your look does actually ring a few alarm bells, what with the
height, those slightly angular features, the broader shoulders and the fact
you’ve pushed the boob slider all the way up haven’t you.’

‘Might of,’ replied the waitress
sounding slightly embarrassed.

‘But it’s the voice that gives
it away, you’re a crossplayer aren’t you and you’re using a pitch shifter. Unfortunately
it’s not a very good one,’ informed Cal.

The waitress looked slightly
shocked and started to say ‘No I’m all wo.’ Then her head dropped. ‘Ok you
clocked me, fine, sorry to bother you,’ she apologised and started to stand.

‘No it’s not like that, I don’t
mind at all, look just be who you want to be, sit down.’ Cal was worried she
had hurt the other player’s feelings. ‘You look great and I have no idea how
you mange on those shoes, I couldn’t even walk on them.’

‘Thanks.’ The waitress gave a
little half smile. ‘About the voice, well I’m using this app called Shifton
voice FX, it’s the only one Snow Storm have authorised for use in this game. The
trouble is you can’t really hear how it comes out to other players, I had no
idea it was so bad. Give us a sec.’

Her eyes glazed over for moment
and she tilted her head. ‘How about now?’ she asked. Her voice had changed,
gone was the robotic autotuned vocalisation, replaced by a slightly deeper and
breathy one, not perfect but it did actually sound more natural and feminine in
tone.

‘Different setting?’ Cal asked.

‘Turned it off completely, it’s
my own voice,’ she replied.

‘Better, certainly better.’

‘Thanks I can sort of manage
putting a feminine voice, but only if I keep it quiet. If I have to raise my
voice it comes out like hairy arsed builder.’

‘No worries,’ said Cal, patting her
on the shoulder. ‘I’m Cal by the way.’

‘Thank you again Cal,’ she replied
with a smile, ‘I’m Jen. Hate to ask now, after you have been so nice and everything,
but I still need to complete this quest, can I get you that drink?’

Cal looked down at her half
empty glass. ‘Er well, you see they aren’t really very nice.’

Jen looked at the dark liquid in
the glass and sniffed it. ‘Ah you ordered the Black Hole Sun didn’t you, yeah
that one’s a bit nasty. Let me get you the Stroudberry Dirty Martini, trust me
on this one, angels will dance on your tongue.’

‘Really?’

‘Really, I’ll pay for it you
don’t like it.’

‘Ok then, I’m sold.’

‘Thank you, you won’t regret it,’
replied Jen. She got up and strode off to the bar, strutting like a super model
on a catwalk. How does he, no no, let’s get this right, she, manage in those
heels Cal wondered.

Jen retuned two minutes later
with a cloudy pink drink in a martini glass garnished with a piece of red
fruit. She placed it before Cal with a flourish.

‘Enjoy,’ she said with a smile
on her perfectly made up face.

Cal sipped it tentatively, then
sipped it again, then took a big swig. ‘That’s gorgeous,’ exclaimed a totally surprised
Cal. ‘Virtual drinks don’t normally taste this good.’

‘You’re welcome,’ replied Jen
with an even wider smile. ‘Also does wonders for the fatigue bar and only forty
five credits to boot.’

‘Do I tap your hand or something?’

‘No pay the bar not me, just tap
that little thing in the centre of the table with two fingers.’

Jen tapped and the table and it let
out a little bong sound, account deducted.

‘Only two more to go now, thanks
again.’

Jen was leaving as another
player approached. Tall, short dark hair, stubble and with his jumpsuit undone to
show off his virtual pectorals he leaned over Cal and announced in a deep voice,
‘Hi, I’m Star Master. So, do you come here often?’

As pick up attempts went this
wasn’t top ten, or even top fifty, Cal thought he radiated dickhead. ‘Er no, I
just started playing and only popped in to lower my fatigue level actually,’
Cal replied perfunctorily, turning her head not to look at him.

He didn’t seem to get the
message. ‘It’s so nice to see a real woman in here, here let me buy you a drink
and we can get to know each other a little better.’

‘No I’m fine thanks.’ Cal crossed
her arms and looked to away. Body language 101 you muppet, this means I’m not
interested.

‘Nonsense, hey you, fake tits.’
He pointed at Jen. ‘Another one of those for the real lady and a double brandy
for me, make it a good one.’

Jen answered him with forced
politeness, ‘Sorry Sir we don’t have Brandy, may I suggest…’

‘Whatever,’ he cut her short then
snapped his fingers and pointed at the bar. ‘Go get drinks freak.’ He turned
back to Cal. ‘The staff here all suck don’t they, anyway, what’s your name
beautiful.’ The persistent pick up artist had sat himself down on the bench
seat, Cal edged away but he really didn’t seem to get the message.

‘Can you leave now.’ Cal had
decided to be a little more clear.

‘Ah baby no need to be like that,
we’re only just getting started.’ He edged along the seat nearer to Cal.

Cal looked over to Jen, who
unfortunately was now on her way over to the bar.

The jerk went into a long spiel
about the heroics he had gone through just to get here “just to meet you” in a
vain attempt to impress. Cal just kept her arms folded and avoided his gaze, working
on an escape strategy as he rambled on about himself.

This is why I shouldn’t go into
dodgy bars all by myself, even in the ones in virtual worlds the arseholes are
still real.

Jen returned with the drinks. ‘A
Stroudberry Dirty Martini for you Madam and a Dark Comet for you sir, the
Barman recommended it.’

Jen glanced towards Cal, raised
a heavily plucked eyebrow and tilted her head a couple of degrees, a non-verbal
“You OK?” Cal looked back and shook her head slightly, “No not OK” without
saying it. Jen nodded “Understood”.

‘That will be one hundred and eighty
credits please sir.’

‘What, no way,’ he replied angrily
and dismissed Jen with a wave.

‘Sir I insist you pay, please tap
the table to make the payment.’

‘Fuck off!’

‘Sir!’

‘I said fuck off ladyboy.’ He got
up and shoved Jen hard. She lost her balance and fell backwards, tumbling in an
ungraceful heap.

‘Hey that’s not fair.’ Cal stood
up and confronted the bully, ‘She was only doing her job.’

‘He, if you hadn’t noticed, is a
fucking freak who tried to overcharge me, and you, all I did was be nice and
you treat me like shit. You’re going to regret that bitch.’ He sneered at Cal
and reached into his jumpsuit to retrieve something, a small black object which
opened with a click. A flick knife.

Cal stepped back, looking at the
small knife with contempt. ‘Glad it ended up this way, I’d rather fight than
listen to any more of your bullshit.’

She reached into her pocket,
drew her pistol and levelled it at his face in one smooth action.

‘Cal No!’ Jen had just about
managed to pick herself off the floor by now, but her impractical footwear
wasn’t helping.

‘Don’t worry Jen, I’ve got this.
This fool just brought a knife to a gun fight.’

Cal’s aim at his head was
unwavering, but he just laughed at her .‘Oh don’t shoot me scary lady with your
big bad gun, oh I’m so scared, ha ha ha.’

‘Fuck you.’ Cal pulled the
trigger.

Bong went the gun.

‘What the?’ Cal looked her
weapon, it should be working perfectly, she had made sure was charged before
entering the PVP zone, she wasn’t that stupid.

‘That’s what I tried to tell you
Cal, guns don’t work in here, it’s a PVP zone but there are weapon limitations,
lethal ranged weapons aren’t allowed,’ Jen cried.

‘Yeah but knives are shit for
brains.’ The bully lunged with his blade. Cal leaped back, dodging it. He
slashed, again, twice, Cal stepped back quickly to avoid both, aware she was
running out of space.

The next slash and she was
against the wall, nowhere left to run. Star Master reached out his offhand and
put it on her shoulder pinning her. Cal tried wrest his arm off her but his Strength
stat must have been twice hers and his hold stayed. She kicked him as hard as
she could, but he barely registered her blow as her practically nil unarmed
combat skills severely limited the damage she could do.

He grinned manically and lifted
his knife to just in front of her face. ‘I’m going to gut you and teabag your
corpse bitch.’ He went for the kill, but only got about three centimetres
before his face contorted and he collapsed at Cal’s feet.

Jen was standing behind him
holding a thin baton which ended in a pair prongs, blue sparks of electricity passed
between them. ‘Think I got a critical hit,’ she enthused.

‘Was that your plan to get rid
of him, get me into a fight?’ Cal replied, nonplussed.

‘Erm no, sorry, I thought if I
got him to cause trouble the bouncers would come and eject him, but nothing
happened, sorry, again. Are you hurt?’

‘I’m Ok, little bit of a code
brown moment, but I’ll survive. Thanks for trying. I probably would’ve been
more careful if I’d known about that gun thing.’

Jen looked a touch confused. ‘But
the weapon restrictions were listed in that waver you had click on in the
airlock, I think a lot of PVP zones in this game have some sort of limits’.

‘Oh I erm just sort flicked
through that to the end and hit the button. Oops.’ Cal changed the subject
quickly, ‘Where did you get that baton thing by the way, it looks really useful.’

‘Oh this little thing, it’s
called a stun stick. You know how I told you about that guy who bought all
those off me drinks, he also gave this to me, said a pretty lady like me needs
some protection.’

‘And where exactly did you hide
it in that uniform?’ Cal asked.

Jen just smiled, collapsed the
baton and slid it down between her improbable breasts. ‘See these things have
their uses,’ she replied with a grin.

Cal mirrored her grin. ‘You’ve
got a PVP kill, gonna search the body?’ she inquired.

‘Don’t think people drop stuff
in this PVP area, it’s to low level for real consequences. He’ll probably just
derezz in a sec and wake up in a clinic with a headache and a few credits
lighter. Oh, but before he derezzes, can you give me a hand.’ Jen reached down
and grabbed his foot and started to drag him back to the table. ‘He still has
to pay for those drinks.’

The pair manhandled him back to
the booth and pushed his fingers onto the centre of the table, which responded
with soft bing.

‘Quest complete, finally.’

‘What do you get for it?’ Cal
asked.

‘My entertainment skill goes a
whole point, I get five hundred credits and I get to keep the uniform,’ Jen
replied happily. ‘You want to have a go? Just speak to the barman and ask about
work.’

Cal eyed the shoes and the bodysuit.
‘Erm maybe not today, thanks.’

Jen looked up into space for a
second. ‘Oh my gawd its five thirty real time already, I have to be up at six
today, bloody work.’

‘What it’s that late, early,
whatever, shit I’ve got work too,’ Cal replied unhappily.

‘Well it was lovely to meet you.’
Jen paused for a second to access her HUD, ‘Calisto Hudson. Ah a Xena fan, the
original series or the remake?’

‘Both actually.’

‘Right answer,’ replied Jen with
another smile on her face.

‘So nice to meet you too… Jenista
Harrington. Hey wait, Harington from those old military SF books?’

‘I started with the TV series
actually but I did read some of the books, I liked the early ones, but it all
went totally Mary Sue later on.’

‘Yeah they did.’

‘Anyway since we now know each
other’s deepest darkest secrets, er, well if do you mind, could I add you to my
friends list,’ asked Jen nervously.

‘Oh OK then, I don’t know
anybody else in this game anyway, most of my guild didn’t want to try it for
some reason, add me and I’ll add you’.

‘Thank you Calisto, you my first
add too.’ With that she bent down and air kissed Cal. ‘Mowa Mowa.’  Cal almost
blushed. ‘Cya around hunny.’ Jen gave Cal a little wave and tottered off.

‘Bye, Cya.’

Getting back to her room only
involved shooting three more Smoosh heads.

As she opened the door the
little robot popped up and went ‘Blooooop NO!’ then flew to the other side of
the room.

Cal had sent it back to their
during the first rat hunt, as it was scaring them off with its incessant
noises, so it now seemed to be sulking, stupid machine.

‘Suppose I have to wake up now.’
And with that she lay down on the bed and closed her eyes.

Chapter 4: The Daily Grind

Su opened her eyes suddenly, her
phone was bleeping loudly. 7:30 alarm.

‘Back to reality,’ she yawned.

Dream box users even though
technically conscious during the night didn’t seem to lack sleep and many felt
well rested after a nights gaming. This was another one of its selling points,
you could go to work and live your life and still game eight hours a day,
though the manufactures didn’t permit you to use it for more than forty hours a
week for unspecified health reasons.

She trudged down stairs to the house’s
shared kitchen in her dressing gown. Rupesh, one her housemates, was already there,
sitting at the table and slowing working his way through a rather large bowl of
cornflakes.

‘Been in the land of dragons all
night then Su?’

‘Actually it was space ships
this time.’

‘All the same to me. Dunno why
you let those machines mess with your head like that, nobody knows what long
term damage those things will do.’

‘Well who wants to live for ever,’
replied Su dismissively while she looked in the fridge for her milk carton. She
found it, it was empty.

‘Can I borrow a little milk?’

‘Oh Ok, but just a little.’

Su smiled a thank you and went
to make a cup of tea.

After a quick breakfast and a
short shower not to use up all the hot water, Su threw on a baggy sweater and
pair of leggings.

‘Better get to work then,’ she
announced to nobody in particular and unrolled her monitor. She tapped the VPN
app on her phone and flicked the output over to her screen. So what
ultra-urgent analysis do the powers that be want today she wondered as she
opened her inbox.

Oh only three top priority and
one business critical message, the later from Patricia, the head outerwear of merchandising.
So she absolutely desperately needs sales for the last six weeks for repeat
customers split by brand and region and star sign like right now? Seriously
star sign?’ Su sighed and got to work coding a custom dimension based on birth date
ranges.

Cal opened her eyes suddenly, why
was it always so sudden?

In the unreal world she was lying
on her bunk looking up at the off white grubby plastic of her virtual ceiling.
A day of fending off incessant requests for more and more data from the office,
going to the corner shop in the rain for some milk, unblocking the sink and
trying to avoid two of her housemates having a row had left her aching to get
back to Spinward.

‘So what shall we do today then?’

‘Buz Buz NO!’

Blit was still hovering around
the tiny room doing its best to avoid her.

‘Ok I’ll let you come with me
this time, but when I say be quiet, actually be quiet, understand?’

‘Brrzzup OkkkK bleep stanzz YES!’

Cal gathered her rather dismal
collection gear. ‘Better hit the vendors first, you coming?’

‘Touff Gozz Get Bit Burp YES!’

They don’t want to make it too easy
do they thought Cal as shook her head at the prices on Blue deck. Seven hundred
and fifty credits bought her three spare mini e-clips for her pistol, a small
folding knife and six nano medical charges for her medical kit. The vendor
laughed when she asked for a discount, maybe that Charisma score of two was a
bad idea.

Browsing in the apparel vendor
she found an armoured vest and some heavy combat trousers that would offer her
a lot more protection than her thin jumpsuit but the prices on that were
stupid, no sale. She daren’t think what something big like power armour would
cost.

Cal needed credits and skills and
the docks still seemed like the best place to find them. The quest chains kept
on coming, kill the rats and bugs, fix this, fetch that, deal with some Smoosh
heads and do a little detective work around a smuggling ring, this all filled
up her fatigue bar rather quickly.

The best moment in that
morning’s gaming was more a sort of emergent gameplay type of thing rather than
a quest though. A gold seller tuned up, a guy in newbie greys and a random
collection of syllables for a name came running through the docks shouting at
the top of his voice to convert Euros, Dollars, Pounds or Yuan into game
credits. The mods or perhaps the mod AI picked up on this up rather quickly as
suddenly he lost his voice and his name flashed up in red, captioned with “Criminal.
Kill On Sight”. Every single player in the dock drew there weapons and emptied
them into the fool.

Rather than risk Red deck again Cal
just had a sandwich in the break area and reflected on her work so far. Energy
pistol level was bordering on skilful, repair with an electrical speciality was
up to competent and melee knife and unarmed were now off the bottom. Cal had decided
she wasn’t going to get caught unable to defend herself again and went hand to
hand with the Smoosh heads and couple of unruly dock worker that morning. Those
fights got her skills going, at the cost of few virtual cuts and bruises, nano
super health potions dealt with. Stamina, Agility, Dexterity and Strength stats
were going up a little also.

Though skills were coming in and
it was actually quite fun, money and loot weren’t very forthcoming, Cal had
barely covered the morning’s shopping trip so far. She wondered if trying
another area would help with the cash flow as she finished her cheesish
sandwich. The sarnie didn’t do as much good as the cocktails did though, her
fatigue bar had hardly budged which was a bit illogical, but help was on hand.

A slender young man walked into
the break area where Cal and several other were having their lunch. He stood in
middle of the room, stripped to the waist, tapped his pad to make it start
playing a tune and broke into a rather energetic dance routine.

The lad was actually pretty
good, Cal found herself smiling and started clapping along to the tune. Half
the players in dock had come over to watch by the time he had finished. After
the song ended, he bowed and then went around the room open with his palm open.
Cal was happy to tip the young man some credits for his performance, not only
could he actually dance, her fatigue bar had halved.

Perhaps there’s something in
these entertainment skills she thought. Then Cal remembered Jen’s uniform from
the club and the fact she only ever danced in the real when she was at least
half drunk. She grabbed her gear and went back to work.

‘Thanks for all your hard work out
there Hudson,’ boomed Load Master Baker, ‘dunno where we’d be without you, the
cranes are all fixed, we’re back on schedule and you’ve probably even saved a
couple of my guys lives.’

‘Well if you could perhaps spare
a few more credits?’ Cal asked hopefully.

‘Er no, sorry budget cuts and
all that.’

Cal was really starting to
regret that low Charisma stat.

‘But Administrator Van Der Berg has
heard about you and would like a word, if you’ve got a minute it could be worth
your while. Her office is up on level two.’

Ah ha, the next quest giver,
they didn’t have glowing question marks over there heads but the game was doing
a stand up job of leading you by the nose. Cal had thought this game was going
to be a bit more sandbox.

Supervisor Van Der Berg’s office
was indeed on the second level. Cal poked her head around the door and knocked,
the boss, a harassed looking middle aged woman in an unflattering brick red
jumpsuit was arguing with someone on speaker phone over a lost shipment of
Hydro spanners, she looked at Cal and nodded.

‘Look Bernie, if that shipment
doesn’t arrive by next Tuesday your ass will be on line, your already three
days overdue and I’m afraid I can’t cover for you this time, anyway I’ve got
someone here I have to talk to, bye.’

‘But Isa if you can ju…’ The
supervisor hit a button to terminate the call and turned to face Cal.

‘Sorry you had to hear all of that.
I’m Isa, Dock Administrator and you must be Hudson, I’ve heard a bit about you,
good work out there.’

‘Er thanks. It’s Cal by the way.’

‘Cal, yeah, whatever. To
business, you’ve seen those red roaches that keep getting in the inspection
pits?’

‘Buzz Burp YES!’

‘Excuse my pet. Sorry, yes I’ve
zapped a few.’

‘Good, trouble is they keep
coming back, seems no matter how many we kill they just keep coming.’

That’s because they’re low level
mobs and that’s what they’re supposed to do thought Cal.

‘I’ve been on the horn to
Environmental about it daily for the last three weeks trying to get those jerks
on Green deck to get off their asses and do something about it. Today they finally
they got back to me. Seems we got a mega roach queen down here and she’s just
mass producing those little bugs. They’ve tracked her down to Dock four, that’s
one of our re-development zones by the way, but they are too busy,‘ Van Der
Berg air quoted that word, ‘to deal with it. Too scared if you ask me.’

‘These roach queens are
dangerous?’

‘Well they sometimes get up to
like a hundred kilos and develop a taste for human flesh, but I doubt it’s a
really bad one like that.’

‘So I’m guessing you want me to
terminate it then.’

‘Yep, with extreme prejudice and
If you do get it done soon I have the authority to make it very worth your time
and effort.’

‘Consider your bug problem
solved Madam Administrator.’

‘Thank you Hudson. You may want
to take along a couple of friends though.’

Cal gave the admin a little
salute and left the office grinning to herself. This roach queen had to be at
least a mini boss she thought, perhaps even a full one and it’s got to have some
proper loot, finally a real quest. The line “bring along a couple of friends”
was a code word for “a party is recommend”, but Cal was feeling confident
enough to solo it, you never met anything that hard in the newbie zone.

‘You sure you want to go in
there ma’am,’ the guard questioned.

Dock four’s entrance was another
large airlock, about two hundred meters down the deck’s main corridor from
three, but unlike that one it was covered in warning signs and was flanked by
pair of heavily armed security guards. The signs read “Scheduled for re-development”,
“Authorised personnel only” and “Danger of Death”.

‘I’m on a quest,’ cough, ‘job
for Administrator Van be Berg,’ Cal replied. ‘Name’s Hudson.’

The guard checked his pad. ‘Well
you’re on the authorised list Ms Hudson, I but really really wouldn’t want to
go in there without a full squad.’

The party warnings were getting
a little ominous now.

‘I’ll be Ok, there’s just this a
little pest problem I have to deal with,’ Cal answered as confidently as she
could, which wasn’t as confident as she could have three minutes ago.

‘Well you take care, just keep
an eye out for the Scavers, Smoosh heads and odd berserk robot. Oh and my
commanding officer tells me that the rumours of psychopathic AI Kill drones
left over from the war still roaming that area are completely untrue.
Completely.’

The guard clutched his assault
weapon closer to his chest, edged over to the control panel and hit a button
with his elbow.

The huge lock doors started
slide open slowly, creaking and hissing. Cal had second thoughts about going
in, then a third thought said hey, it’s only a game, what the worst that can
happen, then a forth thought reminded her what happened last time she said that
but the fifth thought said Oh sod it, so she walked in.

The doors started closing the
second she stepped in.

Re-development zones: These are
areas of Gateway station that were heavily damaged during the AI wars and are
due to be rebuilt at some unspecified point in the future. They currently lie derelict
and are often structurally unsound, lack power, gravity and even air in certain
areas. They are considered highly dangerous and have been abandoned by the
general population, but have become home to various lowlifes, smugglers, criminals,
the disposed, broken machines and infestations of aggressive wildlife. Treasure
hunters and scavengers have been known to make their way into these zones, some
return with valuable goods left behind when the area was abandoned, others
simply do not return.

The info dump about the
redevelopment areas Cal got from her pad wasn’t comforting. The air lock cycled
slowly, the status readout went green after twenty seconds and the locking
bolts retracted with a loud thump. The doors seemed to shudder for a second
then then slowly parted with a screeching metal on metal sound. Cal stepped
through, pistol at the ready.

The airlock led into a gloomy main
corridor, a feeble yellow glow emitted from the ceiling lights, once pristine
walls were now stained and dented and the air temperature had dropped several
degrees, every creepy sci-fi corridor button had been pressed by the Devs. Cal
progressed slowly and carefully, gun at the ready at all times, even Blit had decided
to keep quiet, only emitting the odd chirp and beep every now and then. She had
been given a rough map to the red roach queen’s lair, but what looked like a
short walk was becoming quite the journey. Instanced dungeon, this has to be she
thought.

Cal came across a door ajar, a
damaged sign read “est area” and there was a faint murmuring coming from inside.
Cal sliced the pie around the half open door, inside there were two figures
dressed in rags and sitting on chairs, asleep, possibly, they didn’t seem to
have seen her. Smoosh heads she assumed. Hold breath, line up the sights on the
back of the first figure and, wait for it, wait for it, double tap. The pistol
spat out two red beams in quick succession and the target’s head burst like
rotten fruit.

We’re loud now. Cal kicked the
door wide open, the second figure was already moving, she turned rapidly and
put three shots into its centre of mass. The body slumped to the floor smelling
of over cooked meat. Cal lowered her weapon and caught her breath before
entering the room.

‘What the?’ A flicker of
movement and an instinctive dodge saved her head from being caved in by a
previously unseen third zombie armed with a length of pipe. She got a glancing blow
on her shoulder spinning her, but Cal used the momentum to bring up her pistol
again. He got two rounds in the face, point blank.

Heart pounding now, Cal checked
the rest of the room to see if a fourth or fifth hiding somewhere, nope, clear.
Checking the bodies netted a handful of credit chits and the pipe. She thought
about keeping it as another melee weapon, but its stats were poor and it was
rather unwieldy. The room itself had mostly been stripped, but she found two
packaged sandwiches in a cupboard. Did food go off in Spinward she wondered?
But they looked OK so she stuffed them in her backpack for later.

There was a power socket in the
food prep area, Cal popped her pistol’s e-clip and plugged it in to recharge.
Except it didn’t charge, the socket was dead, as were all the others in the
room.

‘S&£*!‘

She’d put seven shots in the Smoosh
heads, that left her with five in this clip and with her three spares that made
only forty one shots left if she couldn’t recharge, with a boss to deal with
and who knows how many trash mobs between her and it to get through. The quest
was starting to look a bit daunting.

The lights had totally failed
further down, the corridor got darker and darker, eventually turning pitch
black. Cal couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. Anything could jump out
at in down there she thought and back tracked to see if there was a way around.
There wasn’t

‘Blit why didn’t I buy a torch?
Everyone knows if you are going to explore a dungeon you need to bring along a
lantern or a torch with you, so why didn’t I?’ Cal asked rhetorically.

‘Bizz Biz Blurp NO!’

‘And why exactly am I talking to
you again, chocolate teapot?’

‘Burt Burt YES!’

‘Yes what? Now if you haven’t
got a flashlight or something hidden in inside your little metal body we’re
kinda stuck.’

‘Flash Biz Light, YES!’ and with
that, what Cal thought was its third eye lit up sending a powerful beam of
white light into the gloom.

‘What, so you did have torch all
along, so why didn’t you use it.’

‘YES! NO! YES! Bit Bit YES!’

‘Oh, of course, why didn’t I
think of that before?’ Cal understood the problem.

‘Blit, Flashlight off.’

‘Offz Blart YES!’ The light went
out.

‘Blit, Flashlight on.’

‘Onn Onz Burp YES!’ The bright light
came back on.

The virtual machine was
programmed by Americans or people paid by Americans and only understood the
word flashlight, not torch. Typical tutted Cal, they barely even try when it
comes to UK localisation.

The dark corridor did hide
something, a repair bot leaped out from an alcove.

‘KILL ALL HUMANS,’ it barked as
lit up a gas axe and charged. It took seven shots to put down. Cal got clipped
by its power drill while reloading during the fight and that needed a med kit
charge.

Two more Smoosh heads, another
smaller droid and three bugs later Cal was down to one and a half clips, four
charges in the Med kit and was her heart rate was elevated.

The map had directed her to
cross the main docking bay to a maintenance access corridor on the other side
where the big bug was supposed to be lurking, but the bay’s doors wouldn’t
budge, air pressure warning they said. She had to take the long route around
via the down the service corridors. The more direct route could have been safer
and there looked like a number of derelict shuttles in the bay that could have
had loot, but she’d guessed she would’ve needed a space suit to get across the
depressurised bay and just didn’t have one handy.

The map said it the queen was
around the next corner, down a side tunnel that lead to a wiring duct access. We’re
nearly there, just one more turn and one more bug to go she thought and pulled
out the half empty clip from her weapon and loaded her last full one.

‘You, Flashlight off and be
quiet.’

‘Oth YES! Quitzz Bzzrt Burp YES!
YES!’

Cal shook her head, stupid
machine. She took another deep breath and moved up to the side tunnel, hugging
the wall as he passed a door marked “Maintenance”. A red tell-tale by the
door’s key hole blinked at her defiantly when she tried to open it, nope it was
definitely locked.

No matter, that’s not what we’re
here for, let’s get this bug. Ready, three, two, one, GO!

Cal spun around the corner,
pistol in a two handed grip levelled to meet the threat.

‘F@$!, that’s one hell of a bug.‘

The red roach queen was the size
of a Great Dane, a blood red Great Dane covered in armoured chitin with
mandibles that looked like industrial machinery. Cal paused for a second, the
bug hadn’t reacted yet, I’m out of its agro range she thought.

Instead it just sat on a pile of
eggs at the end of the heavily damaged access way. Cal edged forward as quietly
as she could, working her currently rather low stealth skill. At about seven
meters the bug still hadn’t reacted.

Good, let’s get in a sneak
attack and finish this bitch.

Cal carefully sighted her weapon
on the bugs head, paused for a second to steady herself and then went into
rapid fire.

The queen reacted in an instant
and started moving fast, very fast. Cal stood her ground, discharging shot
after shot into it as charged down the corridor towards her.

‘Come one you bitch, go down,’
she shouted as the seventh shot hit the bug’s carapace.

It wasn’t slowing it down. Instead
it gunned its powerful legs and leapt. The last thing Cal saw were its massive
mandibles going for her face.

Chapter 5: Phat Loot

Cal woke suddenly, confused. The
last thing she remembered a giant bug trying to eat her face. She looked around,
she was in some sort high tech hospital ward lying on a bed. Cal caught her
reflection on a shiny piece of equipment, her face was still there, she checked
her arms and body, no nothing, not a scratch. What the?

‘Ahem.’

A rather officious looking medical
practitioner clad in a white jumpsuit and carrying a tablet had just walked
into the room.

‘Ah you’re awake Ms Hudson,
don’t be alarmed, this, according to our records, is the first time you’ve died.’

‘Er died?’

‘Yes your heart stopped for over
thirty seconds, that officially counts as a death. That can sometimes be quite
traumatic.’

‘F*&#’

‘Don’t worry, death isn’t quite
as fatal as it used to be. You were resuscitated and reconstructive surgery
performed and due the generous New Worker insurance package you have, ninety
percent of the costs are covered by the station.’

Cal checked he HUD, she was only
two hundred credits down.

‘But I really wouldn’t make it a
habit of visiting a medical centre like this.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like on a gurney. Outside this particular
station you might find medical costs and recovery times can be high, plus
there’s a chance of skill degradation and your equipment can suffer significant
condition loss, so please be more careful in future. The monitor says your back
to full health now so I’m officially discharging you from this unit, you will
find your equipment and personal items are in the locker on the left on the way
out’.

So that was the death penalty
then, guess I got off easy cause we are still in the newbie zone she thought.
Cal collected her belongings and headed back to the turbo lifts. All her kit
had taken a slight condition loss but nothing was ruined, she recharged her
clips at a working socket and walked up to dock four’s airlock, she wasn’t
going to be beaten by a stupid bug. This time the guards just waved her in.

Retracing her steps, she peered
around the door of the rest area, weapon at the ready. The zombies were all
still she had left them, dead on the floor.

Good, they haven’t respawned,
that means I can probably get back to the queen unhindered.

She stepped back out in to the
corridor and started jogging. The queen had returned to her eggs when Cal got
back to the access way. Those mandibles were stuff of nightmares she thought,
or actually they’re already a nightmare, as I’m actually dreaming this right
now.

So what are we going to do with
you then she wondered, go find a party, get some big lump to tank her with
someone with a med kit behind them heeling and two or three of us hitting her
from the back? But where would she find a party at short notice, none of her
guild had moved over to Spinward and she wasn’t even sure traditional tank and
spank mechanics even worked in this game.

Other options, go buy a really
big gun? She checked her credit balance, hrm probably not for that amount of
money. Kite? Zap the queen a couple of time and then run for it taking shots
while I can? No, the bugs too D£$% fast. So what then? She surveyed the area
looking for ideas.

The access way was in a bad shape,
something had really gone to work on it, the bug or perhaps was it damage from
the AI attack? Well whoever did it they made a mess, it was barely lit by the
emergency lights and random debris and dirt covering all the surfaces. The wall
and ceiling panels were dented and broken, in fact some had been ripped
completely off the walls, exposing a water pipe which was leaking and making puddles
on the floor.

Cal’s eye followed the pipes,
next to one was a red cable, she recognised it from an earlier repair quest, it
was a power line on the stations main circuit. Squinting for a second she
brought up its description on her HUD.

High voltage cable: Condition:46%
Unpowered.

That’s interesting… An idea
formed. She followed the cable though the gaps in the panels and the grates, it
led back down the corridor to a junction box. This is exactly like that repair I
had to do in the quest yesterday, why didn’t I see it before she thought.  Inside
the junction box were two pairs of thick cables joined by circuit breakers. She
touched the flex, the top two were warm, the bottom two cold, no current was
flowing. Cal reset the switch on the bottom breaker and the lights in the
access way flickered into life.

‘We have the power,’ Cal announced
to the world.

‘Blurt beep YES!

Cal peered around corner, queen
big bug face hadn’t moved even though she was now bathed in light.

‘This better work Blit.’

‘NO! YES! NO! bleep YES! NO!’

‘Well thanks for the vote of
confidence.’

Cal lined up her pistol on the
queen right from the end of the access way, this time there was no benefit in
getting closer. She fired a single shot. The roach reacted in the same was
before, breaking into a run straight towards her and again Cal held her ground,
but this time she also held her fire.

Closer, closer, Now!

She swung her pistol to the
exposed cable and fired two shots. The insulation melted under the laser fire and
a huge arc of electricity leapt out looking for Earth. Problem was Earth was
several hundred lightyears away, so the circuit found the next best thing, a
nearby giant roach which had just ran through a puddle.

The lights went out after about
twenty seconds, the circuit breaker must have popped again. That was probably
enough to cook the bug, she thought, but she put another couple of shots into
it and gave it a hard kick to make doubly sure.

Yep, dead bug. Dead bug with no
loot though. Cal checked the body and apart from a couple of rather gross body
parts, there was nothing of value.

What kind of boss mob drops
nothing! Stupid game.

Cal ventured further down the
corridor to the egg pile, she hoped it had left something under them. Nope,
nothing. A rather annoyed Cal stamped on the roach eggs, reducing them to
paste.

‘Well Ms Van De Berg better have
a pile of cash ready for me when I get back Blit’

‘Csh YES! Bit Bit NO!’

Cal was about to head back to
the quest giver when she noticed the door to the Maintenance room door ajar.
The power surge must of shorted the lock of something, she slid the door open a
bit more and poked her hear around the door. No light.

‘Blit Flashlight.’

‘YES! YES! Looooooop YES!’

Blit lit up the litte room. It
seemed to be a storeroom of some sort, it was still stocked and none that stock
had owner tags on it. Cal rubbed her hands to together and starting sorting
through the items, loot at last.

The yellow jumpsuit on a coat
hook was size small to medium, good. Spinward had a basic clothing size system that
went from XS to XL. You got a size based on your height and you could wear
anything that had your size on it. Cal was an S, small. The system wasn’t
totally realistic but it had to toe the line between the extremes of finding a
piece of leather armour on a Kobold that fits you perfectly even though it was
half your size and disappointment of finding the +5 boots of awesomeness that
you couldn’t wear because they were a 41 and you took a 40.

Cal did a quick change, the maintenance
suit was a bit heavier than her grey one and probably a bit sweatier, but had a
couple of points of armour across all three damage types and had ten percent fire
and electricity resists. It might be warm and not exactly stylish, but armour
was armour and the matching hard hat had another five points of stun armour as
well. A number of tools were on a shelf, most were a match or inferior to her
own but a mini power driver was definitely an upgrade with +1 basic repair
bonus. The laser welder looked useful or possibly valuable but didn’t fit in
her bag and the large pipe wrench had good melee stats but she wasn’t skilled
in two handed weapons and it weighed a tonne, so she put it back. The emergency
medical locker supplied five more health kit charges and hanging on a hook was
a short lozenge of black plastic on a ring, marked “Maintenance master key”.
Keys were always good. Better than kick in the face she thought, what with the payout
she should get when she handed it in it looked like a reasonable haul.

So go back and hand in or
explore further….

The door on the other side of
the maintenance storage room marked “Individual Docking Bay Access” intrigued
her and she tried the door.

‘Locked solid, D*&@.’ She
tried the key, it fitted the lock but nothing happened. ’Double D£%$ .’

She peered at the lock, hrmmm,
no lights, the door didn’t have a red light on it, in fact it had no lights on
it at all. Cal tried going to basics and gave the door a couple of good hard kicks,
it wobbled slightly but didn’t budge.

Hrm another puzzle, probably not
an electrical one this time she thought. The whole wall and doorway looked in
bad shape though, similar damage to the outside. Cal prodded a few of the
panels next to the door, one was loose so she gave it a pull. It came off with
a couple of good tugs, inside was a mess of broken metal and plastic, but was
that a…

‘Blit, get down here and shine
your light that way.’

‘Buzz Light YES!’

‘Yes indeed.’ There was a hole
in the wall at least twenty centimetres across, she grabbed Blit and directed
the light through it trying to see.

‘NO! NO!’

‘Shut up you.’

She panned the slightly
squirming bot around, shinning his light into the corridor beyond. ‘That’s it!’

Cal could just see a bar of
something, metal it looked like, that had been wedged against the door from the
other side. ‘That’s what keeping it closed.’

She tried to stick her hand
through the hole and grab the beam but couldn’t reach. Cal looked around the
room for something to poke through the hole instead, but there wasn’t anything really,
the pipe wrench was long but just too big.

‘Ah of course.’ She patted down
her pockets until she found the her folding knife. ‘Perfect’.

Cal extended the blade and
carefully pushed it through the hole. She couldn’t see but holding the knife in
her finger tips she could the feel the end of the blade touching the beam, just
give a good shove and…

‘F*&!’

The knife fell from her hands
and hit the deck with a clang.

‘B%*(!@ing B#@[]&£%~.’  Cal
pulled back her empty hand and slumped down by the door. ‘I’m beaten by a door
wedge, wonderful.‘

‘Opnz Burtzz NO! YES!’

‘Well if you would like to help,
simply just fly though that hole and knock that bit of metal over please,’ Cal
replied sarcastically.

The little robot didn’t seem to
understand the sarcasm, but it did seem to understand the command and flew
through the hole. Cal watched open mouthed.

‘Er Ok, erm thanks, now just
push that metal thing.’

‘Pusshhhhh But But YES!’

Cal could hear Blit banging
against the door. ‘Push the metal thing holding the door closed, not door
itself.’

‘Selthz Puss NO! YES NO!’

This went on for five minutes
with Cal trying ever combinations of words she think of could to get the little
droid to push the wedge aside. This resulted in a lot of YES! but no actual
useable results, the door stayed firmly shut. Cal slumped back against the door
again, dejected. Blit floated back the hole in the wall and let of a
particularly excited set of bleeps and bloops and YES!

‘I don’t know what you are so
happy about, you completely failed, stupid little drone.’

‘SUUUUPID Blit buzz buz NO!’

‘Oh shut up, if I could control
you myself like a proper drone we wouldn’t have this problem’.

A little light bulb went off in
Cal’s head. She started up her pad, maybe it did have a remote she thought and searched
the available data connections. The main connection to the station net was off,
the dungeon was a dead zone, no signal, but B11T-457093A-2B there was at five
bars. She hit connect. At this point Cal hoped some sort of App to come up, but
not a lot happened, so she went to the connection details page to troubleshoot,
scrolled it down and hit the button for properties.

‘Ah, you beauty, you have an API’.

Cal had been flicking through
the pages on her pad the last break waiting for that fatigue bar to go down and
had found the programming page. You could write your own little Apps and pages
on your pad with something called Spin script, which looked suspiciously like
Java Script, and a mark-up language, SML, which was a cut down form of HTML.

She got to work, she didn’t code
that much these days but the skills were all still there. Twenty minutes later
she had a simple page of arrow icons pulled from the clip art library, which
she’d wired up to the directional application programming interface calls with Spin
script. Cal opened the page and tapped the up arrow. Blit ascended a few
centimetres.

‘Whtz burp burp NO!’

‘Actually I think you will find
that that was a definite a YES!’ Cal smiled, it had worked.

Back to the app she found Blit’s
sound and video could be streamed to a sub window and there was even calls for
to activate the flashlight and the scanner!

‘I didn’t even know you had a
scanner, you kept that one quiet, which is unusual for you.’

‘Scnnn Her Butt Bloop YES!’

Cal fired up the latest version
of her app and started guiding Blit though the hole, accompanied by a long
steam of indignant bleeps and NO!s from the little droid. She could see the
simple beam metal holding the door shut now on the video feed, it actually
looked like it had been fashioned to hold the door closed. Why? Unperturbed she
manoeuvred the little robot under it and then stabbed the up button repeatedly.
A loud clang came from the other side of the door.

‘NO! Owww blip blip
clllaaaaannnnngggg Ow OW bloop YES!’

Cal tapped the door and it swung
open. Blit was hovering there at eye level, somehow managing to give her a
dirty look, which was interesting given the fact it didn’t have any facial
features to do it with. Cal just smiled, patted it and went to retrieve her
knife. The little pet was starting to grow on her.

Another corridor. Did you build
these levels by simply coping one corridor a thousand times Snow Storm Cal
wondered. She proceeded carefully, moving slowly and quietly, covering each
nook and corner with her pistol. One little alcove wasn’t empty. There was a
body, well about half of one any way and lots of dried blood. It had been there
a while.

He, well actually Cal wasn’t a
hundred percent sure, looked like a maintenance worker going by the shredded
yellow jumpsuit. His remains were scattered over the floor of an alcove just
off the main corridor, in one hand, not attached to the body, held a power nail
gun. Cal gave it the once over, it was out of charge and ammo. The other hand was
missing. Scattered around him were energy bar wrappers and another electric
welder, also out of charge and a pad.

Cal picked up the pad, rubbed
some of the dried blood off it and tried the power switch. It booted,
surprisingly, but there was very little on it, some work logs, a couple of
pictures of what Cal assumed were his family and a video file. She hit play.

‘This is Maintainer Williams
recoding this just in case, I, I don’t make it and someone finds it. Davis is
gone, the, the thing just, just, just ate him…. We were like doing checks on
this area, it had been hit hard during the AI attack last week but Admin said
everything was OK and sent us do to do an assessment, it should have been a
routine job. We were just talking about the Sunjets game and then next second….
I didn’t believe bodies could contain that much blood. Oh my god I have no idea
what it was, arms and legs and blades and teeth all made from steel just coming
out the wall. It just took this huge the bite out of Davis, half of him was
gone, just gone and and the blood, so much blood. I got out of there, sorry
buddy, I know we go way back, but that was just…’ Williams broke down, the next
minute of the video was incoherent. Cal didn’t blame him.

‘Ok, erm, yeah,’ the worker hung
his head. ‘I backed off slowly at first, scared like never before, but then the
thing turned to look at me with this one glowing blue eye, it was just…. just
evil. I turned and ran like hell. I’ve welded the sub level fire door shut, but
my welder only had enough juice for one door. I didn’t want it coming around
the other way so had to seal this section so it can’t get in. The storeroom’s
door lock is good and I propped the inner door shut with some heavy rebar just
in case. I hope to god that’s enough to stop it, if it doesn’t, oh shoot, this
isn’t going to stop it either is it.’

He held the nail gun up to
camera.

‘I’ve tried to call control like
two dozen times but the network is out. If I don’t report in two hours they’ll
send a team, they always send a team, they’ll get me out, they’re good guys,
just have to last the next two hours….’

The video ended. The team
obviously never came and Williams’s didn’t last the two hours.

‘Poor guy.’ Cal sniffed.  ‘Oh
don’t get all soppy now, it’s only a game, that was just an actor reading out
some lines, snap out,’ she reminded herself.

Cal reached down to what was
left of the man’s head and found his ID chip behind his earlobe, it would have
recorded the time of his death. She pulled it out and popped it and the pad into
her bag. The timestamp on the video said this happened about five months ago so
she hoped whatever got Williams and Davis must be long gone.

The substantial fire door was
indeed welded shut, nothing short of oxy acetylene or really really big laser
was getting through that. Cal didn’t even bother trying her pistol. But it
looked like the whatever attacked Williams hadn’t gotten through the door, it
just gone around it. The ceiling had a large hole in it where something had obviously
punched its way though.

‘Blit put some light in that
hole,’ commanded Cal.

‘Buz burt NO!’

‘Look you, don’t make me get the
remote out again.’

‘Remo NO! Up Bup bup YES!’ And
with that the bot floated upwards and illuminated the space. The hole in the
ceiling appeared to lead up some sort of large air duct and it looked big
enough to crawl through.

‘Air ducts that are big enough
to crawl through, that’s just supervillain HQ design flaw number one isn’t it,’
Cal tutted. ‘So how do I get up?’

Two empty crates from the store
room solved that problem, stacked they gave Cal enough reach to get up into the
duct, though it wasn’t elegant and a sharp piece of metal debris poking out
from the side took a gash out of her leg. She crawled down the duct, the blood
coming from the wound on her thigh had stopped quickly, but it still stung like
hell. Four meters down there was another hole in the duct, punched in this
time. Cal was wondering how to get through it without cutting herself to
ribbons when the duct came up with its own solution.

It collapsed, crashing through
the ceiling taking Cal with it and leaving her in a mess on the floor with an interesting
new collection of cuts and bruises. Blit floated serenely out of the now, much
larger, hole in the ceiling and hovered up to Cal’s face.

‘Boooooop Ha Ha NO! YES! YES!
NO!’

‘Oh you shut up!’

It took her three nano charges
to get her health bar back over ninety percent. Onwards then, Cal was starting
to regret her decision to explore further, but continuing this was easier than
trying to get back through that duct. Moreover, she had no handy crates to
climb on. The corridor this side didn’t go much further, it ended in a smallish
hatch labelled “Service Way 4-32A”. The hatch had been left open in total
disregard to the warning labels on it that informed of serious disciplinary
action if it wasn’t shut properly.

The service way was pitch black
so Cal sent Blit ahead to light the way. Clambering through after the bot she
found the duct was rather cramped, it was just wide enough room to walk down single
file with a ceiling so low even she had to duck. Colour coded exposed pipework
and cables ran down each side of the passage she followed them deep into the
guts of the station.

The darkness messed with her
sense of distance and time, Cal felt she’d been walking for at least a
kilometre or two when she encountered the next hatch. She didn’t believe the
clock on her HUD when it said she’d only been walking five minutes. Try the
hatch or walk more she wondered. Cal wasn’t claustrophobic, but the prospect of
spending more time in this tunnel wasn’t very appealing so she beckoned Blit
over to the hatch to get some more light on it. The label on the hatch read “Small
Bay 4-07-A Maintenance access. Authorised personnel only”.

‘Am I authorised personnel Blit?’

‘Buuuuurmp bip NO!’

‘No I’m probably not, but, I’m
not going to let that stop me.’  Cal tried to work the hatch release, but it
didn’t want to move, so let out another curse which was censored the moment it
left her lips.

But what’s this? She had spotted
the little rectangular slot beneath the lever, a slot that maintenance key would
fit in perfectly. Cal dug the key out of her jumpsuit’s top pocket and pushed
it all the way in, nothing happened for second, but then something inside the
lock made a loud click. She smiled and pulled the key out and tried the release
again. This time it moved with just a touch and the hatch swung open obediently.
Cal nearly tripped up getting through it.

She picked herself up and looked
around the small bay. It was quite dark, some lights high up, probably
emergency ones, emitted a feeble yellow glow but after that jet black service
way it took a couple of seconds for her eyes to adapt.

‘Hrmmmm.’

The bay wasn’t what she expected.
For a start it wasn’t exactly small, it must be ten to twelve meters high,
maybe forty long and twenty wide and she wouldn’t of called it a bay either, it
was more like a hanger really. A hanger with a space ship parked in it.

Chapter 6:  Jester’s Tears

Blit popped out of the hatch

‘OOoooooooooooooo Bip Bip YES!’

‘Yes indeed Blit. Yes indeed,’ replied
Cal with a grin on her face. Now this was loot. Even if she couldn’t take this
ship, ships all being mid/end game gear worth a fortune, it was probably full
of goodies and parts she could strip. She tried to bring up ships description
on the HUD using the squint trick, but since she couldn’t see all of it
properly nothing came up.

The ship was an odd asymmetrical
looking thing, not streamlined for atmospheric flight even though it had a
couple of fins sticking out the back. It was kinda lumpy, almost like a
helicopter gunship, a HGV and a cement mixer were having a threesome, but she
had to admit it was functional looking and had purposefulness to it. Cal
guessed it was about twenty five meters long and roughly five or six high
sitting on some rather spindly looking wheeled undercarriage.

Cal walked around the large boxy
section at the front, this was about half of the ship and was a plain bone
white colour. It seemed out of place with the rest of the craft, like it was
bolted on later. Towards the front of the ship was a wide vertical stripe in a
faded red colour that wrapped around the box section almost in an almost complete
loop. In a little gap on the stripe lower down in a sort of hand written font were
the words “Script for a Jester’s Tear” and next to them was a picture of
stylised jester’s hat.

‘Is that you name ship, “Script
for a Jester’s Tear”? Funny old name for a space ship,‘ asked Cal, not
expecting to get a reply.

To get around to the other side
she walk under the vessel as it had been parked really badly. It was at odd
angle with its nose almost touching end the bay, when it would have easily sat neatly
in the centre, but then Cal noticed the long skid marks extending from the
landing gear’s tires.

Came in too fast and had to skid
to a stop? Lucky you didn’t hit the end of the hanger Cal surmised, the Pilot
must have been a bit useless.

Under the front of the vessel
she could see that what she initially thought was another part of the landing
gear was actually a large, like five meters square large, section of the boxy
bit. It that had descend on hydraulic rams, one on each corner like some sort
of large lift. She looked up into the box, it seemed empty, but it was pretty
dark. The lift’s floor was unremarkable, a scuffed metal surface, but what was
sitting on it was interesting.

The interesting was a robot of
some sort, it looked like it was part Martian rover and part one of those lorries
that delivered building supplies. It had six little wheels and the back of it was
like a metre long flatbed truck covered in that diamond patterned aluminium
stuff. Next to the flatbed was a large strong looking crane or robot arm sort thing
all folded up.

Guess it uses that to lift
things onto its bed? Was it a delivery robot of some sort? Guessed Cal

At the front of the robot, well
Cal assumed was the front, was a box and an upright cylinder. On the sides of
the cylinder were a pair of thin, almost skeletal, robot arms ending in two delicate
hands that had two thin fingers and two thumbs, they didn’t look strong enough
to lift much. Topping the cylinder was a box with an array of camera lenses,
not entirely unlike Blit’s, in fact they looked very much like Blit’s.

Cal walked up to the robot and gave
it a tap.

‘Er, Hello, anybody home?’

The robots camera pod swung
round very rapidly to face her and a green laser light shot out. The light
panned across Cal from her toes to her head, then switched off. She had to suppress
a giggle, it tickled a bit.

Weapon? Well if it was it was a
bit crap, some sort of scanning beam perhaps? She wondered.

‘UNAUTHORISED,’ barked the robot
in a harsh mechanical voice and the little camera turret snapped round back to
face the front.

‘What is unauthorised?’ asked Cal
but the robot remained silent.

Blit, seeing a possible kindred
machine spirit, floated down and hovered just in front of the uncommunicative
robot before letting forth a long stream of bleeps and bloops.

‘NO! NO! NO!’  Blit didn’t get
answer from the machine either, it bleeped a bit more then flew  off, probably
in another one of its huffs thought Cal. She turned back to look at the machine
and get its stats.

Wheeled utility robot: Serial
number: MU1E-CUH34569-12B-714  Designation: ‘Mule’  Manufacturer: Sphere
Robotics Corporation  Equipment: Cargo bed, one heavy lift arm, two fine work
manipulators, grade three tool array, basic sensor package, basic bio scanner,
level four electrical system scanner, level two logic unit scanner, level four
mechanical system scanners. Available functions: Mechanical and electrical
systems repair and construction, cargo management, hygiene and waste disposal.
Top speed: 10kph  Condition: 83%’

Her HUD also showed the robot’s ownership
tag was amber, she hadn’t seen that before. Tags were usually either red,
meaning the item belonged to someone else, or green, meaning it was free to
take.

‘So Mule is it, are you’re the
ships repair and cleaning bot?’

‘AFFIRMATIVE’, it answered, but
didn’t elaborate.

‘Well you don’t do a very good
job, look at all this mess,’ Cal had noticed a large amount of powdery brown
dirt on the floor of the lift. Then she looked a little closer and realised it
wasn’t dirt, it was dried blood. Lots and lots of dried blood. A trail of
splatters lead off to one side.

Cal followed the trail to an
alcove on the side of the hanger. The alcove looked like it contained a sort of
lift, there was with a platform that connected to rails going up the wall so it
could go up and down. Ladder rungs were also cut into the wall, for emergencies
she guessed.

On the platform was the source
of the blood. Propped up against a pole that the lifts control panel sat on was
a body with one hand covering the stomach, the other fallen by its side. The
corpse appeared dried and desiccated, probably another one that had been here months.
Cal guessed it was a slightly petite youngish woman with Asian features and
short dark hair, but she couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, the body was
pretty far gone. The pilot, well Cal assumed she was the ship’s pilot anyway,
was wearing a one-piece flight suit, probably a green once but was hard to tell
with all the bloodstains. On a clear patch just above a pocket on her chest was
sewn a label with just one word “Choi”.

Blit had recovered from his sulk
by then and came down to have a look, after a couple of seconds he let out a
long whistle and the a set of emphatic NO!s.

‘Yes she’s dead Blit, I can tell.’

What with her arm grasping her
mid-section and the large amount of blood stains around that area Cal figured
massive abdominal damage. Pilot or Captain Choi had bled out trying to reach
the lift. That might explain the bad landing, she was probably heavily injured
and came in as fast as she could, then tried to dash to the lift via the cargo
hatch, probably to try and get medical attention. She obviously never made it
and died reaching for the lift controls. Cal sniffed, poor woman, then wondered
why the ship and the corpse were still here, just rotting, for what looked like
for months.

Surely she had to have called
for help or something on the radio while she was docking? Why didn’t anyone
come to help her? Curious.

But a body is usually a good
source of loot and respect for the dead generally doesn’t go very far in RPGs.
Cal searched the corpse, first she got the ID chip and then checked the jumpsuit
and boots, but they were trashed. There wasn’t anything in her pockets either,
but Captain Choi did have another one of those lozenge like keys on a chain
around her neck, written on it was the word “Jester”. Cal looked back to the
ship and smiled. But that wasn’t all, the good Captain was either the paranoid
type or she visited some rather wretched hives of scum and villainy thought Cal
as slung low around her hips was a rather impressive gun belt with two holsters
attached.

The smaller left holster
contained a compact black weapon the game described as a K-597 two millimetre
auto flechette machine pistol. It had a full sixty round magazine, a high fire rate
and its kinetic damage stat was pretty good, but its condition was in the red
at 6% and a not insignificant chunk of it was missing. It couldn’t be repaired,
a disappointed Cal put it down and pulled the weapon out of larger right
holster.

‘Ohhh My!’

This was quite the hand cannon,
Captain Choi must of been really was paranoid, it had to be nearly forty
centimetres long, over a kilo in weight and all matt black. The wide barrel was
wrapped in a sort of finned jacket, probably for cooling and so your hand
doesn’t get burnt she assumed .The receiver was round and black and wrapped
around it was a simple folding stock with a rail accessory mount on the top, no
scope was fitted though, just some simple iron sights. It reminded Cal of an
E11 blaster, but with just enough variation in the design to stop any copyright
lawsuits.

Checking the stats caused Cal to
let out a long whistle. This PX22 HOPCab, High Output Plasma Carbine, did
kinetic, energy and stun damage and each was individual damage stat twice as good
as anything she’d seen so far in game, plus it had armour piercing level of six!
The large e-clip it used was good for fifteen shoots too. She scrolled down to
the condition stat, please work, please work, please work. 32% Amber, so bust,
but fixable. Cal had a grin on her face by now, she laid the weapon on the
floor and got out her tools.

Cal glanced over to the late
captain’s body feeling a touch guilty and gave her a quick ‘Sorry’ before
starting her repairs. The RNG seemed to be in a mixed mood and it took a few
goes, but by her fourth repair attempt the weapon was up to 61% condition and
in the green.

‘Yes! ‘

‘Bang Beep bang YES!’’

Cal smiled at the little robot,
then stood up and adopted a shooters stance, legs apart, arms straight with two
hands firmly on the grip. Aiming it at the far wall, she clicked off the safety
and squeezed the trigger.

The muzzle flashed and let out
very loud and deep analogue sounding thud .A green bolt leapt from the barrel
and smashed into the opposing wall in a shower of sparks. Result!

But that kick… Cal expected
there might be some recoil, but was slightly taken aback by the weapons very
physical response to Newton’s third law. It practically punched her in the arm.
The weapon reminded her a bit of that monstrous 480 Super Redhawk she sometimes
used in Invasion Alert II, maybe I’ll use the stock next time she concluded.
This little monster was going to take some practice she realised, especially as
it seemed to require an energy carbine skill, not the energy pistol one she had
been levelling with her laser, but on the flip side, anything she did manage to
hit was going to be toast.

Cal carefully removed the
pilot’s gun belt and strapped it around her own hips, the PX22 went back in the
right holster and her little laser in the left. The other broken pistol went in
the rucksack as it might fetch a few creds at a vendor. Cal was quite pleased
with herself now, the quest had definitely been worth it, a proper weapon at
last.

Then she remembered the ship.

Cal walked around the other
side, hanging off  was a module that looked like it was the cockpit. It was a
tandem affair, two little bubble canopies each with one seat, arranged in a
line with the back one higher than the front. It reminded Cal of one those
Russian Hind gunships, the type she had flown in Europe at War VI. The front of
the cockpit appeared damaged and the canopy had a large hole in it, which was
something you really didn’t want in a space ship. The back section of the craft
was also damaged, some of the panels were buckled and there was burn marks and
plasma scoring. The ship had been in a fight.

There were hatches on either
side of the ship but both were closed and at least a meter and a half off the
ground, so it looked like the only way in was though the cargo bay. One of the
hydraulic legs on it had a little control box on it with two rather obvious up
and down buttons. Cal mashed the up button, but nothing happened, so instead
she clambered on the Mule robot and then levered herself up into the cargo bay.

‘Sorry robot,’ apologised Cal to
the Mule unit as she stepped on it. It didn’t reply.

‘Sowry Bitz Bitz YES!’

‘No wasn’t talking to you, I was
talking to that one.’

‘Noooo Bup Bup NO!’

‘Stop moaning and get up here, I
need some light.’ The ship wasn’t lit inside, not even with emergency lights.
There wasn’t anything that looked like cargo in the cargo bay, which added a
little to the mystery, why would a freighter not be carrying cargo?

Cal spotted more blood on the
floor and followed the trail down a companion way into what she assumed was the
ships main living area. Off to the one side was an airlock, which would line up
with one of the hatches she saw on the outside. A little room was attached to
the airlock, being the curios sort she had a look, inside it was a heavy
looking space suit and oh was that an EVA unit? Probably both were worth a bit,
but too heavy to carry she assumed.

Back in the main areas there was
a sofa and little table, a magazine, yes like an actual paper one, was spread
out on it. The Mag appeared to have lots of adverts for space ship parts in it.
Beside it was coffee mug that bore the legend “Galaxy’s Best Pilot”.

Cal checked the other rooms that
lead off from the living area, one was a small cramped machine shop, the thing
taking up half the space was an auto fabricator. These were a sort of multi
material 3d printer and assembly device that crafters used to make stuff. These
Fabbers were clever useful things, though this particular one did strongly
resemble one of those oversized office photocopiers they had back in the dark
ages. It didn’t have power though, nothing had power. There were some tools,
parts and a couple of empty packets of fabricator feedstock in cupboards and
shelves dotted around them room, Cal decided to come back and try and figure if
any of it was worth taking later.

Another room looked like a crew
cabin, it had two little folding bunk beds, a wardrobe and a desk, all made
from hard plastic much like her room on the station, it didn’t look like
anybody used it, the wardrobe was empty and the bunks had bare mattresses.
Further on was a little wash and shower room, no toilet though. Thinking about
it Cal realised couldn’t remember seeing any toilets anywhere at all in Spinward,
but then again she had never felt like she actually needed to use one here. Odd
omission that, immersion wise, perhaps it was to make the game acceptable to
people in those parts of the US that had weird ideas about restrooms wondered Cal.

The other side room looked like
a combined galley and medical bay. On one side of it was some storage, a
fridge, a micro oven and little sink. All Cal could find in the cupboards were large
packets of protein shake powder in assorted flavours and some instant noodles. On
the other side of the room sat a rather menacing looking piece of machinery, a
white cylinder with four little arms ending in delicate fingers or odd looking
tools. Bringing up its game text Cal found it was a Smith and Proctor LM-02
Autodoc, rated for first aid, defibrillation and minor surgery. Probably not
something that can knit your abdominal organs back together then. There were
three nano medical packs in a draw under it, size large, they wouldn’t fit in
her med kit but were probably quite valuable and got placed in her bag.

Cal followed the blood trail
into the other airlock on the right hand side of the ship. The lock had inner
and outer doors as usual, the outer one was closed, but the lock also had two
other hatches inside it, fore and aft, one was marked “Captain”, the other was
open and marked “Bridge”. The blood trail led that way.

The bridge, well Cal thought it
was more a cockpit really, had two seats, pilot and co-pilot, she’d seen them
from the outside, and a third folding one at the back facing a wall of switches
and instruments. Cal edged down the really thin walkway to the left of the
seats, the back seat was pristine, but the lower front seat was, oh dear, caked
in dried blood and burn marks and the big hole in the cockpit glass was right
in front of it.

Something had to have come
through here and hit the Captain she thought. Where did this happen? Surely if
she was in space at the time all the air would have gotten sucked out and she
would have suffocated first?

Cal swept away some of dried
blood and clambered into the pilot seat. It was a good fit, her hands just fell
on the right hand side stick and what had to be the throttle control on her
left. Each of them was covered in further switches, buttons and hat controls, a
full HOTAS suite. Surrounding the main controls was a large number of buttons
and switches, some of those had those military style covers you had to flip off
before you could use them. The switches and buttons were labelled with acronyms
she mostly couldn’t identify.

So plenty of controls but not
much in the way of instruments or screens, perhaps there’s a heads up display
or something Cal wondered.

The controls felt very physical,
functional, almost military in design and actually rather old fashioned really,
another example were this supposed far future world was less advanced than her
own, even her house’s old fridge was controlled by a touch screen. Cal started
playing with the controls and before she knew it, she was making her own laser
noises and sound effects. She stopped quickly when what she realised what she
was doing and looked around, blushing with embarrassment, but the only one to
see her was Blit, who declined to comment.

Then Cal noticed the slot behind
the side stick. It was a key slot like that maintenance hatch had, she fished
out the Captain’s key and pushed it home.

A little floating holographic
screen flicked into life in the lower right hand corner of the cockpit, showing
what looked suspiciously like a Linux boot sequence to start with, but then it flashed
up “VERY LOWER POWER. Start-up sequence aborted”.

A calm voice emitted from a
speaker near her ear. ‘Hello Captain Choi, I’m afraid I cannot complete the
ship’s start-up sequence today as power levels in all energy banks are critical.’
The screen had changed to show what a bar graph with 8 lines, each of which was
just a sliver of red. “LOW POWER” blinked insistently below it.

‘Ern Hello, you wouldn’t happen
to be the ship’s computer would you,’ quizzed Cal.

‘Voice print not recognised, user
not authorised, Captain Choi please respond, Captain Choi, Captain Choi?’ The
voice sounded worried.

‘Captain Choi died, I’m sorry.’

‘Very low power, no network
access, cannot contact Captain, cannot confirm Captain’s status, cannot confirm
ship’s status, intruder alert,  intruder alert, cannot engage emergency
protocols, shutting doooowww.’ The computer never finished its last syllable
and the little screen winked out of existence.

Cal tried pulling the key out
and reinserting it, thinking if she got the right set of words she might be
able to convince the computer to work for her, but a low power light just
flashed up instead.

Guess it needs power then,
charge up the “Energy banks”? Why couldn’t they just call them batteries she
wondered. Cal was curious now and wanted to know what the computer would say if
it had power and found out its owner was dead. Perhaps there was some sort of
reward for all this? This was a quest, she knew it.

Climbing out of the seat was a
bit ungainly, must have been agony with that wound Cal thought, thinking back
to the dead Captain. She got back to exploring the ship, the Captain’s cabin,
Choi’s she presumed, was small like the other one but this one had a window
that looked out back of the ship. It also had definite signs of occupation,
there were a few personal effects scattered about from which Cal learned Choi’s
first name was Soo-jin. There was a number of photo’s taped to the wall, in some
of them had to be her partner, others were of a friendly looking springer
spaniel, must have been her dog. Cal let out an Awwwww. Her landlord in the
real wouldn’t let her have pets.

There were a few items of clothing
in the wardrobe, most were just basic tops and trousers with no stats that
would only get her a couple of credits, but hidden amongst the vendor trash was
some good stuff. The boots were dark brown almost black knee high with just a
little block heel, the kind you can still run in. A zip ran down the inside and
buckles down the outer with a shin guard made of thick black high impact plastic
covering the front. More biker boots than Space Captain boots she thought, they
felt heavy and solid, they had to be armoured. Cal got their stats up, yup
armoured, a good few points in energy, kinetic and stun and five percent resist
on heat, cold, electricity and toxin, condition was over ninety percent and
they were size small, Cal’s size.

‘Woot!’

In the same draw as the boots
came a pair of black leather, probably synthetic, skinny low-rise jeans with
light armour and a turtleneck sleeveless crop top in bone white with vertical
red stripe down it, just like the one on ship’s cargo hold. The top was armour,
Cal could understand the boots and to some extent the jeans being protective,
but the top, it was basically just a thin Lycra top like something her employer
sold, it wasn’t even long enough to even cover her stomach, how the hell does
that have armour?  Unrealistic fantasy female armour trope alert! Cal had
thought she had got away from that sort of crap when she left Masters of
Avaline.

Cal nearly missed the gloves
under the pile of other clothes. They were black fingerless tacticals, not
armoured, but had a point five buff for all ranged weapons, that was useful.
Most of the new gear went in her bag as Cal reckoned it would probably take her
ten minutes to squeeze into those jeans and that top, but the gloves went on.

The little galley had a hatch in
the back of it marked “Engineering. No Unauthorised Access”. Cal reckoned she
was already had three counts of trespassing today, so another didn’t matter. A
cloud of smoke billowed out when opened the door. Never a good sign.

The rear engineering bay was
rather cramped, the ceiling was low and there wasn’t much space to get past all
the equipment. Cal tried to identify the major components, the large squashed
donut thing had to be a fusion reactor didn’t it. These things were still
twenty years away in the real world, like they had been for the last seventy
years before. The long thing that went all the way to the back of the ship was
the main drive she guessed, but it didn’t look like any kind of rocket she’d
ever seen. Nestled in between the power plant and the manoeuvre drive were
various parts of what had to by the faster than light stuff, going by the
number of labels saying quantum this and tachyon that on them.

Tucked into niches in the walls
and any spare space were the bits for the life support, water recycling,
gravtics and various other sub systems. None of it looked well, there were
dirty burnt out and damaged parts everywhere and Cal could even some shafts of
light from outside poking through holes in the hull.

Cal got out her tools and see if
they worked on the damaged areas. She managed to reconnect a few power
conduits, but most of it was above here level or required parts she just didn’t
have. The bit that didn’t look too damaged was the fusion reactor and her
conduit repair put it back to 76% condition, but that wasn’t going to give her
power, these things had to be started up first, which required power to begin
with, a lot of power, basic physics. You can’t just turn on a fusion reaction
like a light switch. Well that was her assumption anyway, the game would be
terribly unrealistic if you could.

Cal eventually found the energy
banks, they were behind a panel on the floor. They did just look like large
batteries and on each one blinked a dim red LED. If she was going to get
anything more out of that computer she knew she had to charge them up.

‘So where’s the charge lead
then? Or can it be done wireless?’

‘Wireeeeeessss Butz Burp NO!’

‘You think there’s a charge then
lead Blit? You’re probably right, I can’t see wireless delivering the amps a
starship needs. Let’s see if there’s a supercharger station around here
somewhere.’

It turned out there was. A bunch
of cables wound around a large real was attached to the other side of the
landing bay, clearly marked “Umbilical”. The umbilical was actually composed of
six cables or hoses, they were marked O2, H2O, Waste, HE3, +Ve and the really
thick last one marked AM.

‘Sort of a one-stop shop for power,
air and fuel then, handy. So I just take this and plug it into the ship?’ Cal
asked Blit quizzically.

‘Poop Beep Inz YES! NO!’

‘Why not? it doesn’t look that
complicated.’

Cal then tried to pick up the
complicated head of the umbilical. Tried. ‘What the F(&$ is this thing made
of, solid lead?’

Cal had just about managed to
pull it off its rack but then dropped it when she found its full weight. It hit
the deck with loud clang. Trying to drag it to the ship proved fruitless, she
pushed and pulled it with all her might but it wouldn’t budge, her Strength
stat was just too low.

‘Bloody game, you’d need arms
like tree trunks to move than, how am I supposed to manage,’ Cal snarled.

‘Arms like tree trunks, or just
one arm…..’ She looked over to the droid parked on the cargo lift, its big
hydraulic arm looked like it could lift a tonne. Cal decided to give talking to
the Mule another chance and walked over to it.

‘Hello Robot, I wondered if you
could help me.’

‘UNAUTHORISED.’

‘Yes, I understand I’m not
authorised, but who actually is authorised?’

‘Captain Choi, Fish’.

‘Who’s Fish?’ quizzed Cal.

‘Ship’s system management unit.’

‘Oh Fish is the ships computer.’
The light dawned, Captain Choi, or to be realistic, the game designer who
scripted all this, must have been a big fan of early eighties neo-progressive
rock. The computer should of had had a Scottish accent though.

‘Captain Choi is dead and the
computer, Fish, has no power,’ explained Cal.

‘Cannot contact Fish, cannot confirm
Captain’s status,’ replied the bot in its usual unhelpful manor.

‘Look Captain Choi is over
there, dead, just go confirm it for yourself if you want to.’

The robot didn’t answer, instead
it waited a couple of seconds for something to compute then turned on the spot
and trundled over to the alcove. It stopped about a meter from body and looked
it up and down.

‘Captain?’

‘Captain?’

‘Captain?’

One of its little arms reached
out and quite gently poked the body. Seeming confused by the lack of reaction the
Mule paused for another couple of seconds to think, then its green scanning
beam shot out and played back and forth across the dried out corpse. After
another pause for thought the droid did a one eighty and made its way back to
Cal.

‘Captain Choi non-functional.
Captain Choi non-repairable.’

‘We call that dead, she’s been
dead for some time. Exactly how long have you been sitting here.’

‘Four months, twenty seven days,
eleven hours, thirty six minutes, nine seconds, three hundred and seventy six
milliseconds.’

‘An in all that time you never thought
to just roll over there and have a look?’ Cal sighed. ‘So without the Captain,
the only person you take orders from is Fish?’

‘CONFIRMED.’

‘Fish has no power, can you plug
in the umbilical to charge up his batteries?’

‘Umbilical connection and
disconnection are part of this unit’s function’.

‘So you can plug it in?’

‘CONFIRMED.’

‘So go plug it in then,’ Cal was
getting frustrated with the overly pedantic machine.

‘UNAUTHORISED.’

Cal had to stop herself from kicking
the robot. No this was a logic puzzle, emotion or violence wasn’t going to
solve it, she had to think machine.

‘Mule, question, how long do the
energy banks on the Script for a Jester’s Tear last?’

‘Normal operation is ninety six
hours before going into low power mode.’

‘So how long has Fish been in
lower power mode?’

‘Four Months, twenty four Days, eleven
Hours, Thirty nine minutes, thirty eight seconds, one hundred and fourteen
milliseconds.’

‘And can Fish communicate with
you in low power mode?’

‘NO.’

‘So…..’ Cal held her breath.

The Mule just paused for few
seconds, then rotated on its wheels and started rolling towards the umbilical cable.
Cal followed it, in hope.

The droid got to the cable head
and unfolded its big arm, the arm picked up the umbilical’s head like it
weighed nothing. The bot then turned around and carried the head to the ship,
dragging the thick cables behind it. Cal nearly screamed when it got there and
simply put the head down and froze.

She was about to let forth a string
of rather explicit expletives at the machine when it came back to life, the
large arm rose up and gently tapped a panel on the side of the ship twice
causing it to swing open and reveal a set of sockets. It then gently picked up
the umbilical, inserted it to the ship and locked it with a twist. No more
effort than plugging in an old phone.

So is that it? No, quite, the
droid rolled back to the little control panel on the wall where the umbilical had
come from, paused a second and then pressed a large blue button on the panel.
Then it paused for another second and pressed the button again. This happened
three times before the robot turned around to face Cal.

‘Have you finished? Fish has
power again?’

‘NO POWER.’

‘What do you mean no power?’

‘NO POWER’ and with that Mule
turned and drove back to his spot on the cargo lift, presumably to wait another
four months for more instructions.

Cal hung her head, of course,
the bay was on dim emergency lights, she walked over to the umbilical controls
and started pressing them to confirm. Nope, nothing, no power. The whole bay
had no power.

‘You’re really making me work
for this aren’t you Snow Storm,’ ranted Cal at the game gods.

‘YES! YES! Beep Beep YES!’

Cal was starting to get a bit
suspicious of Blit. ‘So next part of the quest, restore power to the bay, which
probably is yet another wiring puzzle,’ moaned Cal and then set off looking for
a junction box.

Nope, no boxes, she’d checked
the whole bay twice, so the power connection was outside it then she thought.

The bay had two sets of doors, a
huge pair at the far end that were big enough for the ship to fly through, they
probably lead to outer space, so not there then. The other set of doors at the
near end of the bay were marked “Cargo Access”. These were still pretty big,
maybe eight meters wide by three high, this is how the cargo gets to the bay
then Cal assumed. Both the large sets of doors were solid and heavy looking,
they would need power to open them anyway.

So not there then, the service
tunnel? That had lots of pipes and cables in it, but Cal didn’t remember seeing
any junction boxes or controls on the way, plus she didn’t really like it very
much and decided to try the other option first.

The other option was the lift
she had found Choi in. The platform wasn’t going anywhere was it with no power,
but there were the ladder rungs built into the wall, it was designed to be
climbed up wasn’t it. At the top there was a ledge and a door, which appeared
into lead into somewhere with a window that looked down on the bay.

Cal carefully stepped over Choi’s
body and pressed the lift up’s button, secretly wishing it had its own power.
It didn’t, so she climbed. Her virtual body was far fitter than her real one
and the climb barely left her breathing quickly, try that in the real she
thought and then went to look at the door.

Another airlock, Cal didn’t even
bother with the open button this time, instead she worked the manual release
instead and stepped in. Inside was pretty plain, a locker on the wall said it
contained an emergency space suit, but it didn’t. Remembering she had to lock
the outer door before opening the inner one she worked the manual controls
again. The inner door lead to a control booth with a window that looked down
into the bay. The control panel had a lot of handy looking buttons with useful
labels likes “Lights”, “Crane”, ”Pressurise”, “Depressurise”, “Open outer doors”
and hah, the one she was looking for, “Power”. Which didn’t do anything when
she pressed it.

‘It was never going to be that simple
was it,’ Cal grumbled and started to search again.

No wiring or broken parts or
anything to fix could be found in the booth or under the control panel, but a
simple door lead out into another one of those indomitable corridors. Cal
headed right and found side four more doors marked Small Bay 4-07-B to Small
Bay 4-07-E before coming to an end, each door lead to an identical power
control room, which looked down on identical deserted landing bay lit by
identical dull yellow emergency lights.

The other way proved more
interesting, the corridors this way were damaged, panels were missing, as was
some of the floor grating and sections of the ceiling. Cal drew her new weapon
and moved quietly, she’d learnt corridors like this usually mean trouble. The
passage turned right sharply, Cal hugged the wall before diving around the bend
in a combat roll bringing her weapon up to face whatever was waiting for her.

Which turned out to be nothing,
Cal felt a little silly and holstered her gun. The passage ran for another five
or so meters before it turned left again. She nearly missed the junction box as
it was behind the remains of panel.

Cal didn’t have to remove its
cover this time, someone or something had already done if for her, violently,
which was odd. The box had its usual quartet of wires, two were warm, two were
cold, just as before, but the parts in the middle connecting seemed to missing,
no simple case of throwing a breaker this time. She brought her pad out,
flipped it into diagnostic mode, and held it against the damaged area. She’d
learnt about this on earlier quests, the pad could analyse certain bits of
machinery, using some sort of in built scanner and throw up a diagram of which
parts needed to be replaced or fixed. Probably just a bit of a cheat to allow
players who weren’t actually engineers in real life to fix stuff in game.
Thinking about it Cal decided real engineers couldn’t fix this stuff without
the help of the pad either, as Spinward’s game world technology was mostly just
technobabble.

The pad did its trick, a couple
of the connections could be repaired, but the Phase Inverter and the High Output
Regulator were missing, not broken, actually completely missing.

So I’ll need parts, craft,
borrow, buy or steal them, but from where?

The ship had some parts in its
machine shop, but she didn’t remember seeing anything like either of those, but
it did have a fabber, perhaps that could make them? Probably not, it had no
power, not much in the way of raw materials and she’d have to level up her non-existent
crafting skills to use it if it did.

Cal looked around for
inspiration, she could just all the way back though Dock four and get a lift to
Blue deck, there had to be a shop or something selling them? But Ah, perhaps I
don’t have to walk so far, a sign on the wall had directions, one arrow was marked
“Small Bays A-E” pointing back the way she came from, the other pointing
onwards was marked “Concourse”.

Cal decided against doing a
combat roll around the next corner as they were a bit silly, but still had her
gun out just in case. What was around the corner stopped her in her tracks.

‘D^&£, I’m going to have to
go the long way around aren’t.’

‘NO! krizzzt YES!’

The corridor was blocked, panel,
boxes, crates, beams, flooring grates and other assorted junk had all been
piled up, completely blocking the passageway.

Was this something Maintainer
Williams did, to protect himself from the whatever? Or did something explode or
maybe there was a fight Cal wondered, thinking back to the damage on the Jester.
Could I move some of the debris to make a large enough hole to climb though she
mused, probably not give my Strength stat, but it’s worth a try.

But then something in the debris
moved.

Cal froze, it was like some sort
of steel insect slowly unfolding itself from the pile, made from parts of junk
that had been fashioned into limbs, blades and teeth, lots of teeth. This was
Williams’s monster and that wasn’t a barricade, it was its nest.

‘KILL ALL HUMANS,’ the machine
bellowed in a hard grating machine voice as it started moving towards her.

‘NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!
NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!,’ Blit wailed and took off in the opposite
direction at top speed.

Cal was shocked back into
action, she had something a bit better than Williams’s nail gun and decided to
use it. Her first two shots went wild, dam you skill system, but the third plasma
blast hit one of the machines legs square on. The shot took the limb clean off leaving
a shower of sparks and a spray of green hydraulic fluid coming out of the
stump.

The steel insectoid barely
seemed to notice its missing leg as it continued its slow and deliberate march
towards her, chrome teeth bared. She lined up her next shot hoping to hit
something more vital, but instead of the flash, thud and the kick, the gun just
emitted a faint click. Click click click went the gun as Cal worked the trigger
desperately.

‘S^#! no more power, why is it
always about power,’ cried Cal.

The kill drone paused, tilted
its head, well maybe not the head,  the part of it that contained the most
teeth anyway and then pulled a sort of crooked smile, it knew the weapon was
drained. A small panel opened up on the body and a glowing blue eye looked
straight at her. The panel snapped shut and it lunged.

It was fast, but Cal, half
expecting something like this, was a touch faster. She back stepped and then
darted around the corner. Safe for a second anyway, she holstered the PX22 and
pulled out her small laser, Cal knew it had a full charge, but also knew how
useless it was against armoured targets. This wasn’t looking good. The bot
lurched around the corner, straight into Cal’s aim and she opened up. All five
shots hit the bot, but apart from making a couple of parts glow it didn’t seem
to have any effect. She was defenceless.

‘KILLLLLLL,’ boomed the machine,
snapping its teeth and waving its barbed limbs. It was playing with its food.

The eye popped out again, just
for a second, before the machine went for another lunge. One of its many many
blades caught Cal’s arm as she tried to evade, blood, her blood, gushed.

Cal held the wound, it stung,
she knew it wasn’t for the heavy maintenance jumpsuit and the fact it did that
eye thing before it jumped, it would have had her arm off. Wait, the eye thing,
it’s a Boss mob and it’s telegraphing its attacks and if it’s doing that…  Use
game logic, not reality logic Cal told herself. She now knew what to do.

The machine circled, showing
its teeth and blades, taunting her, but Cal stood firm, weapon raised but
holding fire, waiting, waiting. The hatch popped open and the eye glared at her,
but Cal didn’t dodge this time, instead she corrected her aim just slightly and
fired.

She hit it straight in the eye.
The machine froze and started emitting a piercing electronic screech before the
blue glow faded and then it just fell apart. What was once menacing insectile killing
machine was now just a pile of junk scattered on the floor.

Cal let out a sign of relief,
the eye was the boss’s weak spot, only becoming visible just before it attacks,
that old mechanic.

Looting the junk pile resulted
in a large power cell, a hydraulic actuator, and of course, a Phase Inverter
and the High Output Regulator. The boss had all the parts to fix the junction
box, handy that. One last bit of loot identified itself as AI Kill Drone MK I
corpse, it was a small, not much bigger than your hand, blue box made from some
odd plastic. The now shattered eye sat at one end and a number of tiny thin
legs protruded from the sides, it was like some kind of artificial cyclopean
spider.

Blit had come out of hiding by
now and floated up to the drone’s corpse for a look. It recoiled back quickly emitting
a series of mournful tones, harsh Bleeps and a lot of NO!s. Cal didn’t like it
either, It made her skin crawl.

The junction box was a doddle to
fix with the parts. Cal walked back to the control room and hit the power
button confidently. A light fitting flickered at the far corner of the bay for
a second before coming up to full brightness. The light next to it followed the
same pattern, as did the next and the next, within a minute bay was flooded
with light.

‘YES!’

Blit turned to look at her, but
stayed silent, she’d stolen its line.

‘Hello, is anyone there?’ A
screen had lit up on the console showing a middle aged man’s face. The voice
was coming from it.

‘This is Sub Administrator Bhat
from docking control, bay four zero seven A has just come up as active on my
board, what’s happening down there? That bay was shut down after the attack months
ago.’

‘Er, Hi,’ Cal replied to the
face, trying to sound like an American male for reasons she didn’t quite
understand.

‘Oh you’re maintenance.’ Cal
guessed he’d spotted her yellow jumpsuit and hard hat. ‘I didn’t know you
people were down there today, are you recommissioning this bay?’

‘Er, Yeah.’

‘Arhhh, nobody tells me
anything around here, I’ll have to fill out a BN-14c and probably a BN-23 as
well to get it upgraded back to active status.’

‘Er, OK.’

‘OK for you, paperwork headache
for me.’ With that he terminated the conversation.

Cal’s pad beeped, comms were
back as well as the power. Back down the ladder into the bay Cal strode up to
the umbilical console and pressed the blue button triumphantly. Tell-tale
lights came on and a faint hum started coming from the cable. Cal was rather
pleased with herself, she popped the e-clips out of her laser pistol and
carbine and plugged then then into a handy double wall socket as she didn’t
want to get caught short again.

Back in the cockpit, Cal plugged
the key into the slot, ready to have another chat with the computer.

‘Hello Captain Choi, I’m afraid
I cannot complete the full ship’s start-up sequence immediately as power levels
in all energy banks are low and an initial diagnostic indicates several major
components have damage. An umbilical has been attached, the energy banks are
charging, and I can start some ancillary systems. I estimate we will have
enough power for main reactor start in twenty three minutes, but I recommend a
running level four diagnostic first.’

The ship started to come back to
life, controls and holographic screens lit up, various quiet little whirs,
clicks and hums started to emanate from all over the vessel and the main lights
came on banishing the gloom.

‘Erm, Hello Fish.’

‘Voice print not recognised,
unauthorised access to bridge. Captain Choi please respond, please respond,’ answered
the almost distraught sounding computer.

‘Fish, your Captain is dead,
sorry about that.’

‘Checking…. Cannot locate
Captain on internal sensors, cannot locate Captain on proximity sensor,
checking external data sources…. Captain Choi listed as missing on public
records, death not confirmed.’

‘Oh she’s dead alight, has been
for nearly five months, her body is just over there by the lift,’ Cal informed
the machine.

‘Human body located on proximity
sensors, cannot confirm identity, cannot confirm Captain Choi’s status.’

‘Er, Ok. ’ Cal thought for a
moment. ‘Fish, can you communicate with the Mule?’

‘Mule unit is active and
connected to ship’s network,’ Fish replied.

‘Well the Mule went and had a
look at the body and confirmed it was Choi, just ask it.’

The computer went quiet for a
few seconds.

‘Mule unit is slow, but data
exchange has been performed. Captain Choi confirmed deceased on standard Sol
date December twentieth 5611. Engaging owner bereavement protocols.’

The computer went quiet again, a
bored Cal started pushing some of the controls in the cockpit but nothing
happened, it looked like they had been locked.

‘Owner bereavement protocols followed.
Owner deceased over three months, ship not claimed by dependants, no other outstanding
claims on ship found on records. Ship currently not obstructing space lanes or
proving a navigation hazard. Status changed to salvage.’

‘Salvage?’ That peaked Cal’s
curiosity. ‘Explain.’

‘Ship is currently without owner
or ownership claims and is not a hazard to shipping, so under Carina Free
Federation law, specifically subsection fourteen of the 5412 shipping act, vessels
in such a state may be claimed as salvage and ownership taken of said vessels.’

‘And who can claim salvage?’

‘The first person to register the
claim.’

‘Like me?’

‘Yes.’

‘So what do I do, just claim
you?’ Cal was practically bubbling with excitement.

‘Yes.’

‘So, I Calista Hudson do
forthwith and verily and with a sound mind and body and whatever claim this
vessel, Script for a Jester’s Tear as salvage,’ announced Cal in her best
legalise.

‘Claim accepted, owner now
logged as Calisto Hudson. Hello Calisto, I am Fish, ship’s sub AI SMU and voice
interface system, how may I help you,’ the computer politely informed her.

‘Call me Cal, so that’s it, I
now own you?’

‘Hello Cal, yes, ownership is
now registered, but it is recommended you submit form KL-14a to the local
authorities as soon as possible to fully ratify your claim and prevent any disputes
or counter claims.’

‘I own a starship, Whhhhooooooo!
And in only two days into the game.’ Cal did a little dance in her seat.

‘Can’t I just go to the administrator’s
site and fill it this form over the net?’ Cal enquired, even West Sussex county
council has had electronic forms for decades.

‘According to regulations all
forms of this nature have to be submitted in person.’

Cal shook her head in disbelief
and unzipped her pad pocket. She had to get that form or whatever filled in,
there’s no way she’s loosing this ship now because of paperwork. Scrolling
through the station’s guide she could see there was an office up on Admin deck
two that dealt with ship ownership and administration. Its opening hours were
10:00 until 17:00 with a break for lunch at 13:00. Game time now was, Cal
glanced up to her HUD, 16:04.

‘I can make it.’

Cal practically jumped out of
the pilot’s seat and grabbed her bag.

‘Blit, with me,’ she ordered.

‘Meez Bart Beep YES!’ the little
droid followed quickly, obeying instructions for a change.

After jumping down through the
cargo hatch Cal looked up back to the ship and shouted ‘Fish, can you hear me?’

‘Yes Cal,’ answered the
computer, its voice coming from exterior speakers.

‘Ok, retract the cargo lift, lock
all the doors and hatches, don’t talk to anyone and don’t let anyone in until I
get back, that’s an order.’

‘Order accepted.’ The cargo lift
starting rising slowly, Cal jumped off and turned towards the Mule.

‘Mule’

‘AUTHORISED.’

‘Finally. Yes your mine now, so if
you could do some cleaning and make any repairs you can while I’m gone that
would be lovely,’ ordered Cal hurriedly.

‘CONFIRMED.’

She ran over to the umbilical
point, retrieved her power cells and slotted them back into her weapons.
Looking around Cal tried to figure the fastest route out of Dock four. The bay
doors were locked, the corridor to the concourse was still barricaded, so the
only way back was maintenance service way.

‘Well if we must.’

Cal nearly missed the hatch out
of the claustrophobic tunnel, it had swung shut since she’d been there last.

Next problem was the welded up fire
door. Cal looked up at the partially collapsed duct she had climbed through to
get here, she could probably climb back though if she could just get up there,
but there weren’t any handy crates on this side of the door.

Doors in games could be funny,
some you could just open, others would be locked and only accessible with
certain keys. Some locks you could pick, others you had no chance. Some doors
could be kicked in or blasted open, others were indestructible regardless of
what weapon you used. And then there were the doors that could never be opened
under any circumstance, this was usually because the other side of them wasn’t
modelled in the game world.

This door, as she found out when
she examined it closely this time, was the type that could actually be blasted.
The welds, hinges and the lock all had a condition rating and she assumed when
the condition dropped to zero for all of them, the door would open.

Cal tried her laser first in no great
hope. She fired and then re-inspected the weld she’d targeted, it had gone down
2%. She didn’t enough laser shots left to get through. She could run back and
forth to the docking bay and keep recharging, but that would take hours. She
didn’t have hours. It’s going to have to be the cannon then she concluded.

Cal was worried about her
accuracy. Due to her lack of skills the game would put a random delta on her
shots and the targets were small so even at close range she could still miss if
she got a bad set of rolls. Her fate was in the hands of the random number
generator now.

Fate smiled, nine out of the
twelve shots she fired hit their intended targets and the door fell off its
hinges with a mighty clang. She broke into a jog on her way back to the
maintenance room, passing William’s corpse. Cal was reminded about his and
Choi’s ID chips, if she was going to the Admin deck she should hand those in
while she was there, in fact she had to do that first, to make sure Choi’s death
was on record so it wouldn’t interfere with the salvage claim.

Peering around the corner down
the service tunnel, she saw the roach queen was back on her nest. Dam, the mobs
have respawned she thought.

She could get out without facing
the queen, but there were still six or seven she had to pass to get out and
that’s if she avoided the rest room. Cal drew both her weapons and decided just
to run for it.

Thirty meters to the main
airlock and Cal had a train. It felt like she’d aggroed the every bug, bot and Smoosh
head on the level, there were at least ten of them behind her, all crying for
blood. A couple had got a few hits on her as she passed, but they only resulted
in minor wounds, she could patch them up later, right now she was channelling
old action movies and didn’t have time to bleed.

She fired a few shots back at
the mobs, mostly just suppressing fire, but one plasma bolt, not even aimed,
managed to catch one of the pursuing zombie in the torso. It didn’t just drop
the zombie, it totally gibbed it, blood and entrails decorated the walls. But
even that gory sight did nothing so slow the horde down. Limbs were trying to
reach though the airlock door as she closed it, luckily safety protocols didn’t
seem to apply to mobs and the heavy steel doors closed on them. There were
three detached arms on the floor when it finally shut.

Cal breathed a sigh of relief.
Time was 16:37, she’ll make it, but felt the stolen maintenance worker outfit might
not to do her any favours. She was still changing into her newbie greys when
the outer door opened. If the Dock four’s guards had noticed her in her
underwear they didn’t feel need to comment, instead Cal got a simple ‘Good day
ma’am, glad to see you’re OK’.

‘Erm thanks, yeah, whatever,’ replied
Cal dismissively and jogged towards the lifts.

The lift took far far longer
than they normally did, at least it felt that way. A tinny version of the
Police’s Walking On the Moon accompanied Cal all the way to Admin deck two.

Time 16:42.

Admin two was well signposted, that
made a change. Cal dashed into the Department of Starship Registration,
Regulation and Licencing’s office. There was a queue and at the head of it was
one of those dithering people who never seemed to know what they want and
talked forever. Cal had to force herself not to scream. Ditherer finally sorted
out her business and thank the flying spaghetti monster the next two just needed
to hand in something or get something stamped. It was 16:52 and she was finally
there.

‘Hello, I’m Sub Administrator Sandberg,
how may the DSRRL help you today.’ The young woman stared at her terminal for a
second. ‘New worker Calisto Hudson.’

‘Yes, Hi I’m here to submit form
KL-14a to register a salvage claim and to hand in a couple of ID chips,’ Cal
blurted out.

‘Well this is the right
department for a KL-14a, but I’m afraid the ID chips have to be handed into the
station personnel enquiry office, its three doors down,’ answered the
functionary with a mechanical smile.

Cal knew that arguing with
bureaucrats was impossible, they drag you down to their level and then beat you
over the head with their superior experience. Instead she figured she could get
the chips handed in and back in time, if there’s no queues or procedures or
earthquakes or whatever.

‘Right, please just stay right there,
I’ll be back in two minutes.’

‘I’m afraid this office closes
at five sharp madam, no exceptions,’ replied the administrator coldly.

Cal ran down the corridor and
swung into the personnel office, no queue, relief. She slammed the ID chips
down on the desk.

‘I’m here to hand these in,’
she gasped. ‘Oh and this, it contains his last words.’ She grabbed Williams’s
tablet from her bag and added it to pile on the desk.

‘Ah, let me see.’ The aging
administrator on duty moved infuriating slowly typing something into a terminal
hunt and peck style with two fingers.

‘Maintainer Francisco Williams,
listed missing four months ago. Captain Soo-jin Choi listed missing at
approximately the same time. Accessing time of death.’ The administrator seemed
to have press a ridiculous number of keys to get this to happen. ‘Oh dear, they
both died around the time of the second AI attack on this station.’

‘Oh dear?’

‘For them madam.’ Like the other
administrators he stared at his terminal for a second. ‘New worker Calisto Hudson.
Oh you’re a new worker, came up the well recently then?’

‘Two days ago.’

‘Well thank you for handing
these in, due to the circumstances and relative dates an investigation will not
be required and on behalf of Upsilon
Carinae Gateway station I thank you and am authorised to give you a finder’s
fee of forty credits.’

‘For each chip?’

‘No that’s in total.’

‘Whatever, thank you.’ and with
that Cal dashed back to the first office.

There was no queue, time was
16:57.

‘Hello, I’m Sub Administrator Sandberg,
how may the DSRRL help you today.’ The young woman started at her terminal for
a second. ‘New worker Calisto Hudson.’ She had repeated word for word exactly
what she said only two minutes ago.

‘Yeah, me again, can I have that
KL-14a form now please,’ begged Cal.

‘The form is now electronic, we
are not totally behind the times here Upsilon Carinae Gateway station you know, most of the forms have
been like this for over six months now.’ The admin seemed pleased with herself.
‘Now if you would just answer me these questions.’

‘Name?’

‘Calisto Hudson, but you already
know that’

‘It is part of the procedure.
Current address?’

‘Room 17-04, Accommodation deck
seven, surely you have that down in your records, an administrator assigned it
to me in the first place,’ replied Cal, exasperated.

‘Occupation?’

‘New Worker, whatever one of
those is.’

‘Name of vessel being claimed?’

‘Script for a Jester’s Tear.’

‘Full identification number of
vessel?’

Cal had been prepared for this
question and had noted down the 16 digit alphanumeric in her pad, she got it
out.

‘LF-ZZPA-7691-1701-MC.’

‘Current location of vessel?’

‘Carinae Gateway station Small Bay 4-07-A.’

‘Is the vessel currently posing
a hazard to navigation?’

‘No, it’s inside a landing bay.’
These stupid questions infuriated Cal no end.

‘Is the vessel currently posing
any danger to personnel or property, such as imminent rector overload or
preparing to perform a tachyon phase conversion in a populated area?’

‘NO.’

The administrator stared at her
terminal and started tapping keys, quickly for a change.

‘The vessel is currently
registered to a Soo-jin Choi.’

‘Actually its Choi Soo-jin,
she’s Korean and they write their family names first,’ muttered Cal.

‘Choi is currently registered
deceased, time of death, ah yes, over three months ago. Checking for
outstanding claims.’ More furious key pressing. ‘No outstanding claims on
vessel LF-ZZPA-7691-1701-MC are registered. Well that all seems in order, if
you just like to pay the one thousand two hundred salvage claim fee.’

Of course, this game is never
going to give you something for nothing is it. Cal wearily tapped the desk with
her two fingers to transfer the money.

‘And the documentation
processing fee of three hundred and forty five credits please.’

Cal just rolled her eyes and
tapped again.

‘And finally there is the
registration transfer fee of four hundred and seventy credits please.’

She didn’t care anymore, tap.

‘And I see the vessel is
currently located in a station small bay. Berthing fees are two hundred a day excluding
consumables. Failure to pay berthing fees can result in vessels being impounded
by station authorities.’

Cal glanced at her now much
reduced credit score and winced. ‘Can I pay three days in advance?’

‘Of course, that will be six
hundred credits please.’

That better be the last fee, Cal
was tapped out, figuratively and literally.

‘And that’s it?’ said Cal
hopefully.

‘Checking.’ The admin turned to
her terminal and started hitting keys.

This went on for half a lifetime,
well that’s what it felt like to Cal anyway.

‘All complete, congratulations
Ms Hudson you are now the registered owner of LF-ZZPA-7691-1701-MC Script for a
Jester’s Tear.’

She reached down and pulled
some papers from under the desk. They looked like they had been produced on a twentieth
century dot matrix printer. ‘These are your registration documents. Please have
them available to show CFF customs, administration and military personnel when
requested. Good Day.’ She handed them to Cal and pressed another key on her
terminal. A shutter slammed down in front of the desk bearing the message “CLOSED”.

Cal let a huge sigh of relief.
Blit, who’d been uncharacteristically quiet during all, perhaps administrators
scared him, let out simple beep and one of his signature YES!s.

‘Yes Blit, that pretty much sums
it up.’

Cal hugged the registration
document. She’d been run ragged, had her face bitten off, lost what must be
litre of blood from other injuries, suffered pain, fear, stress and embarrassment,
had her shooting, logic skills and patience pushed hard, was totally broke and had
actually died. She’d even had to talk to bureaucrats, but it was worth it in
the end. Best quest ever.

Chapter 7: Outfitting

A frustrating
day sifting through the dreck in the corporate data landfill for her lords and
masters had left Su eager to get back to Spinward to play with her new toys and
most of all, shoot some things, preferably things that looked like the merchandising
team, repeatedly.

Cal woke up
lying on her bunk in the accommodation unit. She stared at the ceiling for a
couple of minutes before a beep from her pad got her moving. Fish had sent her
a message. She didn’t even know the computer could do that, nor the fact that
pads could even send messages.

Good Morning Owner Hudson,

This is Fish, the Script for a
Jester’s Tear’s SMU, I hope you are well. The Mule unit and I have ran a level
four diagnostic and accessed the damage to the Script for a Jester’s Tear. We
have performed all repairs we are able to with the available parts and materials
but I am afraid we could not complete the task. Attached is a list parts and materials
required to bring the ship back to space worthiness.

Thank you for your time,

Fish.

Cal perused
the list, ‘Oh my gawd, how much is all this going to cost?’

The items on
the list probably added up to more than she had in her account. But then again
she couldn’t even buy a sandwich with what she had in her account.

First order
of the day was cash, she still had the roach queen quest to hand in and that
should net a few creds, plus her rucksack was stuffed with sellables. Going
through her stash Cal decided she just had to keep Choi’s leathers and boots,
the top as well because she didn’t have anything else to wear with them. The
broken gun could go though, as could her grey jumpsuit, finally.

Sell the
maintenance jumpsuit? Cal ummed and aahhed about and in the end decided to keep
it, the key and the hard hat. Being able to impersonate a maintenance worker
and access service passages and hatches was too good to throw away. That didn’t
leave a much as she had thought, the large nano med packs had to go back to the
Jester as did anything resembling a useful component. That only left some icky
body parts and robot junk she’d picked up in Dock four, they would earn a few
credits from in game vendors who bought any old crap.

Getting into
the leathers, top and boots proved easier than she expected. Even though they
were skin-tight they simply seemed to glide on, game physics at work. If only
those oh so fashionable ultra-skinny jeans in real life were quite so easy.
Accessorised with the gun belt and the gloves, the whole ensemble did look
rather cool though, in a sort of space piratey way. Cal posed for a bit in
front of the apartment’s only mirror, drawing her carbine and posing with it
and making pew pew noises, because, well, she could.

‘Biz Biz YES!’
Blit had woken up from standby mode.

Cal’s reflexes
kicked in before she could think, pivoting on the spot and levelling her weapon
the intruder in a split second.

‘NO!  NO! NO!
NO! NO! NO! NO!’ repeated Blit, practically vibrating in panic.

‘Oops!’ Cal
lowered her weapon quickly. ‘Sorry Blit, you surprised me, don’t sneak up on me
like that OK.’

‘buuurmmp
YES!’ came out much quieter than normal.

‘Look I
really am sorry, I apologies for scaring you, no hard feelings, OK?’

‘OK beep
beep NO! YES NO! NO! YES!’

‘Fine.’ Cal
collected her bag and headed to the door. Blit was still frozen on the spot.

‘Are you
coming or not?’

‘Chirp Bleep
Errrrrrrr YES!’ replied Blit and floated along after her.

Stupid
machine.

‘Oh you, you’re
late.’ Administrator Van De Berg didn’t seem happy to see her.

‘Sorry, but
I did get that roach queen for you.’

‘Yes, well I
suppose you did, eventually, here’s nine hundred for your time,’ replied the
administrator dismissively.

‘But, But,
it was huge and it ate my face. I actually died getting rid of that bug for you,’
Cal pleaded.

‘Nine
hundred, take it or leave it.’ Ms Van De Berg folded her arms and glared at
Cal.

‘Oh, OK then.’
Cal relented, she had hoped for more, but negotiations weren’t her strong
point.

That nine
hundred really wasn’t going to buy many parts thought Cal as she walked back
through the docks. She looked at the other players, mostly newbies in there
grey jumpsuits, running around doing their quests.

I’m going
to have to start grinding again aren’t I.

Problem was
she’d done pretty much every quest she could find in this zone and the Administrator
hadn’t given her any hint on the next place to go. Bitch.

The new
players in the dock zone also noticed Cal. Some noticed she didn’t have the standard
issue jumpsuit, some noticed she was carrying some serious weaponry and some, perhaps
less socially adept that the others, were being rather obviously about noticing
her bum in the tight leather jeans. Cal knew she was being watched, stared at,
being envied, perhaps even fancied. People staring like that in the real world
often made her nervous and defensive, but in here, confidence came a bit easier.
She just held her head high and carried on through, with just that little bit
more swagger in her stride and a slight smile on her face.

Shopping on Blue
deck wiped off that smile. She only got another three hundred or so for her
loot and even Uncle Al’s Refurbished Parts Emporium wanted stupid money for the
bits on Fish’s list. She could just about afford a small number of parts that
would get the gravtics and a couple of ancillary systems back running again,
but both the sub and super luminal drives were shot and needed several very
expensive bits. The hull repairs also required raw materials and then she
needed fuel for the power plant, oh and then she had to keep up with the bay
rental. This spaceship owning thing was proving a headache, perhaps she should
just sell the thing? Cal was so deep in thought she didn’t notice a familiar
face walking though the commercial district.

‘Well look
at you, all Space Captain bad arse. I like the new look,’ said a husky voice.

Cal looked
around and then up, it was that tall girl from the bar. ‘Oh Hi Jen, sorry, was
kilometres away.’

‘You OK Hun?’

‘Yeah, just
a lot of things on my mind.’

‘Well let me
buy you a coffee and you can tell me all about them, a problem shared is a
problem halved and all that’ offered Jen cheerily.

‘No it’s OK,
thanks for the offer.’

‘You sure,
I’ll throw in some cake as well? Please? I still feel kinda guilty at getting
you involved in a fight with that muppet at the bar and I wanted to make it up
to you somehow,’ admitted Jen.

‘Nonsense,
that guy was an a$%hole and you did your best to help.’

Cal still felt
a little bit guilty about hurting Jen’s feelings before and she really did try
to help dealing with the idiot, plus what with the sticker shock, nearly
shooting Blit and the nasty admin person….

‘Oh go on
then, let’s get a coffee.’

‘And cake?’

‘I never say
no to cake.’

They
wandered over to a nearby coffee shop on Blue deck’s promenade that
suspiciously resembled a branch of Starbucks.

‘Her you go,
Synth caff with soy milk, no sugar and a slice of Choco cake. Actually they
only had soy milk, they probably don’t have cows in space,’ said Jen as she
placed their drinks and food down on the little table.

‘Synth caff?’
queried Cal.

‘I think they
just call it that to make it sound more futuristic and outer spacey.’

‘And no Space
cake?’

‘No, they
didn’t for some reason, I don’t know why, you think it would be an obvious
thing to have on the menu,’ replied Jen with a smile.

Cal sipped
her Caff and winced. ‘Oh, they haven’t got that right have they.’

‘No, they
don’t seem to be able to get bitter tastes right, but sweet works fine,’
answered Jen who was busily pouring two packets of sweetener into her drink. ‘Add
some sugar to it Hun. Well actually bit more than just some, it makes it taste a
lot better and you can hardly get fat in here.’

Cal pondered
on it for a couple of seconds then followed suit.

‘I have to
say, I love the new look, really suits you. It’s just that bit F£*! me and but
with a whole bucket load of F@#£ you, where on Earth did you get it?’ inquired
Jen.

‘Well it
wasn’t on Earth,’ Cal replied with a smirk. ‘Found it on a quest, along with
some other bits and pieces.’

‘Oh do tell.’

Cal drew her
plasma carbine and placed it on the table.

‘Ohhh My!’ exclaimed Jen.

‘That’s exactly what I said when
I saw it.’

‘If I didn’t know better I would
say you were compensating for something.’

That got a little giggle out of
Cal.

‘So if we’re attacked by a
rampaging mob of giant space elephants you’ve got it covered?’

‘Oh yes.’

Jen pointed at the weapon ‘I
really ought to get me one of those. Well probably not one of those exactly, but
something on those lines, maybe just a touch smaller. I tried doing one of
those whack a rat quests, it took ages trying to hit the furry little b*£%!%s’’
with my stun stick and when I did it all got a bit messy. Plus I got bit like
three times and they’re the weediest mobs in game.’

‘The high heels probably didn’t
help,’ Cal pointed out. Jen had changed from the skyscraper mules from the bar,
but her current pair of boots still had at least a ten centimetre heel.

‘True, but I have to think about
my image you know,’ replied Jen with a laugh. ‘Actually I should have just
stepped on them. A gun would probably be easier though and plus I could look
all cool and stuff while shooting them and coming out with those witty one
liners afterwards. Trouble I’m actually not much of a shooter player.’

‘Well I could give you a few
lessons if you like and you should be able to find you something that doesn’t
need a whole load of accuracy to begin with.’ Cal offered. ‘So what games are
you into?’

‘Well I practically lived in
Masters of Avaline Online for the last eighteen months. Well as much as my
dream box would let me.’

‘Oh wow, I played that a bit as
well.’ By a bit Cal meant she was in the beta, early start and played ever
since, had two max level characters, was in one of the top ten guilds on her
server, was one of the highest ranked PVPers and had a dozen legendary items
won from epic raid bosses. ‘I bet I can guess your main’s character class.’ Cal
put her hands to the side of her head, closed her eyes and waved back and forth.
‘Mmmmmmmmmrrrrrrr….. High Elf Light Mage.’

‘What, yes, spot on, how the?’
Jen was a bit confused.

‘Lucky guess I suppose. But it
might just of had something to do with the fact that high level raid armour for
Eleven Light Mages was pretty much a handful of gold and jewels and a just
enough wisps of gauze to keep it legal.’

‘I’m that obvious then?’

‘Yes’

‘Guilty as changed.’ Jen
shrugged. ‘Though that outfit did chafe a bit. So what were you then? Let me
guess.’ Jen copied Cal by putting her hands to her head and closing her eyes. ‘Errrmmmmm
… Paladin!’

‘Paladin, no way, why did you
think that?

‘Well after you went all white
knight in the club I just thought…’

‘Ha! Actually I was a Half-Elf
Dark Rogue, double dagger specialisation.’

‘Ahhh, of course, I see it now,
it’s all about the leather isn’t it,’ Jen teased.

‘No, it’s not like that at all.’

‘Don’t worry dear, your secret’s
safe with me.’ Jen laughed. ‘So which server and guild?’

‘Grimmarch server. The Darkest
before Dawn guild, founder member actually.’

‘Oh wow, small virtual world. I
was in the Legion of the Sun on the same server. I think we actually fought you
lot over High Peaks Keep a couple of times.’

‘Fought and lost if I remember
rightly,’ corrected Cal with a sly smile.

‘Well we would have done better
if it wasn’t for those over powered Dark Rogues who kept ganking us constantly.’

‘Overpowed, pah! Pure skill that
was. Anyway if I got caught in the open I got my face melted off by a dozen fireballs
from your kind.’

‘Ah, good times.’ They both
smiled and clinked their cups together.

‘So what made you decide to come
over to Spinward?’ inquired Cal.

‘Change of scenery really. I’d
been in MoA a bit too long really and there’s the new expansion coming out that
will raise the level cap, so another grind to get up to the new limit and
endless raiding to get new gear as your old stuff just got made obsolete
overnight. I just had to get off the treadmill for a bit, try something new, do
crazy s£^$ ‘.

‘Like serving drinks a PVC bunny
suit?’

‘Exactly like serving drinks in
a PVC bunny or was it kitty, anyway whatever, suit.’ Jen took another sip of
her Caff. ‘I’ve done a couple of those newbie quests with rats and bugs, but
mostly it’s been silly stuff. Last night I got together with a couple of gals
who’d also done the Pink Pussy waitress quest and formed a little dance troop
and went around entertaining the troops.’

‘In the outfits?’

‘Absolutely in the outfits, we
earnt over a grand in tips.’

‘Oh wow.’ Cal remembered her
cash flow problem but had already dismissed the idea of dancing.

‘The dancing actually worked out
quite well, plus I’ve been fabbing and tending bar for a bit, that brought in
more even more.’

‘A barmaid is a career option in
here?’

‘Oh yeah, and they don’t just
let anybody tend bar in the federation you know. You have to like get qualified
and pass a cocktail mixing test and everything,’

‘Seriously?’

Jen got her pad out and showed
Cal her official CFF Bar Tending license.

‘Oh.’ Cal was a little impressed,
but more surprised that there even was such a thing. ‘Is there a trainer or
something?’

‘Stephan in the Sub Bar over on
Red two has a couple of little fetch quests and a mopping up thing he needs
doing. Do all of that and he’ll teach you all the secrets of the mixologist
trade as a reward. So what have you been up to then?’

‘Whacking rats mostly, well
rats, bugs, zombies and killer robots. Plus a load of crawling through dark
tunnels, fixing a half the station’s wiring and arguing with robots and
administrators’

‘Sounds fun,’ replied Jen unconvincingly.

‘Was in places, but then there
was killer AI monster that wanted to destroy all humans and a massive cockroach
that bit my face off.’

‘Eeeewwww.’ Jen winced.

‘And that’s how I found out
about the death penalty. I didn’t do too badly out it all though.’

‘I can see, is that where you
got your little friend?’ Jen pointed to Blit, who’d had just floated back to join
them after trying unsuccessfully to start a conversation of its own with the
shop’s expresso machine.

‘Bliz burt beep NO!’

‘This is Blit. I actually got
him as part of a pre-order package. I think it’s supposed to be lucky and it has
got a couple of little tricks, but mostly it just makes a lot of bleeping
noises.’

‘Bleeep Bleeep Bleeeeeeeep YES!’

‘Aren’t you going to introduce
us?’

‘Blit, this Jen, Jen is Blit’

‘Woooooooooooo YES!’

‘Pleased to me you too Mr Blit.’
Jen gave the robot a pat.

‘Him? Not sure about that, it
didn’t give a gender preference and I’m not sure it minds or even understands.’

‘But it sounds so impersonal. Mr
Blit do you prefer He, She or It?’ inquired Jen.

Blit paused for a couple of
seconds before replying. ‘Booop He Bop She Bleep It Btrrzzzz Btrzzzzt YES!’

‘Ahh, well that clears up
everything.’ Jen gave Blit another little pat.

‘Woooooooooo Bip YES!’ And with
that the little robot settled on Jen’s shoulder.

‘I think you’ve found a friend.’

‘Yes I think I have, he’s cute isn’t
he. Oh talking about friends, our erm friend Star W*$&er from the bar last
night has been busying himself in the streams. This morning, morning in the
real anyway, he started a splash called “Beware the Shemale menace” were he claimed
he had to fight off a group of fifteen transsexuals, led by us of course, fortunately
he got our names wrong. Apparently our mob tried to gang rape him, totally
unprovoked of course and according to the king of the idiots, he killed five of
us before we ran off in terror, so came to the stream just to warn everyone to
be on their guard and preferably kill us on sight,’ explained Jen.

‘What the! S^@* like this is why
I don’t follow the official streams anymore,’ exasperated Cal.

‘I really should avoid them too,
but I just can’t resist watching these slow motion car crashes unfold. Anyway back
to the plot, he got some followers, the usual Mail reader type rabble and so on,
but then his story started to get questioned. People pointed out that rape
isn’t actually possible in this game, you have to give explicit authorisation
for sex acts or even clothing removal. Another accessed his public character
records and pointed out his PVP score was zero kills, three deaths.’ Jen took a
slip of her faux coffee. ’He replied saying that he’d been hacked and his game
records altered, but ignored the first point. At about that time the tide
started to turn against him and he got shouted down as a BullS£*!’&. He responded
by getting more and more insulting and making more outrageous counter claims until
the splash was shut down by the mods. ‘

‘Well there’s still some common
sense left in the real world then’ replied Cal, somewhat relieved.

‘But then he went on to create
some more splashes. On one, he claimed Crossplaying a female character by a man
was totally illegal, he knew because he was a top lawyer. In another he said he’d
been hacked and lost five million credits and one hundred PVP kills from his
account and was demanding Snow Storm restore them to his character and do
something about their pathetic security, him being a professional cloud
security specialist and everything.’ Jen sighed. ‘Oh and then was the one were
he gave his expert opinion as a top PVP player that stun weapons were totally
overpowered and had to be nerfed now. His final piece of wisdom was that real
female players should be on the lookout for shemales. Apparently they all hate real
women and want to kill them all, so they all should hire a top body guard, like
him.’

‘Oh my gawd. Troll or moron?’

‘Burrrblitz Bleep Burp YES!’

‘Is there a difference? All his
splashes were eventually shot down by people with at least half a brain and he
got a six week ban from the official stream. But watch you back in the streams
and PVP zones, t*!?< like him seem often seem to have to try and prove their
point regardless of how deranged and warped it is.’

‘Thanks for the tip, you be
careful out there too,’ replied Cal with gentle tap on Jen’s hand.

‘Anyway enough of the nasty
stuff, lets change the subject. So what are your in game plans? How are going
to get off this newbie station and see the galaxy? Going to train up as a space
marine or starfighter pilot or something?’

‘I really hadn’t been looking
into the training options so far, but I do have a little something I’m working
on.’

‘Do tell?’

‘No.’ Cal decided to keep quiet
about the Jester.

‘Burp Burp YES! Harrp NO!’

‘Oh, being all mysterious like
with your secret plans. I bet you’re going to just buy a passage to the core
worlds with your quest money mega bucks.’ Jen smiled. ‘Still think training is
the way for me, getting a working passage on a merchantman or warship with the
right qualifications.’

‘Like a bar tending license?’

‘Yes, I kinda hoped it would,
but there doesn’t appear to be much call for them on the tramp freighters or a
mercenary cruisers that visit this station. The rumour is that there are liners
that take on entertainers from nice places, but we’re stuck in the armpit of
the universe here.’

‘You seem to be doing well,
couldn’t you just buy a space ship?’

Jen practically spat out her
drink. ‘Buy a spaceship? You have to be kidding, have you seen how much they
cost? It would take me six months of tips to buy even a little one. No, I’ve
actually been swotting up on navigation instead.’

‘You want to become a Navigator?’

‘Well it seemed like a good idea
at the time. I figure everyone will want to be a dashing space ship captain and
take pilot flight training, so slots will be limited. But I’ve found out that
anything that goes superluminal has to have a qualified navigator on board, so
I figure it’s a good career to get into. Plus all you have to do is press a
couple of buttons and click on the destination planet, easy money.’

‘This training and these tests, are
they hard?’ asked Cal having realised she would need qualifications to fly the
Jester.

‘Don’t think they’re that hard.
Trouble is we’re so locked down in here you can’t just access a tutorial stream
and look up the answers while you’re doing them, you actually have to learn and
remember stuff! It’s like being back at school and having your phone jammed.’

‘Oh that’s cruel.’ Cal grimaced.

‘Another?’ Jen pointed at there
now empty coffee cups.

‘Thanks, but I really have to
get on, I’ve got this annoying erm quest were I have to get some ship parts and
they cost a bomb.’

‘Can I help? Like I said, I’ve
been doing some fabbing, got my base skill up to level three. Perhaps I could
make them for you?’ offered Jen.

‘Really?’ Cal got out her pad. ‘These
are bits I need.’

Jen looked down the list. ‘Well half
of these I don’t know, but I can do those heavy power couplings for you and the
high pressure Helium gas flow regulator shouldn’t be a problem with the right feedstock
.’

‘Feedstock, like for a regular
3d printer?’

‘Yeah, fabbers don’t run on thin
air, I mean they could since everything is really just polygons and data in
here, but the game doesn’t give you anything for free. I’ve got some basic
steel, plasteel and copper in my bank, but parts that deal with Helium need
some more specialised nano coated materials to stop leakage,’ Jen Informed her.

‘Expensive?’ Cal was now a
little worried.

‘Not free, but a lot cheaper
than a finished part. I used up the last of my stock of that stuff yesterday so
we’ll have to hit the shops.’

‘Oh, OK. So are you up for a
little shopping trip then?’

Jen beamed. ‘Those are some of
my favourite words, of course I am.’

‘Thank you, if it’s no trouble
of course.’ Cal was glad for the help, but thought Jen was slightly overdoing
the girly bit.

‘Nonsense, I really do love
shopping.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’

The main Blue deck was laid out
like a circular shopping mall with businesses on two stories. A quarter of it
was set aside to “The Market”, dozens of little stalls where players could set
up shop and offer their crafted goods or services. Another quarter was cafes, eateries
and socialising space, most were NPC ran but a little space was put aside for a
public theatre for players to put on their own shows,  as Cal and Jen passed a
wannabe stand up was dying on stage. The last half were the shops themselves,
offering everything from twenty five thousand credit sniper rifles to five
credit snack bars, everything a player could want, but at this stage of the
game, few could afford.

Cal practically had to grab Jen
and pull her back when she walked straight past the weapon dealer.

‘That’s what you need,’ insisted
Cal pointing at a squat little matt black machine pistol in the window of
K-CORP Self Defence.

‘You sure?’

‘Pretty sure, you wanted
something that you didn’t have to aim much and SMGs like that are all spray and
pray. Let’s go in and have a look.’

Cal dragged Jen into the shop
and got the sales person to get out the model in the window and a couple of
others for comparison. She squinted down their sights, checked their stats,
felt their weight and balance and practiced snapping in e-clips and magazines
into their receivers to assess them.

‘This one.’ Cal handed Jen a
DR5-Mx plasma machine pistol. It was a small boxy weapon with long power cell
extending from its grip. ‘Its compact, quite light, rate of fire is high, the
medium e-clip is good for forty shots and it does a little stun, a little
kinetic and quite a lot of energy damage, though the armour piercing level is
only two. You won’t be able to take down high end mobs with it but it will make
mincemeat of rats and stuff. Oh and this will help to.’ Cal picked up a small
laser sight unit from the counter and snapped it on to the weapon’s accessory
mount.’ Just point the red dot and shoot.’

‘Yippee ki yay motherf&^£@%,’
said Jen with a smile as she took the weapon. ’So what colours does it come in,
can I have a pink one?’

‘Errmmm, not really sure.’ Cal
was a bit taken aback.

‘I’m joking, silly.’ Jen smiled
again and released the clip then snapped it back into the receiver like she’d
done it a hundred times before. ‘I’m not a total air head. OK I’m mostly an air
head, but just not one hundred percent. I will need something to carry it in though
and that something will definitely have to match my outfits.’

Jen eventually settled on the
DR5-Mx with a laser sight and two spare e-clips and a very particular shoulder
holster she chose after testing all the ones in the shop. Twice.

‘Will that be all madam?’
enquired the store keeper, who seeming had infinite patience and a never ending
smile. Cal thought his AI routines were a bit primitive as she would’ve
probably punched a customer like that by now.

‘Yes, and oh that as well,’ said
Jen, picking up another small item off the counter.

‘The MK-SM1, of course, in total
that comes to one thousand and ninety six credits please.’

‘Oh that’s quite a lot, could
you possibly do discount just for little old me,’ replied Jen, literally
fluttering her eyelashes.

‘Why of course madam, how does
nine hundred sound?’

‘Eight hundred,’ countered Jen
quickly.

‘Eight fifty?’

‘Oh you drive a hard bargain sir,
eight fifty it is.’ Jen tapped her fingers on the counter to pay.

‘Thank you for your business madam,’
replied the ever-smiling sales clerk. ‘There is a shooting range out the back
if you would like to test your new purchase.’

‘Thank you kind sir,’ said Jen
giving him a little wave. She headed towards the range, followed by a slightly
envious Cal.

‘So how high is your Charisma
stat then? Mine’s about two and they never give a discount, sometimes I’m lucky
to get the time of day,’ grumbled Cal.

‘Oh it’s pretty high,’ replied
Jen with a smirk.

‘But it only works on NPCs,
that’s why I left mine so low. Normally it’s a pretty useless stat as you find
all your gear on mobs or get quest rewards, but seems in here you actually have
to buy stuff,’ complained Cal.

‘True, but as I said, I love
shopping.’

‘But what are you going to do
when you have to trade stuff with other players?’

Jen put her hand to one of her voluminous
breasts, lifted it up slightly then let it go. It took a couple of bounces
before it came to a rest. ‘Charisma stat double E works on at least forty
percent of those.’

‘You’re completely shameless
aren’t you.’ Cal laughed.

‘Abso F&£^ing lutely I am.’

The shooting range was actually
rather well appointed and quite large. The one hundred and fifty meter target probably
didn’t actually fit inside the walls of space station, but polygons and portals
can easily get around the limitations of mundane matter. Cal led Jen to booth
that had seven meter target set up and got her to adopt her shooting stance.

‘No legs slightly further apart
and put your hand there,’ Cal instructed. ‘No the other hand. Right now click
the switch on the side from safe to single shot and tap the end of the laser to
turn it on.’

‘So you want my legs further
apart then.’ giggled Jen.

‘Look do you want me to help you
or not?’ Cal replied indignantly.

‘Sorry Cal, laser on, safety
off, shoot?’ apologised Jen.

‘Go head, just single shots and
watch for the…’ The rest of her sentence was drowned out sound of a dozen shots
going down range, all missing the target by various degrees.

‘Is it supposed to jump around
like that?’ Jen was slightly shocked by the weapons recoil and vibration. ‘It’s
like trying to hold on to an angry cat.’

‘Yes it will jump around like
that on full auto. I did say single shot, that switch on the side, it’s got a
halfway position, click it back and try again. You won’t hit much due to the
skill system and erm, well you won’t, but trying should help you get off the
skill floor.’

Jen worked through all three of
her clips doing single shots under Cal’s instruction. By the end she was
consistently hitting the target, not bullseyeing, but hitting.

‘Check your skill ratings now.’

‘Oh I’ve now got ranged weapon zero
point eight and energy machine pistol zero point seven now, both listed as
unskilled though.’

‘Get them both up to one and
you’ll start hitting a lot more where you aim.’

‘Thanks and what do we do with
these?’ Jen gestured at her now empty e-clips. ‘Buy some more bullets or whatever
the blue glowy things are that it shoots?’

‘Nah, just plug the clips into a
wall socket.’ Cal pointed to a block of them behind the booth. ‘They recharge
in a minute or two.’

‘So you can recharge a lethal directed
energy weapon from a wall socket in a couple of minutes in here when my phone in
the real takes two hours. Do the sockets run at million volts or something?’

‘Good point, but well its only
game I guess. Come on let’s get them charged and I’ll let you use full auto next,’
offered Cal.

‘Oh you’re too kind.’ replied Jen
with just a hint of sarcasm. Sarcasm or innuendo appeared to be pretty much
Jen’s default modes of speech.

Cal got Jen to fire short bursts
of three or four shots each at the target, showing her how to lean into the
recoil and stabilise the excitable weapon, improving her hit rate remarkably.

‘So short controlled bursts are
the answer?’

‘Yes, you don’t have to be that
precise about the aim. Just put a few shots quickly in the general direction of
the target, some might hit and even if they don’t, your target will probably
seek cover,’ instructed Cal.

‘So I can’t just hold down the
trigger and blaze away?’

‘If they are like two meters
away or less, then yeah, go ahead. At that range accuracy is irrelevant and
getting the hits in first is what counts, but further out you’ll just miss too
much to make it worth it.’

‘Oh, Ok thanks, you’ve been a
real help,’ replied Jen actually sounding sincere. ‘Where did you learn all of
this stuff?’

‘No problem and as for the
skills, let’s just say I’ve answered the Call of Duty on several occasions.’
Cal grinned.

‘Oh and here is a little
something for you, for all your time and patience.’

Jen handed Cal the small item
she’d picked up last in the shop. Cal peered down at it odd little thing, then
got its stats and understood.

MK-SM1 weapon damage modifier:
This module attaches to the MK series of laser side arms, converts energy
damage into stun damage by altering the firing pattern a shoot much reduced
power laser shot, followed up by an electrical arc which is conducted over the
ionised air the beam created. Damage Kinetic: 0  Energy: 0 Stun: 4  Condition:
100%  Range: 8m  Action: Semi-automatic  Ammunition type: Energy - rechargeable
micro e-clip

‘No you really don’t have to,
honest.’ Cal tried to hand it back.

‘Take it, I insist, for your
time and to make sure you can defend yourself in the red zones.’

‘Sure? Erm ok then.’ Cal snapped
the device onto the end of her compact laser pistol.

‘So try it out then?’

Cal stepped up to the booth
confidently, lined up her shot and fired. The weapon let out a sharp electrical
buzz and a blue arc leapt from it, totally missing the target. Cal tried again,
twice, but missed again both times.

‘What the?’ exclaimed Cal, then
she inspected the little weapon again. ‘Oh poo, the attachment makes it a stun
pistol not an energy pistol, which is of course a totally different skill to
energy pistol even though the weapon handles exactly the same’. Three clips
later and she was scoring perfect bullseyes.

They finished their session in
the range with another clip recharge, Cal reminding Jen to never miss the
opportunity to do so.

‘Thanks again for all your time
and everything, you’ve been wonderful, and very very patient with me, I know
can be a bit of a pain, can I give you a hug?

Player
Jenista Harrington wishes to hug you, do you consent: Y/N

The request came up in Cal’s HUD.
‘Oh go on then, you’re not that bad really,’ replied Cal with a smile. She
consented to request with an eye flick, but then regretted it shortly after.
Cal wasn’t really much of a huggy person, she’d always found them a bit
awkward, but it was doubly so in this case, what with Jen being very tall and an
rather enthusiastic hugger so her massive chest came in at approximately Cal’s head
height.

‘Erm, thanks.’ Cal was touch
flustered. ‘So I have to be getting on now so….’

‘Don’t you want your parts
fabbed?’

‘Well er yes, OK, but only if
it’s not too much trouble.’

‘Nonsense darling, I’ve got
plenty of time and it will only take ten minutes. The materials shop is two
doors down, we’ll pop in there to get extra mats and then take the lift to
Commercial two, there’s a load of high end fabbers down there we can use.’

Cal let Jen lead her out of the
range and back to the concourse, followed by Blit, who’d been keeping a low
profile at the range. Its basic machine learning routines had recently put a
high weighting on keeping out of owner’s way when she had a weapon in her hand.

In M-MART Jen’s request for just
a smidge of nano whatsit stuff seemed to be understood completely the
non-player character sales assistant. At least Cal hoped it was as she looked
at the little packet she got for her two hundred credits.

In the lift Jen put her finger
to her ear and paused for a moment. ‘I’m sure I know this tune.’

‘Starman, David Bowie, 1972,’
replied Cal knowingly.

‘Bit before my time, though I
think I heard it on an advert for shaving cream or something. Do you know all
the lift tunes?’

‘Most of them, there’s a
running theme’

‘Oh?’

‘Yeah, space themed songs from
the nineteen sixties, seventies and eighties.’

‘I didn’t realise, thanks. Why
do you think they chose such old music?’

‘Reckon it’s the fifty year
copyright rule. The cheap shots at Snow storm didn’t want to have to pay the
licensing fees for anything more modern’

‘Ahhh, of course.’

The Municipal Fabrication Centre
on Commercial deck two was a hive of activity. Players were running around the
factory floor working on their crafting skills, feeding machines ranging from
desktop items to a behemoth the size of a large cargo container feedstock of
all kinds to get them to produce a wide range of goods. The air was
uncomfortably warm and smoky and it smelt odd, one second you would get sulphur
and chlorine, next it was all ozone and then you would get hints of garlic and
citrus fruit coming though. Jen strode though the chaos over to a bank of
lockers and retrieved some of her feedstock.

‘These lockers sort of work like
the bank in MoA, you can store your crafting materials in them and then
retrieve them anywhere else in the station, magic really,’ Jen explained with a
smile.

Jen then selected the machine
she needed, it was two meters long and looked to Cal like a bizarre cross
between an Aga range and a DJ console. A young man was already working on it,
watching as his creation as it slowly emerged from a hatch on the side.

‘Excuse me honey,’ Jen asked
breathily.

The shorter young man’s head
snapped around to see Jen who had quietly sidled up to him and was now learning
over to get down to his level.

‘Could I just borrow this
machine for a couple of seconds Honey?’

‘Well well, I, erm, well this
one is almost finished, but I do have to make another plasma exciter coil,’ the
young man stammered.

Cal could see where he was
looking and it wasn’t into Jen’s eyes.

‘Please? I’ll just be a moment,’
she purred.

‘Erm erm er OK I guess, I can
help you if you like?’ replied the young man, hopefully.

‘That’s OK darling, I’m good.’ With
that Jen eased herself past the man to get to the fabber’s controls, leaving
him clutching his newly minted part. He hung around for thirty seconds before
he got the message.

Jen winked at Cal after he left.
‘One of the forty percenters.’

‘Oh what am I going to do with
you,’ replied Cal with a sigh.

‘I’m afraid there’s nothing that
can be done that hasn’t been tried already,’ answered Jen with a laugh. ‘And
the guy can make his plasma exciters or whatever on the KP-656 over there if he
really needs to.’ Jen measured out the necessary feedstock in the machines
hoppers and set the controls. ‘Your power couplings will take a couple of
minutes to bake, after that we can do the gas flow regulator.’

‘Thanks, so what got you into
crafting? It doesn’t seem like your sort of thing. Is it one of the skills you
can get on a ship with?’

‘Not exactly. I think if you
combine it with engineering you can get a position, but I started doing it
because I found you could make your own clothes with it. I did these, what do
you think?’ Jen did a little twill.

‘Well, there very you,’ replied
Cal trying to be polite. Jen’s outfit consisted of a strapless blue top that
could only possibly stay up in a game and a thin band of stretchy black
material that barely counted as a skirt, below which she wore  glossy tan
tights and spike heeled knee high boots. She topped it all off with her new
shoulder holster and a heavy tool belt across her hips.

‘But the belt doesn’t really
work.’

‘No it doesn’t does it. But I just
had to have somewhere to keep all my stuff and there’s not a decent hand bag or
even a pattern for one to be found anywhere on this entire station,’ decried
Jen.

‘You looked?’

‘Dam straight I did.’ Jen went
back to the controls of the fabber and made a couple of adjustments. ‘Actually
I had an idea to set up a little dress shop, but then I found the whole
crafting process rather tedious. Put feedstock in, push buttons, wait then
repeat ad nauseam. Devs never seem to be able to find a way crafting
interesting in game do they. ‘

Cal nodded in agreement.

‘There’s not even much
opportunity for creativity, you can sort of adjust the lengths and some parts
of garments and so on and then put your own designs and logos on them, but
mostly its just following set patterns. Plus if you make your own logo or
pattern it has to be submitted for approval before they’ll let you print it.’

‘Why do they have to be submitted?’

‘I think it’s mostly to stop
stupid people putting penises or swastikas or swastikas made out of penises or
other stuff that might offend sensitive people on their garments.’

The fabrication machine
interrupted them with a loud bing. Blit flew up to the machine and gave out a
stream a beeps and bings in return, but left with an very grumpy sounding NO!
when it didn’t get an answer.

‘Ah all ready, they come out
down on the left,’ Jen pointed out. ‘But be careful, they’ll still be a bit
warm.’

The high pressure gas flow
regulator took another few minutes to print and caused the machine to emit a
set of slightly worrying clangs and a rather peculiar odour. Jen said they
always do that, but didn’t sound that convinced. The part only came out with only
eighty two percent condition.

‘Oh, I got bad roll, if we feed
it back in to deconstruct it I think we’ll have enough materials to make
another,’ said Jen apologetically.

‘It’s OK, it will still work,’
Cal reassured. Eighty two percent was actually better than most of the
equipment on the Jester anyway.

‘So that’s it?’

‘I’ve got everything, thanks
you’ve been wonderful, you really have.’ Cal initiated the hug this time, but a
much less awkward sideways one. ‘I really do have to be getting on now though,
those mobs won’t shoot themselves.’

‘Oh OK, thanks for the chat. You
take care out there and don’t get your face eaten again.’

‘I will, you too.’ Cal smiled. ‘Bye.’

‘Bye Bye.’

Jen blew Cal a kiss as she left,
but she never saw it.

Chapter 8: Be very quiet

‘Shhh, be very quiet, I’m
hunting those…. things.’

Cal scolded Blit who had been
bleeping away to its merry self for the last minute. She was slowly creeping up
a group of three underhogs who were routing around in the undergrowth of the arboretum
in Green deck. One of them totally reminded her of the twonk in marketing who
had “Expressed disappointment” and “Would take it up with her manager” when she
had to tell him it wasn’t actually possible to write a report to show how their
customers really felt when they bought the company’s products. She was just
about to get in range of that particular beast before a loud snap echoed throughout
the jungle. She’d stepped on a dry twig. The hogs bolted before she could get a
clean shot in.

The large pig like underhog
creatures were a genetically engineered food animal, described by the game as a
mixture of a species native to New Dakota and wild boar. Apparently they tasted
great but were rather bad tempered and could be highly dangerous.

During the AI attacks on Upsilon Carinae Gateway Station the
Green deck was heavily damaged and several species escaped. The whole deck was now
another of the “Scheduled for re-development” zones and instead of a recreation,
food production and atmosphere processing area it now more closely resembled a
jungle. The flora and fauna grew unchecked and was populated with dangerous
animals such as the panthers, snake like things, underhogs and, if the
administrator was to be believed, man eating plants.

Attempts to reclaim the area had
apparently stalled due to politics and budget problems, but wild underhog
steaks apparently went for good money in the restaurants on Red and Blue decks
according to Sub administrator Zhāng, who worked the information desk in
the deck’s entrance hall. Cal knew a go kill animals and retrieve a dozen body
parts for the chef or shaman or whatever quest when she heard one, it was
almost as clichéd as killing ten rats.

Cal had remembered the arboretum
being mentioned on the shuttle ride in and having exhausted the quests in the
docks it seemed like a good place to earn some more credits. The administrator
stationed there delivered a canned warning about the deck as she arrived,
pointing out that if Cal ventured further it would totally be at her own risk
and the station would not be held liable.

But then she took Cal to one
side and whispered that if she did decided to venture in it could be
financially advantageous to her. The first couple of quests were quite simple,
zap some of the snake things and bugs around the entrance way, they were just
target practice. Then she had to collect a few rare tubers a restaurant wanted,
that, when Cal figured out where they liked to grow it didn’t prove too hard,
but these underhogs were proving  to be a pain. They were hard to find and when
you did find them they either ran like hell or charged you and sometimes needed
a few shots to put down. Then there was the actual obtaining of the steaks,
which was rather too realistic thank you very much Snow Storm. Butchering the virtual
animals was unnecessarily icky and messy and due to her non-existent skills in
this area, she fumbled more often than not.

Cal, well Su really, had tried
going vegan when she was fifteen, much to her parent’s bemusement. They
indulged her but she only lasted three weeks before she was caught stuffing a cheeseburger
into her face, but right now she was tempted to at least try and go vegetarian
again. The old games had the right idea, just had a progress bar you had to
wait for and then the bit of meat or whatever popped in your inventory with no
mess or blood.

Her best haul of meat came when
a couple of rookie players in jumpsuits and carrying little laser pistols came
tearing out of the bush near her heading towards the zone exit at top speed. They
were being pursued by four very large and very angry hogs. Cal dropped them all
with well-placed shots and was halfway through the messy task of obtaining the
steaks when the players returned.

Did thank her for saving their
bacon? No the entitled little gits demanded all the steaks as they were there’s
because they saw the hogs first, had apparently severely wounded them and were
just about to finish them off when she interfered. That was kill stealing according
to them and they’ll report her and get her banned.

Kids today! They got the finger
and would have got a plasma bolt in the backside if this was a PVP zone.

The last few steaks on legs were
proving hard to find. The zone had gotten more popular and there were about a
dozen hunters in the vicinity all competing for the ambulatory resources with
various degrees of success. That plus the fact they didn’t appear to be
respawning that fast either didn’t help and what with her limited stealth
skills meant sneaking up on the few she found was proving tricky.

There was one tactic she’d
observed that was succeeding, groups of two or three worked as a team, they used
one person to make noise and scare the beasts to get them run towards waiting
shooters. Well mostly successful, one group accidently pulled a huge alpha male
who that shrugged off laser fire like it was light rain and had a devastating
gore attack. The results of that on unarmoured players was unsettlingly real
looking so it was fortunate the bodies derezzed quickly. Cal reckoned she would
have hurled if that was real.

Cal didn’t fear the alpha piggies,
her plasma carbine was proving more than a match for anything in the forest, so
far, but should she team up with someone to drive the hogs towards her? Or just
wait for another group of hapless noobs to train a load of them? Or…

‘Blit, come over here, I want a
favour.’

‘Buz Buz NO! YES!’

‘Look, I have to use you on
remote for a bit, I know you don’t like that, but it’s all in a good cause.’

‘Barp NO! NO! NO!’

‘I’m afraid it’s a YES! So put
up and shut up.’

Cal got out her pad. She’d found
another API call to mute Blit and added that to her interface. That button got
hit first, that and her new other new addition to her little remote program,  a
locator function that gave bearing and range, all turned Blit into a handy
little surveillance drone. So handy she was surprised she didn’t need a license
for it, she would’ve had to have one in the real. Cal tapped her controls which
flew Blit up into the trees and then started her search.

‘Right, lets go find some
piggies.’

About two hundred meters away
she hit gold. Five of them, one big alpha and four sows digging though the
foliage for roots and nuts near what looked like a dried up watercourse. Making
even less sound than a police surveillance hexacopter with active noise
cancelling she manoeuvred the totally silent Blit around them, placing him behind
the animals just near a small tree. Creeping down the streambed Cal got to
within about twenty meters of her targets, which was close enough, any nearer
and she might spook them.

She swapped her carbine’s e-clip
for a fully charged one, then extended the weapon’s stock, adopted a kneeling
shooting position and started to steady her breathing. When the moment was
right, she turned off Blit’s remote functions.

‘BLLLEEEEP BARTT NO! NO! BRRZZZZ
NO! BRRZ NO! NO! BRRZZ NO! BING WOOOOOOOOO NO!’ belted out the indignant little
machine at top volume.

The hogs bolted, taking the
easiest and fastest escape route they could see, the streambed. Cal heard and
practically felt the pigs before she saw them as their hooves thundered though
the mud. The drove, led by an Oh you’re rather big aren’t you alpha male,
turned the bend in the watercourse and headed straight at her.

Thudz, Thudz, Thudz, Thudz, Thudz,
Thudz, Thudz.

Cal kept her cool and placed her
shots. Five were good, the four charging sows dropped with clean headshots, but
the big one flinched at the last moment and the bolt got him in the shoulder. He
stumbled and fell. That should have stopped a truck thought Cal in disbelief as
the big pig started to pick himself out of the dirt, snorting with rage and
glaring at Cal with furious green eyes. This was not a happy pig like thing.

Images of the gored player she’d
seen earlier flashed before Cal’s eyes, so she quickly put a shot into its head
before he had time to lunge and a second just to make sure. Cal inspected the
bodies, the headshots had reduced the underhog’s skulls to blackened messes,
but the best meat was around the rump and that was untouched. She got her knife
out and got on with the grisly task of extracting the steaks.

‘NO! NO! Brzzz Snort NO!’ Blit
had returned but was still complaining.

‘Sorry about that, but we did
good, look.’ Cal pointed out the carcases.

‘YES! NO! Burp Burp YES! NO!’

‘I’m said I’m sorry, look come
over here.’ Cal tried to give the unhappy machine a friendly pat but it veered
off at the last second. ‘Oh be like that then!’

She turned her back on it and
bent over to pick up leaves to clean off the gore from her knife, but the
virtual blood had disappeared before she could find one large enough.

The sows only got her three
steaks as she fumbled on one of the butchering attempts, but the alpha was the
jackpot, she got five good steaks from him, all high quality. That completed
her quest with meat to spare. She wondered what the steaks tasted like. Thoughts
about cooking the spare steaks drifted though her head but she dismissed them
quickly, she had zero in game cooking skills and even in the real world, she
rarely attempted anything more complicated than beans on toast. Oh and she
wasn’t she was going veggie, again?

Maybe I’ll before I go
vegetarian I’ll just go to go to one of those fancy restaurants were they serve
these?  She pondered on that, and then dismissed that idea as well. Restaurants
cost money she had a more pressing need for that.

The Sub administrator paid well
for the steaks, Cal got thirteen hundred and fifty for them. Zhāng went
straight into the detailing the next quest, apparently there was a killer panther
on the loose. The station had used to used cybernetically enhanced gene tweaked
panthers for guard and patrol duty in the arboretum before the AI attacks, but
these got loose, like the Underhogs, and were ignoring their recall codes. This
one panther it seems had turned man eater recently and needed to be put down before
it killed again, so could she assemble a team to get the job done? A team eh,
so it’s another boss mob quest recommended for a party.

Cal was considering doing the
quest solo, she’d done the last one by herself and only got slightly dead, when
a voice nearby piped up.

‘You got the panther quest too?
Want to team up with us?’

A young man with his jumpsuit
tied around his waist and a slightly oversized shotgun slung over his shoulder was
gesturing at himself and his friend.

‘Figure you, me and Monique here
can take down the boss no problemo.’

Monique stood a little further back,
she had choppy blonde hair, wore some sort of flak vest over her jumpsuit and
had a seemingly permanent scowl attached to her face.

‘We can get this boss ourselves Rayan,’
Monique retorted, patting her PDW. ‘We don’t need ‘er.’

‘Yeah but more the merrier init,
get it done quick and we’re quid’s in,’ countered Rayan in his fairly thick
south London accent.

‘Oh wotever.’

Cal agreed to join them, it
would get the job done quicker. She put her palm against Rayan’s to join the
party. Two little heart beat monitors came up in her HUD, one labelled Rayan Artradis
and the other Monique Moondust, both were going a little fast.

Ryan pointed at Blit. ‘That yours?’
he asked.

‘Bleep Blop BLoop NO! Brrzzt
YES!’

‘Yeah it’s with me, it’s just a
pet.’

‘We’ll he’s a bloody annoying
pet. If he doesn’t shut up I’ll shoot ‘im,’ threatened Monique.

‘It’s OK Mon, he’s just a little
pet, won’t do any harm,’ countered Rayan.

‘And its MONIQUE not Mon, you
know I don’t like being called that!’

The party had got off to “really”
a good start, Cal was already starting to regret it.

The Sub administrator had
provided a tracking frequency for the panther they could use on their pads, the
signal was intermittent, but the direction was consistent and it lead them deep
into the jungle.

They marched in silence, Monique
had taken up point position and Cal was bringing up the rear. A couple of
hundred meters down the trail Cal started to get a feeling that she was being
watched. There was something in the trees. She didn’t get clear view of them at
first, just little flicks of movement, the odd eye peeking out from behind a
branch and the occasional rustles of leaves.

She whispered it to the others,
Rayan started to look up, but Monique dismissed her with a wave. Cal was
watching the trees up, tracking any movement in the canopy with her weapon when
a deafening rattle of fully automatic fire erupted from the front of the group.

A small furry body dropped from
the trees in front of them, it resembled a small primate but lacked a tail, any
other details were hard to make out though as it had been riddled with bullets.

‘F^%~>% little monkey s*!@
creeping up on me like that,’ growled Monique as she reloaded her personal
defence weapon.

At that point they started to notice
the others. Over a dozen small monkey like creatures started coming out from
behind the tree branches and leaves above them, staring at them with blood red
eyes. Then, as one, they all opened their mouths wide, very wide, wider than
should really be possible without dislocating a jawbone, to reveal rows upon
rows of sharp pointed teeth.

‘Oh F^&*!’ Rayan said out
loud what the rest were thinking and racked his shotgun.

The next twelve seconds were
pure pandemonium. The Fang monkeys, they found out later what they were called,
all started making a screaming noise then started diving for them. The party
responded in full force. Monique’s automatic cut the first wave down like a
chainsaw through candyfloss, but her lack of fire discipline left her out of
ammo in moments. Rayan tried to cover her while she reloaded, his heavy shotgun
booming away.His aim wasn’t great, but it didn’t have to be, the buckshot
rounds carved meter wide circles though the undergrowth and any primates that were
even vaguely in their path were cut in half.

Cal was the disadvantaged one
this time, the Monkeys were small and fast and her PX22 was heavy and slow
firing, although when it did connect all that was left was red mist. She was
trying to track a particularly elusive little one in the trees when Monique
screamed.

‘GET THIS LITTLE C&£% OFF
ME!’

One of the animals at leapt on
back while she was reloading. She tried to grab it with her left but it sank
its teeth into her hand. Her scream hit one hundred and seventeen decibels. Both
Cal and Rayan had snapped around to face her, he lifted his weapon to shoot
first but it simply emitted a soft chime when he squeezed the trigger.

‘Not PVP zone, you can’t shoot
if you’ll hit players,’ Cal shouted out while taking careful aim. Her weapon
thudded instead of chimed and Monique was coated in blood. It wasn’t her blood,
but she was still pissed. A couple more rounds either killed or scared off the
rest of the monkeys and the pair gathered around the injured Monique.

‘You didn’t have to
F&^”@~< do THAT!’ ranted Monique, gesticulating angrily at the bloody
mess that was coating her face and shoulders. ‘Why didn’t you just like shoot
it like normally or somethink!’

‘’I’m sorry, OK, look the blood
disappears quite quickly in here anyway. You’ll be clean in a minute, but I can
sort that hand out if you want, I’ve got a medical kit,’ offered Cal, trying to
make it up to her.

‘I’ve got my own F@~!$^+ medical
kit, I don’t need help from you!’ Monique put her back to Cal and started
fishing around in her jumpsuit pockets for her medical supplies.

Rayan pulled the slightly
perturbed Cal to one side. ‘Look Mon can be a royal bitch sometimes, but she’s
Ok underneath, really. Well most of the time anyway, something’s pissed her off
rotten recently and she’s been like this all day, dunno what.’

‘Thanks, thought it was just me
she didn’t like,’ replied Cal.

‘Oh it’s probably you as well,
you being well fit and everything.’

That left Cal speechless for a
second.

‘And that shooter of yours,
she’s probably jealous of that too, I know I am, it’s top banging. Where’d you
get it?’

Cal took a breath and recovered
her composure. ‘Found it in a dungeon thing with some other stuff.’ She just
managed to stop herself from mentioning the ship. ‘You do this long quest chain
at Dock three and eventually the administrator there will give you the mission.’

‘Oh yeah I followed some of
those quests in the docks but I got to this one with some smugglers or
something, you’re supposed to like find some evidence on the crims but I
couldn’t find nothing.’

‘Search the desk draws in the
Sub administrator’s office,’ advised Cal.

‘Oh.’ Rayan face palmed.

‘Look are you two going to stay
here and F&*@ each other or are we going to find this bloody cat.’ Monique
had recovered.

They tracked the panther to a
glade, it looked fifty percent larger than any cat had any right to be and was
wearing some sort of dark metal helmet. It was feasting on what looked like the
remains of an underhog alpha, well at least half of one anyway, it had been
torn it to shreds.

The cat didn’t appear to detect
their approach, perhaps the food had it distracted, anyway it was too good an
opportunity to resist. Cal gave hand signals, surround it, then wait for my command.
Even Blit seemed to understand and kept quiet.

But Monique didn’t, the moment
she had a line of sight she let loose, full auto. The panther seemed to almost
blur in motion, it leapt and twisted in mid-air in an attempt to evading the
incoming firestorm before taking off into the jungle at what had to be sixty
kph.

‘Well come on you T%^@#,’
bellowed Monique as she ran off into the bush, chasing the cat and firing off
shots, mostly just into the foliage. Cal just shook her head in exasperation.

Rayan saw something. ‘Look there’s
a blood trail, she must have got some hits in.’ he said and started running
after his teammate. It seemed even a cyborg panther can’t evade fifteen hundred
rounds per minute. Cal jogged after Rayan, frustrated the plan had gone south,
they would just have to wing it from now on. If Monique has done some serious
damage it might all work out she thought, if she’d just grazed it then a party
wipe was looking possible.

She caught at them up minutes
later. The panther was cornered against an out of place looking bulkhead,
pacing left and right and snarling. It was bleeding from a couple of wounds but
it appeared unaffected. Monique on the other hand was on the floor two meters
from it, her right leg had three deep gashes in it. Her left hand was trying to
stem the bleeding and the right was trying to reload her weapon, her face was
twisted in pain and fury.

Rayan looked unwounded, but was
breathing heavily, his shotgun was levelled at the cat, tracking it. ‘I’ve only
got one round left, that’s not going to be enough.’ He shot Cal a panicked
glance.

HUD showed both their hearts
going one eighty plus. Cal approached slowly, weapon out and the cat’s head
fixed in her sights. ‘Ray go get Monique, NOW!’ Cal ordered, not taking her
eyes off the panther.

As Rayan reached the stricken
girl the cat started to move towards them. Cal dropped a plasma bolt between
them, kicking up a wall of dirt and heat. The panther recoiled and turned to
look straight at Cal, its huge dark eyes seemed to understand as it slowly tilted
its head to one side then the other.

‘No kill me.’ The cat spoke. It
had a rough, strained voice, but a voice all the same.

Cal froze, the look had trigged
a memory and the voice, shock.

‘Green fire bad. No kill me,’ the
panther repeated and then hung its head in submission. Cal couldn’t move.

‘Bloody ‘ell the cat can talk,’
gasped Rayan.

‘Who the F@^# cares, just shoot
the F*&%ker,’ screamed Monica. She had slotted home a fresh mag into her
PDW by now.

‘NO!’ The snap of the clip being
rammed home brought Cal back. She turned and put herself between the animal and
her party, arms outstretched.

‘It’s not a wild animal, its
thinking, its sentient, we can work something out,’ protested Cal.

‘Just get out of the bloody way,
it’s just a computer sprite for F$*&s sake.’

‘No and that’s final!’

Monique glared and pulled her trigger
regardless of Cal, but instead of throwing out a stream of high velocity five
millimetre full metal jacket at her, her weapon just chimed. Player in line of
sight.

‘Out my way bitch.’

‘No!’

‘Barrrrrtt NO! NO! NO!’

Her seconds, third and fourth attempts
to shoot just resulted in more chimes. Monique threw her weapon at the ground
in frustration.

‘Well f&^% you then. Rayan
I’m leaving. I’m going to get the quest again and team up with someone who
knows how to play this stupid game. You can stay with the F£&@ing cat
loving tart or you can come with me. ’

‘Mon Stay. The talking thing, it’s
probably all part of the quest init, they aint always like straightforward and just
about shooting stuff,’ pleaded Rayan.

‘F$%@ you!’ Monique picked up
her weapon and limped off into the jungle.

Monique Moondust has left the
party

‘It is part of the quest init,’
Rayan asked Cal hopefully.

‘Erm I think so?’ replied Cal,
not actually one hundred percent convinced herself.

‘Er cat?’

The panther looked up. ‘Hurt, no
blue, hurt.’

‘Sorry about shooting you.’

‘Little metal not hurt. Head
hurts bad, need blue, blue stops hurt.’

‘Blue?’

‘Got hurt when machine came. Bad
machine eat Keep, so I break machine. Machine hurt side, machine hurt head,
pain.’ The panther tried to explain the best it could with its obviously
limited vocabulary. ‘Green stop side go bad. Side got better, but still got
pain in head. Green no work, blue work. Blue take away pain, but Blue all gone
now. Now hurt, always hurt, eat hog, drink water, but still pain. Still hurt.’ The
panther brushed its huge front paw over its head, no not its head, its helmet,
it looked like a huge domestic cat washing, but cleanliness probably wasn’t the
intent. Cal moved closer, weapon lowered.

‘May I look at your head?’ Cal asked
the panther nervously.

The huge cat said nothing and
instead lay down on the ground, head down. Cal approached slowly to get a
better look. The cat’s helmet wasn’t actually a helmet, it turned out to be a battered
metal plate actually embedded into its skull with some sort of removable panel on
the side. There was a blinking red LED by the panel, flashing red LEDs never signalled
anything good.

‘Are you sure it’s safe?’ Rayan
is covered the cat with his shotgun looking worried.

Blit was being uncharacteristically
fearless and flew up to it the panther’s face. The little machine hovered over the
metal work letting out a long stream of beeps and boops before concluding with an
emphatic NO! The Cat shook its head and snarled. Blit retreated very quickly.

‘Machine bad!’ the panther growled.

‘It’s not really bad, honest,
just a bit annoying, please please stay calm. I think it’s got the right idea
though, the cyborg whatever stuff in your head looks like it could be damaged,
that might be causing the pain. I can have a go at fixing it if you like?’  Cal
offered apprehensively.

‘You not Keep. Only Keep do
head.’

‘Keep’s dead, you said so.’ Cal
wondered who or what this Keep was.

‘Keep dead.’ With that, panther
hung his head again and almost seemed to sigh. ‘You do head.’

Cal fished out a tool kit from
her bag. The inspection plate has four bolts holding it on so she needed the electric
screwdriver. The black cat seemed calm as she went to remove the first bolt,
but the moment she started the tool the panther tensed up and growled.

Cal jumped back on reflex.
‘Whoaaaaa!’

‘No like sound, bad sound. If
bad, I hurt you,’ threated the two hundred kilogram cat.

‘No it’s just a tool, to remove
the screws, see.’ Cal pressed the screwdriver’s switch letting it whirr. ‘It’s
not going to hurt you, honest.’

The panther didn’t reply but dropped
its head again to let Cal work. She could feel it tense up gain as she undid
each bolt on the panel, but this time it kept quiet. Inside the circuity and
components were unfamiliar, but the burnt electrical smell was unmistakable. She
put down her screwdriver and retrieved her pad to scan it. The cat growled
again and she jumped back immediately.

‘Keep do that with box, box OK.’

‘Er thanks, just, just don’t surprise
me like that again please.’ Cal’s heart was pounding as she returned to the giant
panther to scan the damaged circuitry. The pad threw up a diagram after a
couple of long nervous seconds. The component marked as a KX1-6712b Transceiver
was flashing red on the display, it was a small boxy unit just a couple of
centimetres long plugged into one side of the PCB.

‘I’ve think I’ve found the
problem. I’m going to remove a faulty component if that’s OK. Just please stay
still, it won’t hurt a bit.’ Cal didn’t actually know if removing it would hurt
the panther, but she didn’t want to tell it that. She gingerly reached into the
access port and took the unit with her finger and thumb and tried to remove it
slowly. For one horrible movement she didn’t think it would come loose, but
then there was a tiny click and it popped out. The flashing red LED died. She
stepped back as the cat stood slowly and started to swing its head around.

‘Any better?’ Cal asked
anxiously.

‘Pain gone.’

‘And that’s good right?’

The cat just looked at her for a
moment before taking off into the jungle at speed.

‘So that’s it then, we fix the
cat and it runs off?’ asked Rayan, sounding a little confused and disappointed.

‘Dunno, I errr.’  Cal hadn’t
expected the cat to run off either, but at that point both her and Rayan’s pads
started bleeping in syncro, they’d picked up another signal, a very weak one,
but a signal all the same.

‘Another cat?’ queried Rayan.

‘Well it’s not coming from
this.’ Cal held up the damaged transceiver unit. ‘So it might be, shall we
follow it and see?’

The signal led them to a small
compound in a very secluded clearing. It was surrounded by a heavy chain link fence
that was topped with razor tape. At the front was a substantial looking gate,
which was signposted with an official sounding “Cyborg Animal Asset Centre”.
The gate also had a few slightly smaller but probably more accurate signs on it
including “Beware of the panthers” and “Trespassers will be eaten”.

The gates were locked but after
scouting around the pair found a section of the chain link that had been torn
down. The compound looked deserted, but went in weapons ready all the same.
Inside there were two simple prefabbed buildings and a block of what looked
like large kennels or small stables all arranged in a triangle. Cal edged around
one of the prefabs, waited a moment and then stepped out in the centre of the
compound while Rayan covered her.

There were more cats. These cats
had been dead for quite some time. Laid out on the dirt were the bodies of
three panthers, similar to the first, maybe slightly smaller, bearing multiple
deep gashes across their bodies and faces. There was also a human body by their
sides. A portly man in a dark green jumpsuit lay face down on the dirt. All the
corpses were little more than dried husks.

Things didn’t seem to rot in
this world, no insects around the bodies either. Thinking about it Cal realised
she hadn’t actually seen any flies or any small insects at all in the station.

‘This it?’ Rayan asked, perhaps
a little disappointed in the lack of action. ‘Did the cats have a fight or
something?’

‘Dunno. I’ll check them out, you
check the guy.’

Cal went over to the panthers. Their
wounds could have been claw marks but without a handy CSI unit it was hard to
tell. What they did have was similar head plates to the first one. They had no
loot of course, but she opened their inspection plates and stripped them for
parts, they were valuable.

Around the panther’s corpses
there were several scraps of metal, Cal originally reckoned they must have come
the damaged cyborgs, but no, there was too much of it. She kicked through the
debris for a minute, looking for anything useful. What she found wasn’t useful,
it was pretty trashed actually, but did explain the situation.

She’d seen one of these before,
a box of odd blue plastic with trailing legs and wires with a single unblinking
camera eye at the front. A Kill drone. This one looked like it had been bitten
in half.

‘This explains it all.’ Cal
showed the blue item to Rayan.

‘Wot’s that?’

‘Bloop Blop NO! NO! NO!’ Blit
interjected before disappearing behind Cal.

‘AI Kill drone, I’ve met one of
these before. I think it attacked the bloke and the panthers, four of them,
came to help. It must have killed the man and three of the cats and wounded the
big one before it got taken down,’ explained Cal.

‘Wot, that little blue thing
killed a bloke and three huge cats?’ Rayan was having nothing of it.

‘The blue boxes make themselves
bodies out of what they can find, metal, machinery and knives. They like knives.’

‘Really?’

‘Really, trust me. If you ever
see a pile of what looks like animated pile of crap metal, run or shoot it. Aim
for the eye if you can see it. If you can’t and still want to fight, you better
have some serious artillery with you.’

Rayan gestured at his shotgun.

Cal shook her head. ‘No, bigger.’
Ryan looked a little surprised, he probably still didn’t believe her, but since
these blue things looked like there were going to be a regular sight in
Spinward, he soon would.

‘Find anything on the guy?’

‘Not a lot, but I think he’s the
Keep that cat talked about. Badge on his jumpsuit said Keeper McKenzie.’

‘Guess they liked him.’ Cal
gestured at the panther’s bodies. ’There were a few parts in the cats, you
interested?’

‘Nah, not my thing.’

‘OK, make sure you get the keeper’s
ID chip and let’s just quickly check the buildings for any loot before we go
back to turn the quest in.’

‘Works for me.’

The first prefab was labelled “Veterinary
Surgical Unit” and inside was a mess. What was once a high tech medical centre now
looked like a junkyard. The remains of two large robot arms, auto docs
probably, were little more than skeletons. They had been stripped and the rest of
the stuff in the room didn’t look much better. Cabinets and even the beds had
been ransacked, chunks of metal were missing from just about everything and
surgical instruments littered the floor. This is where the drone built itself
Cal thought, noticing the lack of scalpels among the medical instruments left. It
had taken all the knives.

Rayan found a more intact
cabinet labelled pharmaceuticals. Unlike most of the cabinets it still had most
of its contents inside. The machine didn’t need pills Cal concluded, but the
door was wide open and a couple of large plastic bottles had been removed from
it. These now lay on the floor, their lids removed inexpertly, possibly
violently. She picked them up to have a closer look. One, almost full, labelled
“Wide spectrum antibiotic and antivirals” contained large green pills. The
other, labelled “High strength veterinary pain killers. Animal use only”, was
empty. The label was blue.

Cal showed them to Ryan. ‘These
must be the blues and greens the panther was on about.’

Ryan inspected the labels. ‘Clever
kitty.’

‘You think?’

‘Yeah, course. Not only did it
know were the medicine was, it knew which pills to take and how much. Eating all
of them at once would’ve killed it.’

Rayan had a point, clever kitty
indeed.

The medical bay didn’t hold much
in the way of loot though, just a handful of small medical nanos pods, Rayan
took those. Cal took a couple of small parts that the Jester might be able to
use so she didn’t mind the lad talking the high tech health potions.

The cat kennels or stables or
whatever things very large cyborg panthers live in didn’t hold anything useful,
but the last building, marked “Keeper’s quarters” proved more interesting.
Inside was basic, a bunk, a shower, no toilet as always, a desk with draws and
a couple of large lockers. Everything looked utilitarian but not uncomfortable,
it had gathered some dust though, obviously no one had been here for months.

The draws held some personal
mementos and hidden under them a number of credit chits, these netted them three
hundred and change each. The terminal on the desk looked ok but wouldn’t boot,
it could have been worth a little but neither of the party members could be
bothered to carry it. Why are PCs in this world so big thought Cal.

The first locker just had a
couple of green jumpsuits hanging up in it, neither had any useful stats, well
unless you wanted a buff on your gardening skills, they took one each as vendor
trash. The last locker was labelled “Gun Cabinet” and looked far more promising.
Pity it was locked. Cal rattled it a couple of times to make sure, then lifted up
her carbine.

‘Whoa, no need for that, you
could trash what’s inside, let me,’ interjected Rayan.

‘Oh, Ok. So can you pick the
lock or something?’

‘No need, boss man had a key,’
replied Rayan, lifting up a small lozenge of beige plastic.

‘Bit Brzzz YES!’

Inside was the pay dirt. A very
large kinetic projectile rifle with a telescopic sight sat in a rack. It was
pristine, took eight millimetre rounds and had very impressive range, accuracy,
kinetic damage and armour penetration stats. The rifle was something that you would
need to take down a cyborg panther. Sat on a shelf next to it were several
boxes of ammunition, most were marked tranq, but two boxes, both unopened, were
labelled hollow point.

Rayan took the rifle out
excitedly and worked its action. On another shelf was a large handgun, it
turned out to be gas blowback pistol and was loaded with large tranquiliser
darts. It didn’t have a lot of range but the stun damage stat was more than
enough to drop someone with a single shot. The game info also pointed out that it
was silent, that could be useful Cal thought, thinking back to her rogue days.
The last item was a large knife, so big I fact that it would have been called a
short sword in a fantasy game.

‘Roll you for ‘em,’ Rayan
offered.

‘Ok you’re on,’ replied Cal.

Most games had a way of
randomising party loot. In Masters of Avaline players had actual bone dice, but
in Spinward they had holograms, a pair of translucent blue d6s appeared in the
air between them. Rayan gave them a spin.

He willed the dice. ‘Come to
daddy.’

He rolled a total of six. Cal
rolled nine, the rifle was hers. As was the pistol and knife, the dice liked
her today.

‘You jammy git! I got nothing,’
moaned a dejected Rayan.

‘Yeah, well I’ve got my lucky
pants on today,’ replied Cal. She actually did still have her lucky green pants
on, Spinward hadn’t gone as far as requiring changes of underwear or doing
laundry.

‘Look I’ll let you have the
pistol and the knife, I don’t need them,’ offered Cal. She didn’t and felt a
bit bad about taking all the loot.

‘I’ll take the knife, but the
pistol is wreck.’

‘Well, if you don’t want it… But
seriously I wouldn’t wander around the Red decks these days without a stun gun
of some sort, take it’.

Rayan lowered his head and
mumbled something.

‘Say what?’

‘I… I can’t go to red,’ replied
Rayan quietly.

Then it dawned on Cal. ‘Oh.. how
old are you?’

‘Fifteen…. nearly’. In game he
looked mid-twenties. ‘My mum lets me use her Dream Box on her down days.’

The returned to the
administrator station in silence.

‘Task complete?’ Sub
administrator Zhāng enquired, ‘Did you get the cat?’

‘Yep, more than one actually.’

Cal produced four transceiver
chips from her bag and lined them up in front of the functionary with a forced
smile. It was a bluff, they hadn’t actually killed any of the panthers, but it
should work, well Cal hoped it would work. The Sub administrator took each one
in turn, held it up to her terminal for a second and then started pushing
buttons. Cal forced herself to keep smiling.

‘Everything seems to be in
order, we didn’t realise there was more than one cat at large.’

‘And we have the ID chip from
their keeper, a Mr McKenzie, seems like he died during in the AI attacks.’ Cal gestured
at Rayan.

‘Oh, yeah.’ Ryan fished out the
chip out of a pocket and added it to the collection on the desk.

The Sub administrator scanned
the chip with exactly the same set of hand movements she’d done with the
transceivers, it looked like a canned animation. Immersion was very good in
Spinward, the NPCs were among the most human acting Cal had ever seen in any
game, but these little things like the loop animation kept reminding her of the
unreality of it all.

‘Ah yes, Randolph McKenzie, I
remember him, an odd character, seemed to like his cats more than people.
Right, is that all?’

‘Er Yes I think so. Rayan you
got anything to add?’

‘Nah I’m chill, but if you’ve
got another of those big shooters going spare it would be well sick.’

The Sub administrator looked at
him for a second, his slang didn’t seem to compute.

‘The Upsilon Carinae Gateway Station Administration
department thanks you for time and efforts in resolving a very dangerous
situation. I’m authorised to give you a payment of two thousand per panther,
the standard finder’s fee of twenty credits for the ID chip, plus a bonus of
four hundred. ’

The money was split between
their accounts automatically, the quest was complete. Ryan looked pleased with
the payout, but Cal knew it was only a portion of what she needed to get her
ship running.

They dissolved the party. Rayan had
asked if Cal wanted to do some more quests, but Cal declined, he wasn’t a bad
kid but she had to get to the vendors for more materials and then get back to the
Jester and her fatigue bar was creeping up.

‘Just one thing though,’
enquired Rayan. ’Why didn’t you shoot that cat when we had it cornered? You had
locked and that cannon of yours would’ve taken its ‘ead off, did you know there
was more to the quest?’

‘I didn’t know, I didn’t shoot
because…… because of….’ Cal waved him off and walked slowly towards the lift,
head down. Those memories had come flooding back again. She had a black cat,
once, a long time ago.

Chapter 9: The Proposal

Cal busied herself flitting from
vendor to vendor on Blue deck trying to get everything on Fish’s list. After
selling a few trash items she was over five thousand in the black, but that
quickly went down to a couple of grand when she’d found some more of the bits.
Now she was only short of three things on the list, one hundred and sixty kilos
of crystal aligned plasteel plus assorted other materials to patch up hull. She
could just about afford that, but how would she get it all back to the ship?
The materials vendor would deliver to crafting banks, but there wasn’t one near
the bay and no way could she carry that much.

The other two parts were the
even more trouble, the ridiculously named NNQ-764a Quantum foam traction sub
driver, a, if not the, major component of the sub luminal drive was over six
thousand and that was a reconditioned model. And as for a Non Newtonian Exotic
matter lens rated at eight light years for a class two, the parts vendor just started
laughing when she mentioned it.

Cal wondered if he was just
laughing at the silly technobabble or the fact she asked about it? Nope turned
out he didn’t carry Exotic Matter Lenses, them being the most expensive and
complex items on a starship. When he recovered, he informed her that the ship
dealers down on Commercial three sometimes carried them, people looking for
upgrades and so on, but he warned her that she better have a really fat credit
balance handy because she was going to need it.

She looked up what exactly an Exotic
matter lens was on the way down to commercial three accompanied by an off key
version of Telstar. It turned out to be the major widget for the superluminal
drive that could shift your vessel into a tachyon phase. This tachyon phase lifted
a single digit to the laws of physics and allowed you travel significantly
faster than light.

It was all made up rubbish, but
it was a piece of made up rubbish she needed if she was going to get the Jester
out of this system, the one she had was at 17% condition and was unrepairable. Cal
followed a link to their crafting requirements, perhaps she could ask Jen to
build on for her? No, the requirements were off the chart, both in terms of
skills and materials, plus they required a super high-end fabricator that it
this station didn’t have.

The starship dealer, Marlow Interstellar,
looked expensive, a pristine space of smooth white plastic and brushed
aluminium, all gently curved and subtly light, inhabited by sharp suited sales
people with fake smiles and perfect hair. Above pedestals, holograms of the
product hovered, elegant and fast they were fusion powered steel sharks that
could slice through the cosmos at ludicrous speed. All had at least a six-digit
price tag.

Cal felt out of place, too poor
and too rough, what with her leathers and guns, she was like rat biker walking
into a Mercedes dealership. Even the Jester looked a bit small and lumpy compared
to the sleek vessels on show.

A tall sales predator, sorry
person, walked up to her. ‘Can I help you madam?’

‘Erm, maybe, I’m looking for Exotic
Matter Lenses.’ Cal tried to keep it professional but snooty sales people in
expensive suits tended to make her twitch.

‘For a cruiser, yacht or tourer?’

‘A small freighter actually, one
rated for eight light years for a class two.’

‘Oh you want the commercial
division, over there.’ The sales person waved their hand dismissively, then
turned and left.

The commercial division was
smaller, not quite as well appointed but a bit more down to earth. The sales
people didn’t look down their noses at her quite as much. She’d gone from
luxury cars to the vans and trucks department.

The sales person explained type two
was a standardised ratings for starships and there main components, based on
size and mass and eight light years was the maximum range a lens could put a
ship in tachyon phase for. They did have few lenses in stock for type twos, but
scrolling down the list didn’t help much. Twelve light units went for nearly
half a million, eights a mere three hundred and fifty thousand and even when
you got down to the fours and twos and they were still way out of her price
range. There were some rated at light hours and minutes that weren’t so bad
price wise, but they wouldn’t get her the system.

Cal left the showroom quite
dejected. It seemed traveling faster than light was at least a mid-game
activity and giving her a broken ship at her low level  felt like the game was playing
a little joke on her. She supposed if she could get the ship at least up and
running at sub light speed then it could sell it on for a good wedge.

The guard at dock four simply
moved aside for her this time, no warnings about taking a party, not even a
hello and there was now an under development sign on the airlock.

She hurried, perhaps the
authorities have decided to re-inhabit this zone?

The corridors were clear, no
zombies or droids. She checked a couple of side passages she never explored
before but they were empty too, of mobs and loot, the dungeon hadn’t reset, it
had phased.

She even saw some people in vac
suits though the window to the main dock, the place was definitely being fixed
up.

The door to the maintenance
storage room was locked solid. Don’t panic Cal told herself, she’d had to trip
it last time by breaking the power cable, but the side passage with the exposed
wiring had been repaired and all the panels were covered up. There was nothing left
she could break. Nothing on the door indicated violence could solve the problem
either.

Now panic, how am I supposed to even
get back to the Jester now? She thought.

‘Blib booble blooop wooo wooo
beep bit YES!’

‘You’re not being very helpful
Blit and I don’t think that door really wants to talk to you.’

Blit was hovering just next to
the maintenance room’s lock, the pulsing red light gently illuminating the
little droid. No, not hovering in front of the lock, hovering in front of the
keyhole. Cal smacked her forehead and dug the maintenance key out from her a
side pocket of her rucksack. She knew she was a touch absent minded, but there
was something about dream games that seemed to make it worse, she had a memory
like a sieve sometimes in here.

‘So glad I didn’t sell this.’
She inserted the key, two seconds later the door clunked and the light went
green. Cal looked over at the tiny floating machine who was bouncing around in
a figure of eight.

‘Thank you Blit.’

‘Beep YES! Beep YES! Beep YES!
Beep YES!’

The maintenance room had been fixed
up. The whole in the wall near the other door had been repaired, new coveralls
were handing on pegs and mop and bucket that wasn’t there before stood in a
corner. The “Individual Docking Bay Access” door was locked now, but the key
sorted that out.

The next corridor looked much was
as before, though Maintainer Williams’s body had gone.

Perhaps NPCs only derezz when
you hand in their chips?

They hadn’t got around to
repairing this section, the ducts were still wrecked and heavy door was where she
left it, blackened by plasma bolts and off its hinges. The service way was
still pitch back and went on for too long, but Cal managed to not trip up
getting out of it this time. After the darkness, the now bright lights of the
docking bay were blinding. For a nasty second she thought the Jester had gone,
but as her eyes got re-accustomed to the light she could see it clearly. It
even looked a little cleaner.

‘Hi Fish, its, erm, Owner
Hudson, could you let me in?’ Cal shouted out.

Instead of the cargo lift
dropping as she expected, the left circular airlock door slid open with a hiss
and a ladder up to it unfolded itself from a small hatch underneath.

‘Hello owner Hudson, I hope you
are well.’ Fish’s voice echoed around the bay.

‘I’m managing, just about. Any
trouble while I was away?’

‘Some movement, possibly human,
detected at limits of proximity sensor range but nothing has entered the bay. Net
activity mostly status updates to station systems, though one or two ownership
inquires came though.’

‘Oh.’ That sounded a bit
ominous.

‘These were not followed up,
ownership documentation is in full order and no counter claims have been made. You
are still my owner Ms Hudson.’

‘Glad to hear.’

Cal climbed the ladder, thinking,
well maybe not owner for much longer. Inside looked a lot cleaner than before
and all the blood had been removed, the Mule must have a hoover or something. She
turned right into the machine shop and unloaded her rucksack. The contents,
even though they were worth several thousands of credits, looked like a jumble
of random jigsaw pieces of metal and plastic with odd connectors and wires
coming out them. These were the key to getting most of the ship running again,
but what bit goes where?

‘Fish can you download ship schematics
to my pad, sections with damaged parts only please.’ Diagrams started too
flicker into Cal’s pad, far more that she would have liked.

‘Is there an option to go into montage
mode please? Play some jangly music while I just fix everything in really short
edits and speeded up time?’

Fish didn’t answer.

What seemed liked hours passed
while Cal worked her way through often dark and cramped engineering spaces
while she found, removed, replaced, fixed, rewired, kicked, hit and more often
than not swore at the ships components. Fortunately the grease and oil all worked
like game blood and dissipated after a minute or two, if it didn’t she would
have been covered. After fitting what was hopefully the last phase demodulator,
she made her way back to the bridge and flopped into the pilot’s seat.

‘Fish, I think I’ve fixed
everything I can, please can you run another deep diagnostic.’

‘Level four diagnostic in
progress Owner Hudson. I will have the results in one hundred and eight seven
seconds.’

‘Owner… that doesn’t sound right,
call me Captain Hudson from now on please.’

‘I'm sorry Cal, I'm afraid I
can't do that.’

A cold shiver went down Cal’s
spine. ‘What the?’

‘Owner Hudson, I have checked
your public records and I am afraid you are not qualified for the position of Captain
of the Script for a Jester’s Tear. To take this position you will require a pilot’s
license for at least a type two space craft and ether grade one engineering or
navigation qualifications. Will you be looking to take on qualified crew?’

Cal didn’t answer, instead she
pulled out her pad and starting searching station services. There was no
getting around these qualifications. It looked like there was a pilot training
school that actually didn’t cost too much, but it was all done on simulators
with automated tutorials. But the actual license itself required a flight test
and that didn’t come cheap. The navigation and engineering qualifications were
set of exams, but her now levelled repair skills exempted her from a couple of
the engineering ones, so that would probably be the best one to start with.

‘Diagnostic Complete.’

Cal looked up from her pad. ‘Ok,
just give me the summary please.’

‘Avionics functional, condition
eight seven percent, life support functional, conditional ninety two percent,
active sensors function condition eighty eight percent, passive sensor.’

‘Can you just tell me what still
doesn’t work?’ interrupted Cal, she didn’t need to here every little detail.

‘Main Sub light drive damaged,
condition thirty eight percent, major component Quantum foam traction sub
driver non-functional. Super light drive damaged, condition seventeen percent,
major component Exotic matter lens non-functional, non-repairable. Hull
structural integrity compromised, condition forty-five percent. Structural work
required. Other systems nominal.’

‘So just the really expensive
bits to go them.’ Cal frowned and pondered on her problems while chewing on her
pad’s little plastic stylus which, for some reason, tasted of vanilla. Fish’s
words about crew spun around her head, she might not be able to get the ship running
and get the skills to fly it by herself in any reasonable amount of time, but
what if she had help? For things like this in other games she would ask her
guild or clan for help, but she didn’t have one in Spinward, so…. join one? No
better idea, form one.

As she was mulling around the
possibilities she noticed the time.

‘Oh, bother,’ Cal remarked, trying
to avoid the language censor which was getting on her nerves, there wasn’t
enough time left in her session to get back to her apartment.

‘Fish, can I sleep here?’

‘Of course Owner Hudson. People
are able to declare a suitable type two or above vessel asa residence with
authorisation from the captain or owner.’

‘Ok then, I declare the Script
for a Jester’s Tear as one of my residences then. I’ll take the Captain’s
cabin’.

‘Residence setting confirmed.’

She levered herself out of the
pilots chair and headed sternwards to the Captain’s cabin. Her growing
collection of weapons including the rifle and gas pistol, which she had decided
not to sell, went in the cabin’s little wardrobe, along with her belt and the
now mostly empty rucksack.

She considered changing out of
her clothes, but what was the point and just lay on the bed intending to close
her eyes and log out. But she couldn’t, the bed wasn’t the problem, it was
better than the one in the apartment, it was the pictures. Captain Choi’s
photos still decorated the wall and it felt like there were all staring at her,
disapprovingly. She got up and peeled them off the wall one by one, intending
to put them in the recycler, but a stray thought stopped her, they went in a
draw instead. Sleep and disconnection came much easier after that.

Su spent her morning fighting
off demands from her inbox, work’s stream, IMs and VCs by juggling several
tasks at once. Fire off a request for finance, a query for the targeted marking
team then go design something else to meet another demand from the ever-needy
mechanising department while keeping an eye on the progress on bulk loads and
real time feeds. She reprioritised as need be, mostly to who was shouting
loudest. However, by about two it all seemed to clear, had shed got on top of
her workload or was it just the eye of the storm? Whatever, Su needed lunch and
a break.

The rather gory virtual events of
the previous night pushed her towards a packet of mushroom soup that had been
hiding at the back of her cupboard for some time, which, with some rather nice fresh
bread turned out a lot more pleasant than she expected. Su felt almost virtuous
after that, which gave her an odd idea. She dug out a sports bra, her old
tracksuit and a fleece from a bottom draw and laced up her trainers.

‘Just off out for a run’ she
told Rupesh in the hallway. He raised an eyebrow by way of reply.

The run started well, until the
end of the street, then it slowly morphed into a jog, a slow jog, a walk and
finally just stopping catching her breath, but she had made it all the way to
the promenade, which was a minor achievement in itself.

Su let the bitter late winter
air refill her lungs. It smelt and almost tasted of salt and ozone, with just
the slightest hint of fish and perhaps some sewage. The rather more brown that
blue English Channel‘s waves rolled up the beach and broke with a slight crash
and some yellowy foam onto the pebbles.

The seafront in off season
wasn’t scenic in any normal sense but Su stood breathing it all in for a couple
of minutes anyway. The virtual worlds she spent so much time in never seemed to
capture anything like this. She turned back, determined to jog at least most of
the way home.

Becky was in the kitchen when
she got back reading something on her tablet. She look up at Su, all red faced and
panting and read her mind.

’Fancy a cup of tea?’

‘Oh yes please, I could murder
one.’

The transition to Spinward
didn’t seem so harsh this time, perhaps she was getting more used to it or
perhaps it was just that the mattress in the Captain’s cabin was just that bit
more comfortable than before.

‘Breakfast, I want some
breakfast,’ she announced to the ship, Fish was probably listening but kept
quiet.

Cal kinda hoped there was at
least something edible in the galley that she’d missed last time, even that
Synth caff stuff would do, but a search revealed nothing she wanted to eat and a
mug of slightly chilled and completely tasteless water from the galley’s spigot
had to suffice. She would have to get groceries, did they had tea in outer
space?

Cal sipped her water and plotted
her day. First item on the agenda was sorting out the clan, guild or whatever
they called them in here. No make that second item, first item was trying out
the ship’s shower.

The tight clothes came off as
easy as they went on, but her underwear wouldn’t budge, which was confused Cal
for a second before she remembered the games rules and with a few taps on her pad
the Jester was an adult only zone. She had read something online last month
about dreams and how they related to memories and wondered if it was side
effect.

The shower was good, oh so good,
far better than the one she used in the real. Torrents of fresh hot water ran
that went on forever with no housemates moaning about how long you’ve been in
there. Plus it got bonus points for her being completely dry and without a hair
out of place within twenty seconds of stepping out of it. Fish announcing
afterward that the ships water recycling system was working at maximum
efficiency made her pause for a second though.

Suitably attired for a day of
taking names, kicking arse, shopping and having deal with administration staff
Cal left the ship. Do I really have to clamber all the way though the tunnels
again to get out of here she wondered and decided to give the barricade another
look.

Choi’s body had disappeared from
the bay’s lift platform, which also worked now, that came as a small relief.
The barricade was definitely still there and though it looked like it could be
taken down, she just wasn’t strong enough to remove the larger pieces. Swearing
and shooting at them didn’t do any good either, well apart from making her feel
a bit better. No doubt about it now, she was going to need help.

The long walk back through the
tunnels of dock four got her some looks from a couple of maintenance worker
NPCs who had replaced the mobs. No she probably wasn’t supposed to be there, but
they would have a problem if they tried to stop her.

The guild office, or to give it
is correct designation, The Corporation Registration Office on Admin deck one
did stop Cal in her tracks though. She’d read up on the details on the way up, Spinward
didn’t have guilds or clans, it had corporations. Guild ranks were replaced
with a hierarchy of job titles you could set up, offices, warehouses and other
property could be bought and the corp could have assets like spaceships,
weapons etc. that members, no sorry, employees with the right jobs could use.
It actually sounded quite fun, Cal liked the idea of being the boss of her own
corporation.

What stopped her was this one little
detail. The registration office was set up like the other administrator offices
she’d had to visit, a bland area to queue with a bored functionary behind an
imposing desk, who looked like an identical twin of the administrator in the DSRRL
office. The developers probably just used the same mesh.

She, like her sister, went
through the official procedures without deviation. This particular functionary
had got to the point in her list of questions were she asked what the new
corporation was to be called. Cal froze, she hadn’t thought up a name.

She ummed and erred for a bit,
looking around for inspiration. There was a queue of other players in the
office, all wanting to start their own corps and they were starting to get a
little bit impatient with her.

She noticed the vertical red
stripe on her top, the one it shared with the Jester. The Red Stripe Corporation?
No that wouldn’t work and it was probably under copyright anyway she thought,
but….

‘Ok, the name of the corporation
is “The Red Company”.’

‘Thank you Ms Hudson.
Corporation names can be changed after registration with a correctly filled in
CN-41e form but that does incur charges, are you sure you wish to have “The Red
Company” entered into the official records?’

Lacking in any further
inspiration Cal replied, ‘Yes.’

‘OK next, corporation mission
statement?’

‘What! Do I really have to give
a mission statement?’ She had a flashback to the five hour company workshop
from hell on statements and direction she had to take two months ago. She only
just made it out of that one alive.

‘Mission statement is optional. Can
I assume you do not wish to enter one into records at this time?’

‘Will it cost me more money to
change that?’

‘Mission statements can be
changed on your company console, only name changes incur charges. So can I
leave that blank for the moment?’

‘Yes!’

‘Bloooop Bip YES!’

‘And what is to be your
corporation’s main line of business?’

‘Erm, trade, import, export?’ That
was the first thing she could think of.

‘Thank you, that all appears to
be in order. Finally there is just the matter of the Carina Free Federation corporation
registration fee. That will be one thousand five hundred credits please.’

Cal tapped the desk to make the
payment with no great joy, she was now practically broke again. The
administrator smiled, it wasn’t a nice smile, and pressed a key on her
terminal.

‘Corporation registered, your
corporate home page and control panel can be accessed through your pad, good
day.’

‘About time too,’ moaned the player
at the head of queue as he pushed past her to get to the desk, but Cal was
checking out her new home page on her pad and barely noticed.

Her meagre credit balance just
got her a cup of Synth caff on Blue two. She sipped it while working though the
corporation options, the coffee substitute it didn’t seem to taste as bad this
time. The provided corporate home page was laughable though, like it fell
through a time warp from the nineties or something, but it did let her get to
the control panel with member rosters, asset listings, corporate messaging,
positions and security. Cal set her own job title to CEO, having felt that “God
Emperor” and “She who must be obeyed” were a bit presumptuous and proceeded to
give herself the highest levels of authorisation. Everyone else would be locked
down until they could be trusted.

But she didn’t have anyone else
at the moment. Cal had contacted some of her old guild mates in MoA again to
see if they were coming over to Spinward but the response wasn’t encouraging. A
mixture of excitement for the expansion pack, the not wanting to be noobs again
and the general lack of information about Spinward on the outside were putting
people off.

So what about people already
here? She could go running through the corridors shouting about her corp and
asking random strangers to join, she’d actually already seen one or two others
already doing this. No, she had to be at least a bit selective. Cal went
through a list of people she had met in game already in her head, it wasn’t a
very long list.

Star Master and Monique could
jump off a cliff, that Rayan guy was OK, but he was just a kid and that just left
Jen didn’t it. OK, she was a bit weird but seemed nice enough once you got
through the high camp and she wasn’t totally incompetent. In fact her
negotiation skills could come in handy getting the ship running. Cal tapped out
a message to her.

Hi Jen,

It’s Cal, you remember the
girl with all the leather and guns, could I meet up with you today? I have a
proposal.

Regards

Calisto

Much to her surprise, she got a
reply within two minutes.

Calisto Darling,

Oh a proposal and we’ve
only just met J I would love to see
you again. How about we meet up at the Pink Pussy club at Oh let’s say 12:30
and have a cocktail or three.

Love and Kisses

Jenista

The location wouldn’t over been
her first choice, but what the heck.

Thank you, cya there at 12:30

That gave her a couple of hours
to kill, or two hours to kill stuff and get some cash for it, there had to be
some quests around here she hadn’t done.

As luck would have a destitute
stranger flagged her down and asked her to hunt some hoodlums around the
warehouse zone of commercial two to recover his wedding ring he’d lost in a
rigged card game. Cal had to splatter seventeen of the thugs across the decks
before she found it.

The payout plus, some loose
credit chits and some vendor trash at least got her solvent again, enough to
keep up with the payments on the hanger for a few days anyway. That quest, plus
a fed-ex for disreputable businessman and a simple puzzle with a loading robot
took her up to twelve twenty, plenty of time to get to the club. Well it was
until he turned up.

There he was, Star Master,
standing in the open area on Red deck one, doing, who knows what. Oh Joy,
perhaps he won’t see me Cal told herself. A sideways glance at the wrong moment
and he did.

‘YOU!’ He shouted. ‘The freak
loving freak.’ He pulled out a knife. This one was much bigger than the last
one.

Cal pulled out her laser and
calmly lined him up in her sights.

‘You stupid fucking moron, you
still haven’t learnt they don’t work in here.’

She shot him.

‘Bzzzzrt Boop Beep YES!’

She savoured the look of
surprise and agony on his face just for a second and then shot him again and
again and again. He was a twitching mess on the floor after she’d emptied the
e-clip. The stun damage adapter worked then. A couple of bystanders cheered and
clapped, clearly he was popular in these parts.

Cal checked the now unconscious
body, bah, still no looting rights and he’s only out cold. She had checked up
on the stun damage rules in the manual, he would derezz and find himself in
medical after a few minutes, but he could recover if his Stamina stat and
certain skills were high enough or someone could simply revive him with a med
kit.

Cal didn’t want that happening,
she didn’t want that at all. A single slash to his throat with her knife made
it a PVP kill. It wasn’t a nice thing to do and it made quite a mess, but she
wasn’t feeling particularly nice at that point.

It also got her a red mark, she
had initiated the attack and now could now be attacked without penalty for the
next hour in a PVP zone. No one in the zone had decided to take advantage of it
so far but it was only a matter of time, Cal ducked down into the club with
haste, reloading on the go.

The club was dark and loud. Lasers
synchronised to a pounding dance track carved shapes in smoke while intertwined
bodies whirled around the floor or watched as slender young dancer who was
seemingly unaffected by gravity span effortlessly  around the pole. The club
had picked up a bit since her last visit. Blit started to chase the lasers
around the dance floor like a excited kitten.

Jen saw Cal first. ‘Cal Darling,
over here.’ Jen was sat in a booth over to one side, two empty cocktail glasses
in front of her, she stood up and greeted Cal with a pair of air kisses. Jen was
wearing a skintight shiny purple micro dress that left virtually nothing to the
imagination with a pair a glittery sky-high platform heels that surely no one
could walk in and probably nothing else. Cal noted that if Jen did join the
corporation she might have to insist on some sort of a dress code.

‘You Ok Hun?’ Jen must have
noticed the spray of arterial blood on Cal’s top that hadn’t quite faded yet.

‘What, oh that, nah I’m fine,
that’s the other guys. I ran into our mutual acquaintance outside.’

‘What, Star Wanker?’

‘The very same.’

‘What did you do to him, nothing
pleasant I hope?’

Cal replied with a cutthroat
gesture.

‘Seriously, literally?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Whoooo!’ Jen exclaimed. ‘That’s
stone cold. You definitely deserve a drink for that.’ She gestured for a waiter
to come over.

The waiter was tall, dark and
very muscular and he was wearing, well, it took Cal a second or two to process.
Yes, it was definitely the same strapless pink PVC suit, complete with tights,
heels and cat ears that Jen was wearing when they first met, but it was all
morphed to fit his obviously very male frame. She just sat there staring,
slightly open mouthed.

‘Hi I’m Martin and I’ll be your
waiter tonight. So what can I get you lovely ladies?’

‘Oh hello Martin, how’s the
quest going?’

He replied with a smile. ‘Very
well thank you Jenista, thank you for recommending it, the tips are just
rolling in.’

‘I’m always glad to help.’ Jen
beamed. ‘This is my friend Cal by the way and she absolutely desperately needs a
Stroudberry Dirty Martini, her very life depends on it. Oh and darling while
you’re at the bar can you just pick me up another one of those rather wonderful
Maraschino Collins, that would be lovely.’

‘Of course, anything for you Jen.’

Cal watched as he turned and
strutted across the dance floor to the bar, the dancers just parting to let him
though.

Jen tapped Cal’s hand. ‘Caught
you staring,’ she said with a smirk.

‘Eh, what? Sorry,’ Cal jumped.

‘Don’t worry he’s been having
that effect on every one in here.’

‘Erm I guess so, but why is he
wearing that particular uniform, isn’t there like a male version of it for the
quest?’

‘You know I never actually
checked. I’ve found all clothes in here are unisex in anyway, if you are the
right size they just morph to fit you. You have to admit it though, that one
really works on him.’

‘Yes, you could say that,’ replied
Cal without turning to look at Jen, her eyes had gone back to where they were
before.

‘Juurrrzzzt Jerrr Boop YES!’

‘Well hello Mr Blit and how are
you?’ Jen greeted the little droid who had just re-joined them with a gentle pat.

Another gentle pat got Cal back.
‘So about your proposal, well it was all a bit sudden and we’ve only just met
but you’re quite nice, so I’ve picked out a dress and have some thoughts on the
décor for the reception and what do you prefer, a spring or a summer ceremony…’

Cal was left without words for
the second time in the last five minutes.

‘Kidding, silly.’ Jen threw back
her head and laughed.

Cal pulled a face. ‘You…… no
it’s not that sort of proposal. No it’s just that I’ve formed a guild, well
actually they call them corporations in here and I wondered if you would like
to join?’

‘Bitz Bloop YES!’

‘Yes, you can join too.’

‘Well if Mr Blit thinks it’s a
good idea, then I’m in, but don’t you want to check my skills and gear score,
make me do a test or something?’ asked Jen. High end guilds in most games were
very picky about who they let join.

‘Nah, we’re good. The Red
Company is a very new corporation and we’re still building up our membership.’

‘Oh OK, how many people have you
got then?’

‘Erm, well with me and you that
makes, er two.’

‘Zrrrrt NO!’

‘Three then. I only formed it
this morning.’

Jen laughed again. ‘Well I’m
honoured you’d have me as a founder member. So what do, do I get down on one
knee and pledge my enteral loyalty to the guild and its esteemed leader?’

‘Erm not quite. In here all you
need to do is shake the hand of the guild’s, sorry company’s, Chief Executive
Officer. That’s me by the way.’ Cal offered her hand, Jen took it very gently.

‘Oh so you’re the CEO then, what
does that make me?’ enquired Jen.

‘Well I haven’t worked out the
ranks, sorry positions, yet. I’m still getting used to this new terminology,
you can be anything you want really.’

‘Oh….’ Cal could practically see
the cogs wiring in Jens head. ‘Well I’ll be your secretary then. I’ll sit
outside your corner office in a pencil skirt and tight silk blouse with my hair
in a bun, all coy and demure like and take your calls and tell them you are
busy and don’t want to be disturbed and make you coffee and …’.

‘Woah, Woah, no, it’s not like
that it’s.’

‘Got you again.’ said Jen with a
giggle.

‘Oh stop it, anyway nobodies had
a secretary for fifty years, even PA’s are mostly digital these days. You can
be an executive of some sort, erm, Head of marketing I think.’

‘Why marketing?’

‘Because you’re a bullshit
merchant of the highest order,’ replied Cal, it was her turn to smirk.

‘Guilty as charged madam CEO. So
to business then, what does this company do?’

‘Our main line of business is
currently listed as import export.’

‘How are we going to do that?’
Jen sounded intrigued.

Cal whispered the secret in her
ear.

‘YOU’VE GOT A SHIP!’

‘Shhh Shhhh, don’t tell everyone
in the station. Yes I’ve got a ship and want to go to business with it.’

‘Wow! You have to tell me
everything, what’s it like and how did you get it? Did you sleep with one of
devs or something?’

‘No, nothing like that, I found it.
It was sort of a quest reward.’

‘Found, sort of?’ Jen looked a
little confused.

‘I found it on a quest, but it
is mine. I claimed it as salvage and I’ve got all the official paper work and
everything.’ Cal produced her documentation. ‘Literally.’

‘Ohh my.’ Jen looked a bit
stunned. ‘So this was your little secret then.’

‘Yeah it was, I’ve had it for a
couple of days, those parts you fabbed for me weren’t for a quest, they were
actually for the ship.’

A strong hand placed a cocktail
in front of her. Cal looked up, Martin had returned with the drinks.

‘One Stroudberry Dirty Martini
and one Maraschino Collins, enjoy.’

Cal took a sip, it was as good
as she remembered, ‘Oh I will’ she replied with a flirty smile. ‘So how much do
we you Martin?’

‘No no let me,’ Jen interjected.

‘Nonsense, it’s definitely my
round now.’

‘It’s eighty five credits, you ladies
can always split the bill if you wish.’

Cal tapped the table to pay
while giving the waiter another good look, she paused a second and then added a
significant tip.

‘To business.’ Jen lifted her
glass and clinked it against Cal’s.

‘To business.’

‘So tell me more about your ship
then?’

‘Well it’s a small freighter,
size class two. It’s got about enough room for thirty five small cargo
containers and each of those can take two tons, so I think we could make some
money trading. ‘

‘Sounds good, better than I
expected actually.’ Jen looked impressed.

‘Thank you. It takes a crew of
one to three and has two cabins, so there’s room for you. Plus it has little
lounge, a galley and in a corner there is machine ship with a fabber in it.’

‘So you want me as crew?’

‘Yes, absolutely, did you pass
your navigation exam by the way?’

‘Er not yet, sorry. It was
harder than I expected and I failed my first try. But I will pass now, for
sure.’

‘Thanks, I’m in the same boat, I
have to get pilot and engineering training as well.’

‘Same boat, literally. So if you
haven’t got a pilot’s licenses then, I guess you haven’t actually flown it
yet?’

‘Er No,’ Cal hung her head. ‘And
even if I did have a license I can’t fly it at the moment, it’s a bit broke.’

‘It’s a wreck?’ replied Jen
with concern in her voice.

‘Burt Brokk Beep YES!’

‘No no, it’s not that bad,
mostly not that bad anyway. It was bit damaged when I found it, I think it had
been in a fight and lost. I’ve fixed most of it now, but there are only a
couple more parts I still need and there are a few little holes in the hull
that need to be patched.’

‘So it’s a bit of a fixer upper
then. I’m beginning to understand why you recruited me now, it wasn’t for my
body was it.’

‘Seen though me then, sorry. Yes
I need help with the parts and a qualified navigator would help too. ‘

‘No worries, it’s nice to be
appreciated for what I can for a change.’ Jen looked down to her cleavage.’ So
can I have a look at it then?’

‘It… the ship, oh yes, sure, If
you have time, but you’ll have to change first.’

Jen looked at her outfit, a bit
puzzled.

‘Getting to it is slightly
awkward and you have to walk a bit, you’d never manage it in those shoes. Wear
your jumpsuit and starter boots or something like that. Also bring your gun.’

‘Really, Oh, OK then. I’ll have
to pop back to my room and change, can you give me half an hour?’

‘Yeah sure. Meet me at the doors
to dock four in half an hour then?’

‘Half an hour it is, I’ll have
to hustle, cya later.’ Jen took a large swig from her drink, got up, gave Cal a
little wave and strode over to the club’s exit. A hand reached out to try to
pull her onto the dance floor as she passed but she brushed it away.

Cal slowly finished her drink
and pondered. Jen had some very useful skills and would certainly be “interesting”
to fly with, it seemed like she’d made the right decision. With half an hour to
kill and a red mark over her head Cal decided to stay in the club for a bit,
this time everyone seemed more interested in dancing than fighting and those
cocktails were so good.

She made her dash with five
minutes to go, starting to run as she got out of the club, the mark still had a
few minutes to run so she was a legitimate target until then. It had looked
like Star Master hadn’t returned, but a couple of other guys had started
tailing her though the side passages, probably looking for an easy PVP score. Three
or four stun shots with at least one connecting put them off. More noobs who
hadn’t realised there were some ranged weapons that worked in here.

A now more suitably attired Jen
was waiting for her at the door to dock four. Jen was now wearing a flat boots
and jumpsuit, it’s seemed to fit her better than most, but colour….

‘Pink? Where did you get a pink
jumpsuit from?’

‘What this little thing? Jen
posed. ‘I fed that nasty grey one into a fabricator to disassemble for
materials a couple of days ago so I had to run off a fresh one and the only
colour I had was left was pink, so I just had to make do.’

‘Well, I suppose it’s very you.’

The door to the docks weren’t
guarded anymore and the signs had been replaced by site safety warnings, this got
a question from Jen, but Cal shrugged it off. The passageways also showed more
even more signs of life and it looked like the main bay was pressurised by now.

They got to the maintenance
room, Cal looked from side to side to see if the coast was clear and then
inserted her key. This got a puzzled look from Jen. Cal held her finger up to
her lips, shhh. They slipped into the room unseen.

But the person actually in the
room did see them. A large woman in a heavy yellow jumpsuit turned to look at
them as they entered. ‘Hey, are you supposed to be in here? This area is
restricted.’

Cal’s hand went down to her main
weapon. The woman looked strong and had another of those large pipe wrenches in
her belt, the type with good melee stats. But before she could make a move Jen
tapped her shoulder and stepped forward.

‘Hello Darling, don’t mind us,
we’re just passing through. We’ve cleared everything with the management,’
bluffed Jen.

‘You sure, I haven’t been told
of anything and what department wears pink anyway?’

‘Entertainment, we’re new, I’m
Jenista by the way, executive producer with entertainment div and we’re looking
to shoot a new series with our top star here.’ Jen pointed at Cal. ‘We’re
scouting locations and local talent.’

‘Oh?’ The maintenance worker
looked confused.

Jen stepped over to her and
leant in closely, whispering something in her ear and then passed something
small into her hand.

‘Well Ok, er everything seems to
be in order.’ And with that the worker collected her gear and left the room.

‘What did you do Jen? Pass her
your phone number or something?’ Cal laughed.

‘Oh no.’ Jen paused for dramatic
effect. ‘I passed her yours.’

‘What the….’ Then she saw Jen’s
grin and realised she had been played again. She let out a long sigh and
unlocked the next door.

The duct work had been repaired
in the next corridor but the heavy door was still off its hinges.

‘What happened to this door?’ asked
Jen, pointing out the plasma burns.

‘It got in my way,’ answered
Cal, hand on her holster. Jen didn’t reply but had more serious than usual
expression on her face.

The hatch to the service duct
needed unlocking this time but the duct was still pitch black.

‘Are we definitely going the
right way?’ asked Jen sounding somewhere between confused and suspicious.

‘Fraid so, this is the only way
to the ship at the moment, but don’t worry, it’s not far now.’

Jen said nothing again and
instead took a small torch from one of her pockets.

‘No need for that. Blit, flashlight
please.’

‘Flasssss Bip Liizztt Beep YES!’
And with that the little droid lit up the passageway.

‘Oh that’s neat, I didn’t know
he could do that.’

‘Neither did when I first came
down here. It can be useful, well until it decides to wander off on its own. Oh
and watch your head by the way.’ Cal led a stooping Jen down the passageway.

Cal unlocked and stepped through
the final hatch. She raised her hand to help Jen get though, not wanting her to
trip as she did the first time. ‘And here we are. So what do you think?’

Chapter 10:  Junk

‘What a piece of junk!’

‘Eh what?’

‘Classic movie quote Hun.’ Jen laughed.
’It doesn’t look that bad really.’

They walked around the ship and
Cal pointed out the details. One of the first things Jen noticed was how the
ship was positioned. ‘Gawd what BMW driver parked this?’

‘The late Captain Choi, the
ships previous owner, did the parking. From what I can deduce, she got into a
fight coming to the station, possibly during the AI attacks months ago and only
just managed to land it, heavily wounded. She tried to go and get medical help
but died on the way and, nobody ever came to help her. I found her body over
there.’ Cal pointed out the lift platform. ’But it’s derezzed now.’

‘Oh sorry, sad story.’

‘Yeah, apparently a lot got lost
in the AI attacks and Dock four was taken out of service. The ship just sat in
this bay for months, forgotten, until I kinda just happened across it. ‘

‘Well that’s a bit of luck.’

‘Luck….’ Cal had a thought,
maybe it was luck, extra luck, like Lucky Dip Starter pack luck. Perhaps it was
worth that extra ninety pounds after all.

They continued the tour. ‘It is
a bit odd looking don’t you think, like someone just welded a cargo container
on the front of a regular ship,’ said Jen.

‘OK, yeah, it’s not exactly the
sleekest looking thing in the world, but the shape’s grown on me, it’s sort of purposeful
and designed to do its job instead of just looking pretty,’ replied Cal
defending her vessel.

‘I get your point, mostly, yeah
it’s a boxy space transit van, made to move stuff efficiently though the vacuum
of space. But I have to ask, if all that’s true then why does it have those fins
on the back?’

‘I guess the designer just
though they looked good.’

‘Ahh the rule of cool, of
course.’

They walked around to the front
where the ship’s name was painted. ‘So it’s called Script for a Jester’s Tear,
that’s an…. unusual name, did you come up with it?’ asked Jen.

‘No that’s the name it had when
I found it, yes it is a bit weird and long, so I’m calling it the Jester for
short. Oh and its computer is called Fish, obviously.’

‘Uh?’ Jen didn’t appear to get
the connection. ‘Yes let’s keep it to the Jester.’

‘Oh and I’d better introduce
you, Fish, you there?’

Fish’s voice echoed around the
bay. ‘Greetings Owner Hudson, I am here. Warning, proximity sensors indicate
another human life form is in the bay, possibly carrying weapons.’

‘Yes, that’s Jen, don’t worry she’s
with me. Fish meet Jenista Harrington, Jen meet Fish.’

‘Pleased to meet you Mr Fish.’
Fish’s voice was did sound mostly male and had slightly upper class English
accent.

‘Pleased to meet you Jenista
Harrington, I am the Script for a Jester’s Tear’s sub AI systems management
unit and voice interface system. ’

‘Oh just call me Jen.’

‘Please to meet you Jen. Owner
Hudson, do you wish to grant ship and bay access to Jen?’

‘Yes, she’s in my corporation
now so can you put her down as crew or something.’

‘Designation crew confirmed and
basic access granted.’

‘That means Fish will let you in,’
translated Cal. ‘Let’s go inside, I’ll show you the rest.’

She walked over a recessed panel
under the ship’s cargo bay and hit a button.’ You better stand back.’

The cargo lift descended from
the belly of the ship accompanied by warning beepers and flashing lights. The
Mule unit was sat in the middle of it.

‘Oh and this is Mule by the way,’
said Cal, pointing at the robot. ’It came with the ship, it carries stuff, does
some repairs and the hovering.’

‘Hello Mr Mule. I’m Jen.’ She
offered the droid her hand but got no response.

‘It’s also rather grumpy and
doesn’t talk much.’

‘CONFIRMED.’

Cal hit the button to raise the
lift. They continued with the tour inside with Jen getting quite excited by the
fabricator, apparently it was a quite a good model. The cabin impressed her
less, she said that it was lacking wardrobe space. They ended the tour in the
bridge.

‘So I’m crew then, so do I get a
position or am I just a rating or something?’

‘Well pass your navigation exam
and you can be the navigator and take the back seat’

‘The back seat?’

Cal pointed out the bridge
layout. ‘Pilot sits up front, navigator gunner goes in the back seat and if we
get an engineer they take the jump seat, but I’m planning on doing the engineering
stuff myself. ’

‘Gunner?’

‘Yep, gunner, the ship has a small
turret up top and a larger forward weapon array just beneath us, but neither of
them actually has any guns installed at the moment. Guess we can upgrade them
later but I doubt well need them doing simple trading runs.’

‘Famous last words.’ Jen climbed
into the navigator’s position and played with the controls, nothing happened. ‘It’s
all turned off?’

‘Crew member not registered as
qualified for flight controls,’ announced Fish. ‘Checking external records for
qualifications….. Qualification found.’

‘What, she’s already qualified?
I thought you failed your navigation exam?’ Cal was a bit confused.

‘I did, what qualification did
you find?’ Jen appeared just as confused.

‘Crew member Jenista Harrington
has CFF Bar Tending license, this qualifies her for an officer position, do you
wish to accept the position.’

‘Yes of course,’ replied a curious
sounding Jen.

‘Logging Jenista Harrington as Ship’s
Steward.’

‘So I’m the Ship’s Steward now?’
She laughed, ‘Fish, change that to Stewardess and it’s a deal.’

‘Owner Hudson, do you wish to
authorise this change from Steward to Stewardess on the ships manifest.’

‘Sure, why not’ replied Cal,
slowly shaking her head.

‘Oh wow I’ve always wanted to be
a trolley dolly. I’ll have to print out a uniform and when we take off  I’ll
wear it and  point out the emergency exits and make sure everyone’s seat belt
is fastened and….’  Jen was getting a bit carried away.

‘That’s another one of your
jokes isn’t it Jen?’

‘Oh absolutely,’ she replied,
though not entirely convincingly this time.

‘Back to business, so what do
you think of the ship?’ inquired Cal.

‘Well its bigger I expected.’

‘Yeah, it’s not exactly a shuttle,
you can even live in here if you want.’

‘But still a bit broken and you
have to bluff your way through maintenance corridors to get here.’

‘Better than having to fight
your way through like I did first time and the ship can be fixed’

‘True, count me in.’

‘Thanks, anyway I’m pretty sure
think there is another way in, but it’s a bit blocked, I could do with another
pair of hands to help clear the way.’

‘Ah, and now you want my body,’ replied
Jen with another grin.

Cal rolled her eyes. ‘OK, we
better go do it now. I’m not sure we’ll be able to get through the maintenance
way much longer.’

They used the cargo lift again
to get out, as they walked over to the lift platform Cal remembered what she
had said about needing another pair of hands. It didn’t have to be a pair did
it.

‘Mule, come with us.’

‘CONFIRMED.’

The barricade was still there,
Cal had quietly hoped the maintenance people would have fixed it by now. ‘Give
us a hand.’ She asked as she went to move one of the beams.

‘Just a sec.’ Jen crouched down
by the beam and inspected it and several others carefully. Then she went over
to the Mule unit and gave it a once over.

‘Mr Mule, please could you
locate any loose sections of plasteel, steel, trialloy and HDplastic in that
pile over there.’ She gestured towards the barricade, ’and cut them up into
pieces no larger than twenty by twenty five centimetres and place the pieces on
your little truck bed. When the truck is full, please return to the Script for
a Jester’s Tear and unload the pieces neatly in the cargo bay. Please continue
this loop until all sections made out of recyclable materials in the barricade
have been cut up and stored.’

‘CONFIRMED.’

The robot snapped a laser
cutter tool onto one of its small arms and approached the barrier. Its green
scanning beam surveyed the pile for a few seconds before it selected a
particular beam and started slicing into small pieces, slowly at first, then
building up speed until its movements became almost blurred.

‘Programming,’ Jen explained. ‘He
doesn’t look very bright but I think if you give it clear instructions he’ll
follow them to the letter. I’ll see if I can get him to feed the pieces into
the fabricator afterwards. I can set it to dissemble and it will turn materials
and parts back into feedstock, though you always loose a bit. We can probably
use a lot of this stuff to fix the ship.’

Jen was full of surprises.

‘Anyway, he won’t move all of
this stuff, some of it is just junk we can’t recycle, give us a hand.’

The non-recyclable parts turned
out to be a bit lighter and flimsier than the rest and the pair were able to
move then even though both their Strength characteristics were rather low.

‘So where did you learn droid
programming?’ inquired Cal as they worked.

‘Actually programming is my day
job, mostly industrial machinery would you believe.’

Cal tried to imagine Jen inside
a factory programing micro controllers and robot arms and but couldn’t.

‘But I did start doing some
robot programming in here a couple of days ago when I was levelling my crafting
skills. You see there was this cleaning robot doing the rounds in the Municipal
Fabricator Bay, you know that one we visited. Anyway there I was, bored out of
my pretty little skull grinding my crafting skills, load up the hopper with
feedstock, fab the item, feed it back into the machine to get the feedstock
back ad infinitum when I saw the robot and got the idea to automate. The little
machine seemed quite willing to help once I got the hang of giving him the
right sort of instructions. Got me a few points of robot programming skills too.
‘

Cal was quietly impressed, but
didn’t want to show it. ‘Doesn’t actually work on all robots though, sixteen
bit brain here for example,’ replied Cal pointing at Blit.

‘Buzz Brzz YES!’

‘I’m not sure if it doesn’t
understand the instructions or just doesn’t care. It’s more kitten than robot,
so when I needed to program it I had to get a little more direct.’

‘How so?’ Jen asked curiously.

‘I’ll show you.’ Cal pulled out
her pad and brought up her bespoke Blit control page. She commanded Blit to fly
it around the room, much to the little droids annoyance.

‘It’s got an API you can call. I
put together a few scripts and can turn him into a drone complete with sound
and video, but it doesn’t really like me doing it’.

‘BLARRRT NO! YES! NO!’

‘You code too then?’ Jen sounded
impressed.

‘Only when I have too.’

Nearly half an hour later they
had a gap big enough to clamber through, an hour and it was almost all gone. Jen
was a little red faced and short of breath by then. ‘Well I’m knackered, is
there a bar around here? I could brutally murder a cold drink.’

Cal wasn’t anywhere near as
tired, she guessed her Stamina stat was probably twice Jen’s, but she thought a
break was well deserved. ‘Actually I don’t quite know where this goes, the sign
back there seemed to indicate the exit was this way, perhaps there’s a café or
something? Want to go look?’

They had barely
gone twenty meters when Cal shushed Jen and indicated her to stop.

‘I hear voices,’
she whispered. ‘They don’t sound friendly.’

‘I heard
something, but are you sure there unfriendly? It’s probably some more
maintenance people, just be nice and follow my lead.’ Jen stepped around the
corner.

BBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT.
A long burst of automatic fire had erupted from down the corridor.

‘FRAK!’ Jen dived back around
the corner faux swearing loudly and clutching her arm.

‘OK not friendly,’ she
whimpered, clearly in pain. A lot of blood was seeping through her finger tips,
she’d taken a round.

‘OK keep it together, the blood
will stop in a sec and the pain will diminish, I know it’s a bit of a shock,
this game is a little more realistic than MoA  but hang in there and we can do
this.’ Cal spoke quietly but firmly. ‘There’s two of them, I heard two voices
and saw some laser pulses as well as the machine gun fire, but I’m pretty sure
they only think there’s one of us. They’re probably creeping down the corridor
as I speak.’

‘Erm, Ok,’ gasped a worried sounding
Jen.

‘Here’s what I want you to do,
take that SMG of yours and fire a short burst down the corridor, then a longer
one, then quick little short bursts until you run out of power. You don’t need
to aim just stick the gun around the corner and shoot. OK?’

‘Yes.’ Jen nodded nervously.

‘And when you’re out of power
make a fuss about reloading like your fumbling it, make some noise, drop
something, swear, make them think they have an opening to get you.’

‘Er Ok… and you?’

‘I’ll make sure they don’t.’

Jen followed the plan, one quick
burst and then a longer one, fifteen rounds or more. Cal figured that would
make them take cover, well she hoped it would as she took dove across the
junction to the alcove beyond. No shots came after her, it had worked…..

A couple more bursts from Jen
and she was out. On cue she tried to reload and fumbled, dropping one clip and
cursing loudly. It was either a good act or she had really messed up. No time to
doubt, in Cal’s mind’s eye she could see the two edging down the corridor,
covering the corner Jen was behind. The wrong corner.

Cal spun around the corner, aimed
and shot in a fraction, years of FPS play had honed these reflexes. Shooter one
got a plasma bolt in his centre of mass, practically cutting him in half.
Second shooter was lagging behind him and was faster than he looked, he dove
for cover before Cal’s follow up shot connected.

He fired blind from behind a packing
crate. Cal hit the deck as laser bolts seared the wall behind her. He looked up
from his cover assuming he’d got his target, but the saw Cal lying prone and
raised his weapon. Cal lifted hers almost simultaneously, but before either
could take a shot his head was vaporised in a storm of blue fire. Jen had finished
reloading.

‘As I said, I was never much of
a shooter player, all too violent for me.’ Jen offered Cal her hand, which she
gratefully accepted.

‘Don’t worry love, you did Ok,’ replied
Cal with a friendly smile. ‘Now let’s see if there’s any loot.’

The bodies, some sort of
scavenger or looters, had a little spare change, an assortment of chemicals
they figured they probably best leave behind and, for a change, a couple of decent
weapons, a heavy laser and a compact auto flechette machine pistol, complete with
a reload.

‘Sell these?’ asked Jen.

‘No these ones are worth keeping,
they can go in the ship’s armoury.’

‘Wait, we have an armoury?’

‘Well it’s actually the wardrobe
in my cabin, but its filling up nicely.’

The corridor ended in a large
air lock door, it didn’t look like it had been used recently but the controls
seemed to work. The outer door opened into an atrium with numerous airlock
doors, lifts to one side, a small automated vendor the other and a very bored
looking administer behind a desk in the middle.

‘Er Hello, are you from 4-07, I
didn’t think anyone was using those bays?’ asked the surprised Sub
administrator.

‘Well we are, Small Bay 4-07-A,
just check your records,’ Cal replied.

He tapped at his terminal for a
bit. ’Calisto Hudson?’

‘In the flesh.’

‘Oh you do have a bay rental on
record, sorry, my bad, I’d though that area was still under development. Please
enjoy your stay at Upsilon Carinae
Gateway Station, have you anything to declare?’

‘Nothing to declare.’ Cal decided
to keep quiet about the two dead bodies and the killer AI drone, even though
they probably didn’t incur customs charges. Cal paid the Sub administrator for
another couple of days bay rental and checked out the vendor, it didn’t have
much past the basics. They bought some food and drink to take back to the ship.

‘When you got hit you shouted
Frack, any reasons?’ Cal asked Jen on the way back, as she sipped from a can of
sweet milky iced Synth caff that wasn’t totally unpalatable.

‘Frack, well I just got a bit
sick of this game censoring me outside of red. There are times when you really
need to shout out something and the game doesn’t stop you saying made up swear
words.’

‘Like Frack from Battlestar
Galactica?’

‘Yes that or Frell.’

‘That’s Farscape, so Frunt?’

‘Sands of Mars, what about Yī
dà tuó dà biàn.’

‘Easy, Fireflly, P'Tak.’

‘Klingon of course,  N’Pash
Zart.’

‘Void Star, season 2, Drokk.’

‘Ermmmm, er, Oh Frack you got me
on that one.’ Jen had been out geeked.

‘It’s old, very old, it comes from
a comic my granddad used to read.’

They returned to the ship,
collecting Mule along the way. Cal mentioned out if they didn’t explicitly tell
it to come back it would just sit there for months. While Jen taught Mule how
to recycle the materials with the fabricator Cal looked up more of the details
on Pilot training, she definably had to make a go of this now. The pilot school
she’d found earlier was located down on Dock one and that’s where she planned
to spend most of tomorrow. Oh not tomorrow, the day after, she was due a down
day.

‘What’s your schedule for down
days Jen,’ shouted Cal from the lounge, the fabber was a bit noisy when it was
running. Jen walked in, cleaning her hands on her jumpsuit.

‘I usually take Fridays and
Mondays off. Monday to get some proper sleep and Friday’s often involve staying
out very late and drinking slightly too much,’ replied Jen with a sly smile.

‘You off out tomorrow?’ Today
was Thursday.

‘Absolutely, I’m off to see the
bright lights of Milton Keynes.’

‘There are bright lights in
Milton Keynes?’ That surprised Cal.

‘Well they’re brighter than the
ones in Wellingborough.’

‘That’s where you live?’

‘Yes, for my many many sins,
you?’

‘Hastings.’ Jen mentally punched
herself in the face immediately after that. She normally never gave out
personal information in a game, but this time it just sort of slipped out.

‘Ahhh that explains everything…’

‘What do you mean everything?’

‘Oh nothing, I’m just joshing.’
answered Jen with a sheepish grin.

‘Anyway this Friday’s a down for
me too. I actually have to go into the London office, management likes to have
an “All Hands” every couple of months on site where they talk down to us for a
day, after which we all descend on Soho for the night and try and get drunk
enough to forget it all.’

‘Sounds fabulous….’

‘Absolutely.’ Cal grimaced.

‘Saturday night I’m going to try
the engineer exam and then go down to the simulators for pilot training. Could
you spare a bit of time when you get back in and do some repairs on the hull?’

‘Sure, me and Mr Mule should be
able to sort it out now we have a ton of feedstock.’

‘Thanks.’ And please please don’t
break anything thought Cal.

The alarm went off at stupid
o’clock on Friday morning, Su reached for the high output plasma carbine she
didn’t have in the real world to blast it to smithereens. That failed so she
just got up instead. She showered and dressed in nearest she could find to
approximate current trends and did a minor touch up with her rather limited
collection of makeup. The office demanded she make some effort with her
appearance, as she, Susan Wakefield, gamer and uber nerd, worked in the
absolutely fabulous world of fashion. The irony wasn’t lost on her. Well a low
to mid-range fashion retailer anyway and it was only absolutely fabulous
darling for a small group of senior buyers and the top management. For everyone
else it was hard work, tight margins and cutthroat completion.

It was still dark when she got
to the station. The slow train wasn’t late for a change, she would’ve taken the
fast train but the still wasn’t one even in 2036. Lack of fast transport to
London kept the rent down and if you there this early you could still get a
seat.

The elderly train rattled its
way to Charing Cross, stopping at everywhere and anywhere before it finally managed
to pull into the station only twenty minutes late. Su had figured this into her
travel plans, it was always late. She still had plenty of time to grab
breakfast and walk to the office in Fitzrovia.

Su didn’t know what they did
with the office when it wasn’t an all hands, as even though at least seventy
percent of the staff worked remotely, they all still managed to fit into the
large meeting room. She got a coffee, one of many she would need to make it
through the day, made small talk with a few of staff she knew by sight and the
settled into a chair for the presentations, so many presentations.

Apparently the new goto word was
“Tactical”, one of the names had heard it at some all-expenses paid conference
and it was our new strategy, for the next month or two anyway. We had to think
tactical, act tactically, work out tactics and so on, but of course they never
went going into enough detail in their glossy presentations about these tactics
to actually implement this “new” idea. Su wished she could demonstrate small
unit tactics to them with her selection of high energy weapons, but the real
world got in the way again. Instead she drank even more coffee, nodded a lot
and fought the desire to play with her phone.

After lunch, complementary but
tiny, some of the senior buying team went through there fact finding and buying
trips to Barcelona, Mumbai and Seoul, trying unsuccessfully to make it sound
like they worked really hard. Finally, there was the fashion show, holographic
because models are expensive and are never perfect enough. It looked like the
buying team had taken the tactical directive literally, retro combat trousers
in fluorescent colours were apparently going to be 2036-37 Autumn/Winters season’s
key items. Su shuddered, she might be expected to buy a pair.

Corporate Ra Ra Ra had exactly
the opposite of its intended effect on Su and a fair number of her colleges who
worked with her in the grubbier end of the business, so the moment the lights
went up they decamped en-masse to The Clachan on Kingly Street to recover,
drink pints and whinge about the management. By the time she was half way
through her third pint of cider and had a good old cathartic moan to her
immediate co-workers Su was beginning to feel more relaxed and confident. Confident
to go mingle and try and pin down the other dreamers and gamers in the group to
see if they’d tried Spinward.

The gamers were huddled in a
corner near a prehistoric fruit machine when she found them. Carlos, one of the
junior systems architects, was holding court. He seemed to think of himself as
the alpha geek and was expounding on his successes in the latest hit game from
Snow Storm, Spinward, the one they all had to try. It turned out he wasn’t on
the same server as Su, he’d gone to a PVP server as he didn’t want to “Slum it
with the care bears” and had started with the GDS, the winning faction in his
opinion. He did concede he had to salute a lot and keep his boots polished
though. He explained, with no modesty, that he was set to become a fighter ace
and was working on his pilot qualifications and had already passed his
engineering exams. That piqued Su’s interest.

Chloe-Louise from finance said
it was her round, Su looked at her almost empty pint, then the time and thought
what the heck and asked for another Aspinalls. Cloe took Aryan with her to help
carry the drinks leaving Su with Carlos, who although he could be a bit of a
twat, tended to be a lot more reasonable without an audience to perform to.

Su cornered him. ‘I’m in
Spinward too, been in since go live but on a different server to you and I went
with the CFF.’

‘Really, didn’t think you would
ever leave Masters of Avaline,’ he replied.

‘Nah wanted to try something
new. So I need to take the engineering and pilot exams, any tips?’

‘You’re going for fighter pilot
too? Didn’t think the losers in the CFF had any fighters.’

‘Oh we do have a few, but
actually I’ve got my own ship.’

‘No way!’ Carlos practically spat
out his drink.

‘Na just kidding,’ Su lied. ‘I’m
going for transport pilot, but I still need the qualifications.’

‘Well I found this stream.’ He
flicked a link over to her Samsung. ‘They haven’t got any video out yet, only a
few dodgy stills with a hacked app, but it looks like this guy has gone through
the test a few times and got most of the answers down. It’s just a case if remembering
them all because it’s all locked down inside.’

‘Yeah I’ve found out about the
lockdown, you probably just aced it any way didn’t you.’

‘Yeah pretty much, connect the
local space-time modulation matrix to the Higgs bosom accelerator and then
balance the resultant graviton field to compensate for the muon flux and so
on.’

Su knew Carlos was borderline eidetic,
he had to be to make sense of the companies complete mess of distributed
systems, so he probably found memorising the pseudo-science easy. She on the
other hand was going to have to work at it wasn’t she. They swapped their gaming
stories over the next pint until Su’s phone gave her a warning about not
missing the last train.

She grabbed her coat, swiftly bade
her co-workers farewell  and zig zagged through Soho’s side streets towards
Charing Cross, picking up some falafel on Old Compton Street while she was
passing. It tasted amazing, but anything hot and fried tended to taste awesome after
four pints. She made her train with minutes to spare and settled into a seat
for the long journey home, her phone’s geo alarm set to make sure she didn’t
miss her station. She didn’t want to fall asleep on the train and end up in Ore
at midnight, again. She tried watching the stream Carlos had sent her, but was
snoring by the time they got to Sevenoaks.

Chapter 11: Achievement Unlocked

Cal stomped out of the testing
booth muttering under her breath. ‘Forty percent, I ask you.’

‘Bzzzt Fort YES!’

‘No I didn’t ask you.’

She slumped onto a bench in the
testing area, she’d done better last time.

Cal’s repair skill levels had
got her an exemption from the practical part of the engineering exam and the
ships systems test was quite easy. It just gave you a set of system displays
and put you in simple scenarios like how to adjust power distribution levels,
what to do in case of a fire and how to safely dump fuel and so on. All of this
could be easily be solved, the displays had big well labelled buttons and
knowing which one to press was mostly logical, if there’s a fire activate the
extinguisher system, if that doesn’t work evacuate the crew from the section,
lock the hatches and depressurise, all common sense. Common sense for a sci-fi
geek anyway.

The problem was the last part
of the engineering exam, the science test. This had to be taken in the testing
centre up on Admin one inside little darkened sound and station network proof
booths. It gave you twenty multiple-choice questions in twenty minutes followed
by a couple of little puzzles. The puzzles were OK but the not really science
techno babble questions that were defeating her, if it was actually real
physics Cal reckoned she would have done much better.

Her plan to read up on Spinward
science in the streams and follow that tutorial Carlos sent her during Saturday
daytime in the real never happened. In the morning, she had to catch up with
some work and navigate the company’s torturous expenses system to try and claim
her train fare to London back. That plus a rather long phone call with her mum over
lunch where she got the usual awkward questions like had she met any nice boys
recently had taken their toll. The mild hangover didn’t help either. So instead,
Su spent most of the afternoon slumped in front of the 2D, binge watching the
remastered Star Trek Deep Space Nine, drinking tea and eating chocolate
digestives.

Cal had found the engineering training
area via her pad, it was a little part of Dock two set aside with sims and
tutorials to help players taking the tests and had spent most of the game
morning in there. She found trying to memorise the made up science very hard, it
just didn’t want to stay put, her brain just refused to take in localised
artificial gravity theory, reactionless thrust drives and tachyon based faster
than light travel because it was just too silly.

Weren’t games supposed to be fun?
This wasn’t fun she thought.  Cal took out her frustration on her pad. In other
games, she would have just reached out to the net to get the answers, even in MoA
you could get a Tome of the Firefox for twenty gold pieces and use that to surf
the streams while still wearing your chainmail.

‘All you have to do you stupid
little toy is connect to the net,’ grumbled Cal while she pressing imaginary
buttons on her pad in frustration. ‘Just like any cheapo Indonesian fifty quid
tablet can do in its sleep, open httpsx://stream/Spinward/GDudeX#17603/videoblog103
and let me see the b$&@#% video, but you won’t will you, stupid little
piece of drek.’ Cal dropped her pad, folded her arms and glared at nothing in
particular in the deserted testing room.

‘Bleep Zrrt AAXXsss
HtteeeeeppeeeeSex colon slash slash stream slash spinward slash GDudeX hash one
seven six zero three slash videoblog one zero three YES!’

Cal looked up at the little
droid who was floating uncharacteristically still just in front of her. That
was the longest  thing it had ever said. She thought it was just mimicking her,
probably as an attempt at humour, but then a small blue light on its faceplate
started to blink.

‘Hi and welcome back to G-Dude
X’s gaming stream. It’s me, your gaming guru and around hunk master love god
G-Dude X with part one hundred and three of my gaming vblog series. Today we
are going to be looking at the engineering test in Snow Storm’s latest masterpiece
Spinward, as so many of you have messaged me asking for help with it.’

The voice was coming from her
pad. Cal quickly picked it up and stared in disbelief. A video window had opened
up and it was streaming the tutorial she had asked for, the quality was quite
poor and the colours a bit odd but it had actually accessed the internet….. or
did it.

‘Blit stop access.’

The blue light went out. ‘Beep Stoop
YES!’ The small droid went back to bobbing around the room again.

‘Whoaaaaa,’ Cal gasped. ‘We
might be onto something here, Blit resume
httpsx://stream/Spinward/GDudeX#17603/videoblog103.’

‘Brrztt Bit Rezzzooom YES!’ It
stopped dead in mid-air and the blue light came on again.

‘The test is kinda tough, but
don’t worry, the G dudemiester is here to guide you with a little help from Dreamhack
three point zero two, which you have to understand is not officially supported
by Snow Storm. I’ve got some caps from the test and have all the answers you
need.’

‘Blit stop access and come over
here you clever little thing.’

The little robot snapped out of
its trancelike state on receiving the first command and approached its master
cautiously. Before Blit could process any further requests Cal grabbed it and
held the polygonal droid close to her chest.

‘Thank you little Blit, thank
you.’ Cal was genuinely emotional. Blit went into a halting state.

‘Bzzz Ert NO! YES! NO!
bboooooooo YES! Bit bit bit NO!  Error NO! Blah Bit bit Beep YES!’ it murmured,
far more quietly than usual.

Cal searched around for somewhere
she could have some privacy, she had some experimentation to do. She found an
empty administration office, The Xeno Lifeform Registration Bureaux had closed for
lunch, so she got to work seeing just what Blit could access.

Her experiments proved that the net
access was genuine, but only to a smallish game relevant walled garden. If she
asked for the BBC or Amazon or something like that the droid simply ignored her
and carried on dancing around the room. But if she asked for Snow Storm’s site,
the official and most of the not so official Spinward streams, boards, wikis, blogs
and articles and it froze, the blue light came on and the data streamed onto
her pad.

Net access wasn’t going to be a
game changer, but was a significant quality of life improvement and should make
that stupid test a cinch. Cal wondered if Blit had any more hidden depths and
functions, but realised if it did they would only probably come out if she
uttered the exact phrase it was waiting for. Why didn’t they just ship it with
a manual she wondered. Cal also wondered if anyone else had found a droid that
could do this, she was sure hadn’t seen another bot like Blit in game so far.

The test was now easy. Blit
could fit in the booth with her ,though it took a little persuading to actually
get it inside. The self-styled dude master did have at least eighty percent of
the answers and she could even scrub the video back and forth to search for
them. She passed with a ninety percent score. Calisto Hudson was now a
qualified grade one space vessel engineer, the booth printed out a little slip
of paper as proof. Cal practically danced her way to the lifts.

The pilot training centre at
Dock one was actually quite impressive. A hanger had been set aside with a
whole shuttlecraft in the middle, various public terminals dotted around and a
number of simulator booths lining two of the walls. The booths cost twenty
credits an hour but the rest was free. It was also quite busy, many players
wanted pilot training as Jen predicted, but it wasn’t overcrowded and there was
plenty of kit to go around.

First things first, the
terminals. These went through the basic theory and principles behind space
flight in Spinward. Ships were usually nuclear fusion powered running on Helium
three, this drove a reactionless thruster for sub light travel and manoeuvring,
the more power you put into these thrusters the faster you went. The reactor
also provided power for artificial gravity but not inertial compensation as
this was mostly unnecessary given the “fact” the drives acquired velocity
without acceleration, something to do with the quantum foam it babbled.

The tutorials also detailed the
shields even the most basic craft carried, active, passive and proximity
sensors and a little on weapon systems but only a cursory mention of faster
than light travel. Apparently, they went into that fully in the navigation
training.

So your basic space opera type
space ships as found in a thousand TV shows, games and books that made
interstellar travel only slightly more difficult than driving to Tesco’s for
the weekly shop. Cal was a touch disappointed, but one thing she found interesting
was the fact that ships were controlled completely manually. AI or even dumb computers
were not allowed to drive space ships or fire or even aim their weapons, safety
regulations apparently. Everything was stick and rudder, so it was practically
World War II aircraft in space.

Fighting the urge to just jump
in a simulator and start flying, Cal followed the tutorial as it went on to
detail pre-flight checks, as these would be part of the pilot qualification
test. The terminal downloaded a guide onto her pad and directed her to the
shuttle in the middle of the hanger. The Caddy class type one orbital transfer
vehicle, to give it its full name, was half the size of the Jester and not super
luminal capable but the controls and principles it used turned out to be very
similar.

The guide pointed out the major
systems and things she needed to check before launch, it turned out kicking the
tires was part of official procedure, so she gave them a tap. The guide then directed
her to go inside and started pointing out the major systems and the control
layouts. The pilot and co-pilots seats were side by side, unlike the Jester’s,
but pretty much everything else was very similar, standardised control layouts
were a thing.

Cal, to her surprise, found she
quite enjoyed going through the tutorial. Things she’d missed or didn’t
understand on the Jester started to make sense and she liked the amount of
thought and detail that had gone into the ships in Spinward. They systems were
all your standard soft sci-fi clichés, but they were well-designed clichés and it
was all actually quite elegant if you ignored the techno babble. Snow Storm had
really made the effort and this appealed to her nerd self greatly.

‘Right that’s the theory done,
let’s go fly,’ Cal announced as she walked over to a free simulator booth.

‘Vrrtt Frryy Fryyy YES!’
answered Blit, but Cal wasn’t really listening.

The sim booths contained a pilot’s
char and a now familiar looking set of controls. Cal got in, adjusted the chair
and pulled the door shut .The dark interior of the booth immediately lit up and
it took on the appearance of the interior of small shuttle craft she’d just
been looking at.

Well sort of, everything
appeared a bit low res and slightly blocky with a plastic sheen, the graphics
actually looked like, well, graphics, almost as if they were done on her old
PlayStation five. The game was obviously capable of rendering perfectly real
looking images, so why this? To make it feel like a sim perhaps or possibly to
go with the whole retro futuristic aesthetic the game had Cal supposed. She
selected the basic flight tutorial from the menu.

‘Hi I’m virtual flight instructor
Bob and I will be guiding you on our basic flight tutorial.’

A plasticky looking avatar in a
blue jumpsuit had materialised into co-pilot seat. It gave Cal a bit of that
old uncanny valley feeling, but that left after a while. Bob turned out to be a
good teacher and thankfully, eternally patient, even after the third time Cal
crashed the ship during docking.

Cal had lost track of time in
the simulator, after a couple of miss starts and the odd crash or three, she
found she was really getting the hang of the controls and started to speed
through the tutorials. After completing the full suite Bob went through a
simulated pilot test with her. She aced it.

Having finished the basic flight
tutorials Cal started diving deeper into the menus and found the ones she was
looking for, combat training. The simulated cabin morphed into that of a single
seat fighter, a CFF Navy TLF-105 Shrike it called itself and before her was a Star
Carrier’s launch tube. Cal looked to the side, someone in a brightly coloured
space suit was giving her the thumbs up, Cal gave them a little salute in acknowledgement.
The crew person saluted back and then pointed down the launch tube, Cal got the
message and thumbed the launch button. She shot out of the Carrier at over nine
hundred.

Fighter training was far more
fun than the flying the shuttle, the little Shrike was fast and sensitive on
the controls and it brought a pair of laser cannons and a centre line rail gun
to the party. Cal quickly got used to the combat HUD and systems, shield
balancing, when to use active and passive sensors, switching active scan to
active track and when to use and how to aim each of the weapon systems. Centre
line targeting for the lasers, following the funnel site to lead the rail gun
rounds and so on. This wasn’t World War II in space, this was something a bit
later, like a 50s or 60s jet fighter, the Shrike felt a lot like the Mig-21 she
used to like flying on her Dad’s old pre-dream VR sim rig.

Dogfighting with packs of GDS Tempests
and CCS Phantoms got Cal in the zone, she had no idea how long she spent fighting
off the enemy faction’s forces, but when she climbed out of the Sim she found
the lights in the hanger far too bright and she was shaking slightly with an adrenaline
crash. Shuttling cargo in the Jester was going to be a bit dull after that she
realised, but perhaps it will make her enough cash to get a fighter. Cal
started making end game plans.

The first part of the pilot test
was another multiple choice theory test up in Admin deck one again, but she
passed this one first time without Blit’s net access. The second part of the was
a practical flight test, these had to be pre booked and paid for, this was done
in another of those dreary admin offices with their queues and drone like
staff. The next available type two test slot was tomorrow and the price was
most of her remaining cash balance the unblinking Sub administrator told her. This
didn’t bother Cal, she just tapped the desk to confirm and walked out still
smiling, stars spinning in her eyes.

On the day of the test Cal
arrived at assigned Large Bay 1-03-B five minutes early and alone, Jen wasn’t
online yet and she’d left Blit in the Jester, she didn’t need the distraction.

The bay was locked so she stood
outside the door going though in her head all the little bits on pieces. When
to use the rear view cameras, when to talk to the flight controllers, when to
turn on navigation lights and so on. She’d spent the previous hour or so re-going
through the boring stuff like that in the training room, the pre flights and
going through systems and procedures and so on. Cal was confident about the
actual flying but was a little less sure about all the little details an
examiner would be looking for.

The five minutes felt like five
hours. Cal felt nervous, facing down dragons was less scary than this.

‘Calisto Hudson I presume, I am Administrator
Lewis and I will be your flight examiner today, please follow me.’

Cal almost jumped, the
administrator had seemingly appeared from nowhere. She followed the examiner
down into the now unlocked bay. She tried to make some friendly small talk but got
shut down immediately.

The bay was significantly larger
than the one the Jester sat in with four small to medium craft parked in it. This
is probably why they call it a large bay then she thought. At this point she noticed
what the administrator was wearing, it was in a space suit, light grey and
heavy looking with reflective stripes over it with a backpack. She carried her bubble
helmet under her arm.

‘One question please, why
exactly are you wearing a space suit?’ asked Cal.

‘The wearing of protective vacuum
suits while monitoring tests of new pilots is standard safety procedure. Now
please keep the questions to the minimum and follow directives when they are
given,’ the examiner replied.

This didn’t help with Cal’s nerves.
The examiner walked over to a line painted on the decking and pointed out a
particular craft, a Caddy like the one in the training centre.

‘Please read out loud the
registration number of that craft.’

‘OT-ZZPA-3892-1401-BK,’ Cal
replied, slightly taken back. Why was she been asked to do that, some sort of identification
or eye test?  You could hardly miss the registration numbers on the shuttles
and hers and everyone else’s eyesight in game was perfect. The examiner didn’t
appear to react but instead walked over to another craft.

‘This is LR-ZZPA-6314-1302-AS
and is the craft we will be using for this test. Please prepare it for launch
following normal operating procedures.’ The examiner had a particularly
monotone voice.

This wasn’t the Caddy. It was a
significantly larger craft, slightly longer than Jester, but narrower with
slightly more streamlined shape. Cal was pretty sure this type of vessel was called
a Packhorse and they were a kind of long range heavy lift shuttle. She was also
pretty sure she hadn’t flown one of these in the sim.

Oh, Cal had realised why, this
must be a type two vessel like the Jester and it we are using it because I’d
asked for a type two test didn’t I. She mentally gave herself a slap, all the
training she’d done was on the smaller type ones. Don’t panic don’t panic she
told herself, the controls are standardised, everything should be the same,
it’s just a little bigger that’s all, we can do this. Her self-reassurances
weren’t doing any good at calming the knot of fear in her stomach.

‘Yes of course,’ Cal replied
nervously and started her walk around.

She found a couple of remove
before flight tags that had been left in, presumably to trip her up, had a good
look down the engines drive tunnel and in the undercarriage wells like she’d
been taught and finally did the obligatory tire kick. One of the tires actually
felt a bit soft, she would note that in the flight log.

Finding the right panel to open
the boarding ramp was harder. Cal didn’t actually know where it was on this
ship. It took her a minute to find, something she was sure she would be marked
down for.

‘Exterior examination complete,
craft appears launch ready,’ she informed to examiner, who once again appeared
to show no reaction good or bad and instead simply walked inside.

Cal followed and walked towards
the bow, where she assumed the cockpit would be. It was and it closely
resembled that of the training ships which was of some relief, though it did
appear to have a couple of extra control panels. She had a quick glance at them
and determined they were of almost certainly the controls for the FTL drive and
she wouldn’t need them in the test, good.

She took the right hand seat,
buckled in and started the pre-flight diagnostics. The examiner took the left,
buckled in as well and then put her helmet on. Cal shot her a worried glance.

‘Standard procedure,’ answered the
examiner, perhaps understanding Cal’s concern. ‘Now please continue your
pre-flight. When it is complete inform me.’

The diagnostics reported a couple
of ambers. Certain parts of the drive train would need servicing after thirty
more flight hours, nothing that should stop the test. She noted this and the
tire pressure issue she’d noticed in the flight log.

‘Pre-flight complete, ship ready
for flight,’ Cal announced.

‘Thank you Ms Hudson. Now in
your own time please initiate the launch procedure and exit the station,’
droned the examiner, not even looking at her.

Cal went through the official
launch procedure in her head quickly, then searched around the cockpit for a
headset after she realised she’d forgotten to put one on. There was one in a
cubbyhole, she clipped it to her ear. Her hands, moved slowly and deliberately
over the controls as she powered up the manoeuvring thrusters and put the main
drive on standby, after which she switched over to internal gravity. This sent
a slight wobble though the ship, but that’s what it always seemed to do.

She checked the external cams and
then instructed the bay to depressurise. Lights and sirens flashed in the bay
and a recorded voice gave a countdown, tracking the seconds before the bay was
to be vented. There wasn’t actually anybody in the bay to warn and there was a
sensors that would’ve aborted the sequence if there was, but Cal surmised you
do actually have to be careful with a hard vacuum, it being totally lethal and
all that. That lead to a train of thought of exactly what would happen if you
did encounter a hard vacuum without a space suit, given the games higher than
normal pain settings and dedication to realism in these areas. She figured it
wouldn’t be very pleasant.

The final depressurisation alarm
brought Cal back to the task in hand. She turned the bay’s internal gravity off
and hit the last switch to open the main doors. These started rolling back silently
accompanied by more flashing lights. A couple of taps to the hat switch on her
flight stick lifted the ship a meter off the deck and she retracted the
undercarriage.

‘Bay depressurised and local
gravity is off, gear is up and locked and we have green lights across the board,’
she announced. The examiner still didn’t respond or even look at her. This
wasn’t reassuring. Cal tapped her headset. ‘Upsilon Carinae Gateway Control this is shuttle LR-ZZPA-6314-1302-AS
requesting launch clearance from bay 1-03-B.’ The comm added the cleep noise on
the end.

Station control responded almost
immediately. ‘Shuttle LR-ZZPA-6314-1302-AS this is Upsilon Carinae Gateway Control, you are clear for
launch.’

‘Thank you Upsilon Carinae Gateway Control,
shuttle launching.’

Cal took a deep breath, well
this is it she thought and gently applied forward thrust. The shuttle edged its
way out into space.

The simulator, or to be more
exact, the simulator within the simulator didn’t do space justice, so many
stars. Clouds and light pollution in the real meant she could often only barely
find Orion’s belt or The Plough in Hasting’s night sky, but here, Oh my gawd,
there were thousands upon thousands, the view was spectacular. Cal marvelled at
it open mouthed.

‘Please come to course one three
seven by six two, speed two hundred,’ requested the examiner, who sounded quite
bored.

‘Oh yes, of course.’ Cal
reminded herself that she was here to pass the test, not admire the view. The
craft responded sluggishly to the controls and getting it up to two hundred
required seventy-five percent thrust, it was nothing like the fighters she’d
spent so much time on in the sim.

The test continued for over half
an hour. The examiner asked her to perform several flight manoeuvres including
course changes, formation flight, docking with a satellite and an emergency
retro thrust. Cal thought she had done OK at these but the big slow ship didn’t
help and the examiner showed no reaction to her flying at all, which helped even
less.

The examiner’s last instruction
had put her on a heading back to the station. Without prompting, Cal asked the
control for clearance and a heading when they got to the twenty kilometre mark.
Landing lights came on at five kilometres and she came to a gently stop
relative to the bay one hundred and five meters out. She signalled for the bay doors
to open.

The doors were almost fully open
before the examiner spoke again. ‘In your own time please perform a reverse
docking procedure.’

Bastard thought Cal, reverse
docking is five times harder than regular docking. After rotating the ship one
eighty with the thrusters, she activated the rear view cameras. Cal still
wasn’t used to the larger crafts slow responding controls and the fact she now
had to do things backwards made it far harder, plus for some reason the docking
bay’s doors seemed smaller this time, but that was probably just in her head.

Cal slowly, possibly too slowly,
backed the ship into the bay. When the craft finally settled on its landing
gear she let out a huge sigh of relief, she’d been on less stressful mythic
level raids. The examiner still hadn’t dropped her poker face when she asked
Cal to perform the shutdown sequence and exit the vehicle.

The examiner followed her down
the ramp in what seemed like slow motion, only after reaching the deck did she
remove her helmet. ‘Please wait a minute while the results are processed,’ informed
the examiner while she typed something into her arm-mounted pad with agonising
slowness.

That was one of the longest
minutes in Cal’s life.

‘Ms Hudson, your reverse docking
was quite slow, you missed a signal when joining a main space lane and some of
your manoeuvres could have been smoother, but your overall flight score is
sufficient for the CFF flight license bureau.’

‘Does that mean I’ve passed?’

‘Yes it means you have passed.
Calisto Hudson you are now qualified to pilot type one, type two and type three
C and D space vessels at sub luminal velocity.’ The examiner passed her a slip
of paper. ‘Good day.’

‘YES!’ Cal waved the paper in
the air and did her little dance, she was now qualified to fly space ships. Did
that now make her officially an astronaut? Yes it did she decided. It also
meant she could now fly the Jester.

Cal ran most of the way back the
her ship. The lift played Fly Me to the Moon as it took her down to her bay’s
level, she was going to do that now, she was going fly to the moon, well if New
Dakota had a moon anyway. The corridor back to the small bay was tidy and unmarked,
like the barrier the damaged junction box had never been there.

‘Hi Jen,’ Cal shouted out from
the lift platform.

Jen was standing on top of the
Jester‘s rear section with Mule, watching the robot work. It looked like it was
welding something. Jen turned, lifted up her sunglasses and gave her a little
wave. ‘Hello Darling, Mr Mule and I are just finishing patching up the hull, be
down in a sec.’

Cal had got to the ladder by the
right side airlock when she heard a shrill beeping sound. The crane mounted the
bay ceiling was bringing down the Mule from the top of the ship. Jen was
standing on its flatbed, one had holding on the droid’s lifting arm, the other
working her pad.

‘Oh I wondered how you got up
there,’ remarked Cal.

‘Well your little demonstration
with the APIs got me thinking, turns out lots of things have them, including
the bay’s crane.’

‘Ahh, that’s one way to do it, I
would have just turned the gravity down.’

‘Oh yeah, why didn’t I think of
that? We can do that sort of thing in science fiction can’t we. Anyway how are
you, that big smile on your face is telling me you might have some good news.’

‘I PASSED,’ Cal shouted and gave
Jen a hug without thinking, which didn’t matter, Jen’s hug permission settings looked
like they were permanently on accept.

‘Clever you,’ Jen answered with
a big smile. ‘Well done, I’ve heard the tests are really hard.’

‘I did have some trouble with
the engineering science test and the pilot flight exam was really nerve
racking.’

They walked while Cal went into
some detail about the piloting test, including the eye test, after which Jen
bent over laughing.

‘Hahh ha haa haa…. Snow Storms
UK office must have developed that module.’

Cal was a bit confused.’Er Why?’

‘Oh Darling you’ve never taken a
test for a manual car have you.’

‘No, who needs to drive manually
these days or even can afford to?’ Cal was still a bit confused, even her
parents old Tesla could drive itself perfectly well.

‘Don’t worry, anyway I’m glad
you passed, let me get you something to celebrate with.’

They had made it into the ships
lounge by then. Jen disappeared into the galley for a minute while Jen settled
on the sofa. She returned with two mugs and very deliberately put the “Galaxy’s
Best Pilot” mug in front of Cal.

‘Sorry no glasses, but drink up,
I think you might like it.’

Cal has a sip, it was fizzy and
sweet and bitter all at the same time. ‘Nice, what is it?’

‘I haven’t thought of a name for
it yet, it’s my take on a Champagne Supernova, but I’ve had to adapt it to what
we can get in game. Anyway back to the plot, so you’re now an ace pilot, what
about the engineering exam?’

‘Ah that, I failed it twice, it
just didn’t make sense to me, so I erm, cheated.’

‘You cheated?’ Jen’s eyes were
wide open. ’How? Those testing booths are secured and you can’t write down
notes or anything.’

‘Notes?’

‘I tried, but everything you
write disappears after a couple of minutes. So how? Some sneaky hack? You Kirked
the Kobayashi Maru or something?’

‘Not exactly, I had some help.’
Cal grinned and looked around for her little droid. ‘Blit where are you, get
your little polygonal arse in here.’

Blit flew out of Jen’s cabin. ‘Booop
Blit beep beep beep YES!’

‘Now watch this.’ Cal reeled off
URL for the tutorial and Blit froze as before. Cal picked up her pad and showed
it to an open mouthed Jen.

‘HOLLY FUCK!’ Jen exclaimed
loudly in a very masculine sounding voice. She coughed and composed herself.
‘You can access the net?’ she asked, back in her usual quiet breathy voice.

‘Well Blit can, I just have to
ask it to open or access a URL and it freezes and that little blue light comes
on, see.’  Cal pointed out the LED on Blit’s fascia. ‘And then the content just
streams to my pad, quality’s a bit poor and we are limited to just game related
sites, it ignores everything else, but yes, we are back online. It’s
interactive too, look you can follow links and scrub through content.’

‘Oh my, this could change a lot
of things. Have you tried sending content out?’

‘No, not sure if it can do
that.’

‘Well if you can follow links
and so on, then you are sending HTTPSX commands back out to the net, so it has
to be two way. You know I have an idea.’ Jen explained it to Cal, it seemed to
make sense. They both got to work writing the Spin script.

Cal sat on the sofa in the
Jester’s Lounge, staring at Blit whose blue light was blinking.

‘What do I say?’ asked Cal.

‘Anything you like, this is just
a test.’

‘Erm, Hello, world?’ Cal gave a
wave.

Jen smiled and then took Blit in
her hands and tilted him around, panning across the room, the little droid
stayed unusually silent. ‘Ok that’ll be enough’ said Jen and let Blit go. Cal
nodded and tapped an icon on her pad.

‘Bibble zrt zrt zrt YES!’ Blit
started bobbing again.

‘Well he doesn’t seem any worse
for the experience, how about you?’ Jen inquired.

‘I’ll survive. No errors reported
from the script, do you think it worked?’

‘Only one way to find out.’

‘OK.’ Cal tapped a different icon
on her pad. Blit froze again, but this time a window opened up on her pad playing
a video from Jen’s personal Spinward stream. Cal lifted up the pad and showed
Jen.

‘What do I say?’

‘Anything you like, this is just
a test.’

‘Erm, Hello, world?’

The pad was playing back the
video Blit recorded. They had coded a script to upload his video stream to the
net and another to play it back.They had recorded a video from inside Snipward,
up to five minutes ago they hadn’t realised this was possible. Most other
games, phone, VR or Dream, let you record vids from your point of view, it was
usually a standard option and tens of thousands of people across the globe
streamed their game play for fun, profit and attention, but Spinward had
omitted that option, for reasons of immersion the developers claimed. This
changed that.

‘So is this a bug or exploit, or
are we just amazing hackers?’ questioned Cal.

‘I don’t think so, just look
around, Snow Storm really does know what they are doing, something like this
wouldn’t have slipped through. I think this is an Easter egg, something for
people to find. You can record and send video out, but you have to do it in a way
that fits the games theme, like using a camera drone.’ Jen pointed at Blit.

‘Donnzz  Blit Bep Bep Beep YES!’

‘See, he agrees. Anyway I’ll
give the video a good going over tomorrow in the real.’

‘You know a bit about video?’

‘I dabble. Oh I nearly forgot
something.’ And with that she disappeared into the machine shop.

Cal twiddled her thumbs for
second before remembering that other thing she had a thing to do, before they
got distracted with the video.

‘Fish you there?’

‘Good day Owner Hudson.’ Fish’s smooth
voice just seemed to emanate from the walls.

‘Hi Fish, would you be so kind
as to check my external records for qualifications.’

‘Checking…. Qualifications
found, Pilot license for type one, type two and type three C and D space
vessels and grade one space vessel engineering certificate.’

‘Is this enough for the position
of Captain?’

‘Requirements are met Owner
Hudson, do you wish me to record you as Captain in the ship’s manifest?’

‘Yes, most definitely Yes.’

‘Recorded. Hello Captain
Hudson.’

A shower of sparks erupted
around Cal’s head and a fanfare went off. She wasn’t expecting that. Jen had
returned from the machine shop holding something when she saw the sparks.

‘Someone’s birthday?’

‘No not mine, its, Oh…’ Cal had
spotted the message in her HUD.

Starship Captain Achievement
Unlocked: You may now use the title Captain in game and on official Spinward
forums and streams.

‘Achievement unlocked, I’m now
officially a Starship captain,’ replied Cal with a huge smile on her face.

‘CaCaCa Ting beep YES!’

‘Congratulations Honey, her take
this, Captain’s day present.’ Jen placed a jacket on Cal’s shoulders.

‘Captain’s day, is that a
thing?’

‘It is now, I’ve decided. So
what do you think? I thought we could do with some sort of company now we are
in business, so I fabbed us a couple of little things.’

Cal inspected the jacket, it was
cropped, heavy and made out of dark brown leather like material with a fleecy
lining and an offset red stripe ran down the back just like the Jester had. Cal
liked it, she liked it even more when she brought up the stats, it was
armoured, heavily armoured.

‘Thank you it’s wonderful.’ Cal
put her arms around Jen for another little hug. She then stood back and put her
arms into the jacket’s selves. It fitted perfectly, but clothing in game always
did. ‘We are in business then, well apart from the holes in the hull, the
broken drives and the lack of a navigator,’ said Cal with a slight sigh.

Fish pipped up. ‘Do you wish to
replace Navigator Harrington on the ships manifest Captain Hudson?’

‘Navigator Harrington?’ Now it
was Cal’s turned to be surprised.

‘Oh yes that little test, all
done,’ Jen replied dismissively.

‘Congratulations, clever you,
why didn’t you tell me, was it hard?’

‘Harder than I would have liked.
I failed it the first few times as they had me doing quadratic equations and
all sorts. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to steal your thunder. Oh
and the hull’s fixed too, that was the last panel we were fitting when you
arrived.’

‘You have been busy, did you have
to buy any parts for the hull?’

‘Made them all. Mr Fish was kind
enough to provide the specs, I printed them out using the materials we
recovered from that barricade and Mr Mule fitted them, teamwork.’

‘So we are nearly there, just
the drives to go.’ smiled Cal.

‘About the drives…’

‘Don’t tell me you fixed them as
well?’ Jen was full of surprises today.

‘Not fixed per say, but I do
have that part for the sub light drive. I didn’t bring it out, it’s rather
heavy.’

Jen led Cal to the machine shop,
on the floor was a slim plain looking metal box about half a meter high.

‘Eh volia, a NNQ-764a Quantum
foam traction sub driver, condition 92%.’

‘Wow, I’m running out of thanks
Jen, those things cost a fortune.’

‘Not this one, it’s actually
your original component, repaired.’

‘Repaired? I thought that was
too high a level for you?’

‘For me yes, but I got Mr Mule
to pull it out from the engine while you were gone so I could have a good look
at it. Turns out the most of it was actually fine and only a few of the sub components
that were wrecked.’

‘So you just fabbed them?’

‘Still too high level I’m
afraid, No I went down to the Municipal Fabricating bay and used my charms on a
few of higher level crafters down there to help me, for gratis,’ Jen replied
coyly.

Cal noticed Jen’s jumpsuit was
unzipped and rather a lot of her ample cleavage was on display. ‘You didn’t
have sleep with them or anything?’ she asked, a bit concerned.

‘Oh no, nothing like that. Yes,
there were a few hugs involved and one or two of them might have misconstrued
my naturally warm and affectionate nature as some kind indication that a closer
liaison could possibly happen if they helped me, but if they did that was their
problem. Actually one of them was quite cute though.’ Jen had an evil little
grin on her face.

‘And none of these boys you
flirt with ever realise you’re not quite all….’

‘Oh perhaps some of them do, but
not every one finds that a turn off you know. Oh and it wasn’t all boys
either.’ The grin got bigger.

‘You’re incorrigible, you know that.’

‘Absolutely. But not totally, I
did craft them a few of items of clothing in return and paid for most of the
materials myself, ‘Jen admitted. ’So can you fit it back into the engine? Mr
Mule said he couldn’t.’

Cal inspected the box, yes, with
her new skills she could fit it. It took two of them to lift it into the cramp
engineering bay and put it back in its slot and Cal had it wired back it back
into the drive system in twenty minutes. They now had functioning space ship.

The two of them walked over to
the bridge with a certain amount of excitement and took their respective seats.

‘Fish, can you do a level four
diagnostic and tell me any parts that are non-functional.’ She looked back to
Jen. ‘You have to be careful what you ask for, if aren’t specific Fish will
detail every single part on the ship.’

Fish came back with the answer
in a minute. ‘Super light drive damaged, condition seventeen percent, major
component Exotic matter lens non-functional, non-repairable. Other systems are
nominal.’

‘Can we fly at sub light
speeds?’

‘Ship capable of sub light
flight.’ Fish sounded confident.

‘Shall we give it a go?’

‘Guess so, but take it slow,
power it all up bit by bit perhaps?’

‘Ok.’ Cal searched around the
cockpit, there had to be one of those little things around here somewhere. ‘Ah
got you.’ She found the earpiece under the seat and clipped it on, then brought
up the engineering displays. ‘Hey Mule, can you hear me?’

‘CONFIRMED,’ boomed out of the
cockpit speakers.

‘Ok take the lift down, unplug
the umbilical and stow it, then get back on board and retract the lift.’

‘CONFIRMED. Performing assigned
task.’

After a couple of minutes the
power display showed the ship was on internal power. ‘Energy cells are at one
hundred percent, we have green lights across the board and are go for reactor
start,’ announced Cal rather officially.

‘That’s wonderful Darling.’ Jen sounded
like she was trying not to sarcastic, that was probably hard for her.

Cal went through the start-up
sequence. ‘Ignition cell charging, fuel pump on, magnetic containment ready, heat
converters on, safety interlocks off.’ A green progress bar crossed the reactor
status display accompanied by a severe drain on the energy banks. It hit the
end and “Ignition Ready” flashed across the screen.

Cal was excited, she loved this
sort of thing. ‘Here goes nothing,’ she said and held down the fusion start
button.

A deep rumble and vibration went
through the ship, continuing for several over long seconds before there was a
deep VOOOOMMMMM sound from the stern. Power bars started to rise on the
display.

‘And we have nuclear fusion. Containment
is steady, power flow is steady, bringing it up to operational levels.’ Cal
slowly pushed the sliders up, the power levels followed in suite.

Then a loud bang echoed through
the ship and the lights went out, accompanied by a smell of burning.

‘Er I’m guessing that wasn’t supposed
to happen,’ said Jen.

‘Bop Bop NO!’

‘No it wasn’t,’ Cal snapped.

The lights and the displays came
back on slowly. The reactor had gone into emergency shut down and red lights
were flashing over the distribution grid display, it looked like a couple of
power relays had blown.

‘Fish you there?’ Cal asked.

‘I am here Captain, the ship has
suffered a major power failure.’

‘I gathered. Why did it go bang?
I thought everything was fixed.’

Fish went quiet for a few
seconds before replying. ‘Power relay 07-B has failed, condition red, twenty-one
percent. Power relay 13-C has failed condition red, twenty-three percent.’

‘What was there condition before
we powered up?’

Fish paused again for another
couple of seconds. ‘Condition amber forty-one percent on both parts.’

‘So they were on the verge of
failure.’

‘Yes’

‘And you didn’t tell me?’

‘You only asked for the list parts
and systems that had actually failed Captain Hudson.’

Cal’s hung her head, bloody
computers. ‘Ok please list me all parts with a condition of less than sixty
percent that could fail and are necessary for sub light travel and don’t read
them out, just put the list on that display.’ Cal waved at one of the
holographic cockpit screens, she didn’t want to hear the smug computers voice
right now.

She looked back at Jen who was
staring out the cockpit twirling her hair. ‘Don’t say anything.’

‘I wouldn’t dream of it
Darling.’

It took them another couple of
hours to replace or repair every component or sub system on Fish’s list. Fortunately
most were minor components Cal could fix or they had spares for or Jen could
fabricate but one but a sensitive part of the reactor’s containment system that
required a trip to Blue deck.

This time Cal went through the
full diagnostics and pre-flight checks before she started up the reactor while
Jen disappeared into her cabin, she said she had to change. Cal was
double-checking her engineering displays, everything was reporting green and at
was least sixty percent condition when Jen returned.

‘Everything’s green and…. Oh my
gawd what are you wearing?’ gasped Cal.

‘What, this little thing? It’s
just a skin suit.’ An all-enveloping suit hugged Jen’s improbable figure in
exactly the way spandex doesn’t. It appeared more painted on than stretched
around with a thick and heavy looking collar around her neck and a small streamlined
pack on her back.

‘I can see that, doesn’t leave
much to the imagination does it? You do understand we’re just going on a little
flight around the station, not going to visit a fetish club. ’

‘Of course I know that, don’t worry,
it’s a body pressure skin suit, a kind of space suit, keeps you safe from hypoxia
and your eyeballs freezing up and all that nasty stuff if we lose air pressure.
Safety first and all that.’

‘Ok I’ll let you off that bit.
But does it have to look like that.’ The suit was a very dark blue colour with
a high very gloss finish. ’And it’s not going to do much good if you don’t have
a helmet to go with it’.

‘The shiny outer material, oh
it’s all had left when I fabbed it.’

Cal had heard that one before.

‘And as for the helmet, well
just watch.’ Jen tapped the collar of the suit and what looked like a high tech
motorcycle helmet unfolded and wrapped itself around her head in a couple of
seconds, only leaving her eyes visible through a small tinted visor. ‘With this
on I have air for three hours, communications and the suit has built in gecko
grips and temperature control. I could go for a spacewalk if I wanted.’ She
tapped the helmet twice and it folded itself back in to the collar in a way
that was probably not possible for real matter in the physical world.

‘Oh… and that’s why you had your
hair cut?’ Jen’s main of long blonde hair had gone, replaced with a choppy dark
red bob.

‘I had it done yesterday and you
only just noticed!’ Jen was forlorn. ‘I loved the long blonde waves but it just
wasn’t practical for outer space, so I had them chopped.’

Cal lowered her head and
apologised, ‘Sorry Jenista, you look great.’ She realised Jen was actually
taking the whole flying in space thing quite seriously, in her own special way
of course. Her suit was actually a good idea, though Jen was now the second
person who insisted on wearing a space suit when she was flying and she’d only
had two. She thought about getting out that suit in the locker by the left airlock
to wear herself, but remembered it was a thick heavily armoured thing, she
probably couldn’t even get back in the pilot seat wearing it.

‘It’s Ok, Hun, I know it’s a bit
erm, eyecatching but you know me, I can’t help it.’

‘No worries, yes it’s very you
and it’s actually a good idea, safety first and all that.’

‘Thank you, Hun,’ Jen smiled. ‘I
could run one off for you if you like? I’d have to use the municipal fabber but
I think I have enough materials left for another.’

‘Nah that’s OK. It’s not really
my look anyway.’

The second attempt at starting
the reactor worked perfectly. They left it running for five minutes at operational
power just to double check. Cal followed the book for the take-off procedure,
the long list of things to do seemed a little unnecessary on the flight
training, but now it was her ship and she wanted everything to be perfect. Plus
there was still a worry about the repairs they had done, would everything hold
together?

‘Ship is sealed, reactor is
stable and power levels are good. Manoeuvring thrusters are online, main sub
light drive is on standby, we are on internal gravity and everything is green
across the board, everyone ready to go?’

‘Grtt Grrt NO! Beep Boop YES!
YES!’

‘CONFIRMED.’

‘Flight Systems are fully
functional Captain Hudson.’

‘Everything looks absolutely
lovely from here Cal dearest, do you want me to do the honours with the bay?’

‘It’s all yours,’ replied Cal.

Jen grinned and got to work on the
bay’s controls from her console, locking it down, venting the atmosphere and signalling
the main doors to open.

The warning lights above the space
door stopped flashing when they’d got to the fully open position and a series
of holographic beacons came on in pairs extending out of the bay into the dark,
a virtual runway was inviting them into the void.

‘Upsilon Carinae Gateway Control this is light
freighter Script for a Jester’s Tear requesting launch permission from small
bay 4-07 A.‘

‘Roger Script for a Jester’s Tear,
this is Upsilon Carinae Gateway
Control, your launch corridor is clear, permission granted. Have a nice flight.’

‘Roger control, cya on the flip
side.’

Cal turned her head to face Jen
and Blit who was bobbing around at the back of the bridge. ’OK, if any of you
has any second thoughts, tough luck, we’re doing this.’

She grinned and turned to face
forward, did one last check on the systems statuses and tapped the hat switch to
lift the Jester off the deck.

‘Proximity Alert, Proximity
Alert, Proximity Alert,’ the console shouted at them.

The Jester didn’t gently rise
off the deck as Cal expected, leapt was a better term, yes leapt, leapt like it
had a rocket under its bum. She looked up, the bay’s ceiling was only a couple
of meters above her head.

‘Opps, sorry, me bad, the controls
are more sensitive than I expected,’ apologised Cal to her passengers and crew
sheepishly.

Jen said nothing, though a sarcastic
comment was probably just under her tongue.

The tiniest tap on the controls
brought them down to take off height and a twist of the control stick rotated
them smoothly though one eighty to face the now open space doors. When they
were lined up with the exit Cal hit the switch to retract the landing gear, it
lifted quickly with a whirr and then a loud clunk which reverberated throughout
the ship. She hit a couple more buttons, which lit up green after a moment. ‘Main
sub light drive on-line, right here we go.’ And with that she edged the
throttle forward.

The Jester accelerated into
space. Leaving the station Cal looked around, the view was just as spectacular
as before, no, not as good, better. She looked to the right, one of the systems
suns, A or B, she wasn’t sure, was rising over New Dakota, it caught the upper
atmosphere forming a rim light. She watched in awe as the sun slowly rose,
chasing away the terminator from the planet below.

‘Er Calisto, you still with us
honey?’

Cal spun her head around. ‘Eh
what, sorry.’

‘We lost you there for a minute
space girl, the view’s lovely but there’s this rather large ship directly in
front of us.’

‘Oh, yes, sorry, I kinda zoned
out there for a second.’ Cal made a quick course correction to avoid a
collision.

‘Yes, you do that every now and
then.’

‘I do?’

‘Yes you do.’ Jen was right, she
did.

‘Oh, sorry, wont’ happen again.
So shall we see what the Jester can do?’

Cal pushed the throttle up seventy
five percent. The Jester punched forward, the velocity readout on the heads up spun,
one fifty, two fifty, three fifty, four hundred, four forty, four fifty, four
sixty, four sixty five. On seventy five percent thrust the Jester had just left
every craft bar the fighters Cal had tried, sim or live, for space dust.

‘The Jester’s a little faster
than I expected.’

Jen brought up the rear view
camera, the station was disappearing rapidly. ‘Whoa, yes that’s proper fast, I
thought this was a just a little tramp freighter.’

‘Well, it’s not as fast as a
fighter, but yeah, it’s no slouch and we’re only at seventy five percent, I’ll
give it full power.’ Cal pushed the throttle into the stop and the Jester
surged, velocity started gaining again, their heads would have snapped back
into the headrests if the acceleration wasn’t reactionless. Velocity eventually
topped out at six hundred and twenty in complete disregard to Newtonian
physics.

‘The front line fighter I played
with on the sim could do nine eighty at full boost. We’re doing nearly two
thirds that in a space transit, did your friends get a critical or something
rebuilding that engine component.’

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘So it’s meant to be this fast?
Fish, what’s the Jester’s maximum velocity?’ asked Cal.

‘Maximum sustainable sub light
velocity at balanced power distribution and unladen is six hundred and twenty,’
the computer replied.

‘So I guess can’t go as fast
full of cargo, but hey, no complaints at the moment, I like this, the Jester is
quick. Lets’ see how it turns at this speed.’ Cal flicked the side stick to
maximum deflection. The Jester rolled fast and stars spun.

‘Arrhhhh, sick bag, sick bag,
have we got a sick bag,’ Jen cried out.

‘Controls are a touch sensitive,
sorry. Don’t think we have a bag, but I’m not actually sure we can be sick in
here, that would be gross.’

‘You’re probably right, if we
could, you would have been covered the remains of my lunch by now. I get motion
sickness in the real.’

‘Oh sorry, didn’t know, can you
manage?’

‘I’ll cope, just a little less
of the spinning please.’

‘OK less spinning, but I’m going
to put the ship through a series of fast turns, so hold on’.

The Jester could turn, even at speed
direction changes took seconds. Roll response was instant and pitch excellent
though yaw wasn’t quite so good, but Cal knew you never really needed much of that.
Vectoring was just as impressive, Cal circle could circle strafe, VIFF, counter
thrust and tail slide at speed, the Jester’s eight gimballed manoeuvring
thrusters  were practically overpowered. Angling them all backward gave an
overboost to nearly six sixty, but she had to watch there temperature gauges,
they weren’t meant to run continually.

‘You OK back there,’ Cal asked
her passenger nonchalantly.

‘Urrrrrmmmmm.’

‘Baaarrrr Barrrrrr NO! NO! NO!’

‘Well I’ll slow down for a bit
now, but I have to say, I really like how it flies, fast and responsive and the
controls are light as feather. It’s closer to a fighter than a freighter.’

‘I guess that’s why she has gun
mounts then…. ‘ Jen thought about it for a second. ’So the Jester turns out to
be fast, highly manoeuvrable, potentially armed and has a useful  hold capacity
but looks like an unassuming  quirky little ship…. So do you think its previous
owner was doing a little more than just safe cargo runs?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well let me put it this way, have
you checked for secret compartments?’

‘Oh you think? Actually, that
does make some sense. Fish does the Jester have any secret compartments?

‘All ships compartments are
listed on the schematics.’

‘So that’s a no then?’

‘All ships compartments are
listed on the schematics,’ Fish repeated.

That made Cal suspicious. ‘We’ll
do another search when we get back.’

‘Definitely,’ Jen agreed.

Cal continued to test the Jester’s
limits, but a fly past of a satellite got her thinking. ‘How fast do you think
we’re actually going?’

‘Erm quite fast, it’s hard to
tell in space though, very little frame of reference and of course all velocity
is relative anyway.’

‘True but real physics don’t really
apply in here. Look I’m going to slow down to fifty, turn and do another flyby
of that satellite we just past, it looks relatively stationary. When we pass it,
tell me how fast you think we are going.’

Cal throttled back and put the
Jester into a tight turn for a second pass.

‘That looks roughly fifty KPH to
me.’

‘Me too, you think the velocity
scale is actually kilometres per hour?’

‘That would be my guess, yes. So
we can fly at six hundred and twenty kph, that’s very fast.’

‘Well it would be down the M23,
but we’re in space and that’s nothing, it’s virtually stationary.’ Cal did some
quick calculations in her head, ‘It would take us nearly a month to get to the
moon at that rate. Apollo did it in 3 days.’

‘This planet doesn’t have a moon,
I went through the local system map in Navigation training.’

‘Well if it did have one like Earth
it would take that long, anyway the point is we’re still too slow to get
anywhere.’

‘So we definitely need the
faster than light drive then,’ replied Jen.

‘Yes, yes we do.’

They returned to the station
somewhat subdued.

Control gave docking permission
almost immediately and a heading to take them back to their bay, the landing
lights lit up as they approached and the doors started to roll open. Cal was now
sure that looked smaller from the outside and the Jester’s twitchy controls and
its bridge hanging off the right hand side of the ship didn’t help either. The
proximity alarm was blaring out during the approach, it almost drowned out
scraping noise when they passed through the doors.

‘Did we hit something?’ Jen sounded
concerned.

‘Nothing important, honest.’

‘Hull damage, one percent
condition loss, no breach,’ Fish announced.

‘See, only a scratch.’

Jen breathed a sigh of relief
when they eventually touched down. ‘It’s getting late or early in the real,
want to call it a night, day, whatever?’

‘We have a little bit longer, do
you want to give the ship a going over before you log? Fresh pair of eyes and
all that?’

‘You still think there’s
something hidden?’ Jen asked.

‘Maybe, I’ll go through the logs
and ships schematics, see if I can find anything there,’ replied Cal.

‘Sure, it’s worth a look.’

Jen unbuckled herself and went
looking while Cal dived into the low level system pages. It turned out all the
logs from previous journeys had been deleted, a standard part of the new owner
protocol Fish insisted and the floor plan schematics didn’t reveal anything
new. What she did find was the docking assist mode on the HUD, which was
something that never got mentioned in the training and the high visibility
cockpit mode, which used holograms to fill in the canopies blind spots and of
course the control sensitivity settings. Cal scolded herself, RTFM, always RTFM.

‘Calisto Honey, could you come
out here a second, something looks a bit off to me,’ Jen shouted from outside.

Cal followed her voice to the
cargo hold. The lift was down and Jen was standing on it looking up into the
bay.

‘You see anything?’

‘Dunno, maybe it’s me, but I’m
sure the end of the cargo hold doesn’t line up with the end of the ship.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The cargo bay is about a meter
short.’

A quick search of the bulkhead
revealed an access panel in the centre, which, when removed revealed an
avionics bay, Cal scanned it with her pad. ‘Looks like part of the shield
system, we have three of them, a three sixty navigational shield and a pair of extra
shields with one eighty coverage each that can be angled, I think this is ….. Wait
a moment.’

A section of it wasn’t
registering on her pad’s scanner, she could see it, a small black box attached
to one side. Cal reached into the bay ‘There’s something here, let’s just see
if I can…’

The moment she touched they
heard a hiss of releasing gas and the whirr of motors. Two large sections of
the bulkhead either side of the bay suddenly recessed and then rolled up like a
garage doors, revealing compartments behind.

‘Cool.’ Jen sounded impressed.
‘So we do have secret smuggling compartments.’

The compartments looked like
could each hold a couple of cubic metres of contraband, but they currently they
only held air.

‘Hey Fish, I thought you said all
compartments on this ship were on the schematics, what about these?’ demanded
Cal.

‘Forward secure auxiliary storage
compartments A and B are on schematic 12A section 5,’ the computer replied
confidently.

Cal brought that schematic on
her pad, sure enough the compartments were displayed. But the schematic wasn’t
a floor plan. ‘Er Fish, schematic 12A section 5 is a wiring diagram for the
water recycling and the waste management systems, why are these particular
compartments shown on there?’

‘Compartments added after
construction by previous owner, designated auxiliary waste storage.’

‘But they aren’t actually
connected to the waste system are they?’

‘Connection to system not present,
compartments must be manually loaded by crew. ‘

Jen and Cal looked at each other
knowingly, the game just loved to hide things this way. Cal tapped the black
box and the compartments powered shut. Closed you couldn’t even see a hairline
crack dividing the bulkhead and the doors.

‘So that settles it then, our
late Captain Choi wasn’t quite the honest trader she seemed and this isn’t just
an ordinary little tramp freighter.’

‘I think your right Jen. That
also explains some of the gear I found on her.’ Cal tapped her plasma carbine.’
You don’t need cannon like this unless you are into dodgy deals and meeting up with
shady characters. ‘

They closed up the avionics bay
and decided to call it a night, it had been quite an eventful day. Cal retired
to the Captain’s cabin, hung up her gun belt and lay on her bunk, stars were still
flying past her eyes.

‘Hey Jen,’ Cal shouted from her bed.
’So once we get the superluminal drive in, you interested in looking for ways
to earn a bit more credit on the side?’

‘Oh yes, that sounds a LOT more
fun than just shuttling cargo from A to B,’ shouted back Jen from her cabin.

‘Something to work on then. Good
night Jen.’

‘Good night Captain Solo.’

‘Captain Solo?’

‘Well think about it, you do
have this broken down looking  little freighter that’s actually really fast and
equipped for smuggling, you wear black trouser s with a white top and carry a big
gun, plus there’s the robot that makes bleeping noises and another with a posh
accent.’

‘The ships computer is the one
with the accent, not robot’.

‘Technicality. Still it’s pretty
close don’t you think.’

‘Guess so, all bit of a
coincidence? Or just game designers borrowing from the classics?’

‘Borrowing’s a polite word for
it.’

‘So who are you then?’

Well obviously I’m Princess Leia.
I’ll have to craft myself a brass bikini.’

‘Nah you’re not Leia, you’re my
Co-pilot, are very tall and have a lot of hair.’

‘That, oh…. Oh gawd that makes
me Chewbacca doesn’t it. Nnnargh!‘

‘Oh yes.’

‘Good night Han.’

‘Good night Chewie.’

Chapter 12:  Videodrone

Monday was another dreary Monday
with no dream games to look forward to, Su had agreed to sync her down days
with Jen, made sense if they were working together.

The day passed, as most Monday’s
do, far too slowly, work kept coming but Su made time for another run.
Unfortunately the belt of heavy rain arrived an hour earlier than her phone forecasted
and the run became a mad dash for home. A cold and wet Su sent the rest of the
day on the sofa.

Sleep came later than Su hoped,
but it did come with dreams, natural ones, odd disjointed nonsense frightening
natural ones, the memories of which always fade rapidly. Su woke with a start twelve
seconds before her alarm was due to go off, but by the time she was buttering
her toast she couldn’t quite remember why. The forced downtime for Dream Boxes
was supposed to help you regulate your natural sleeping patterns and but Su felt
she woke more refreshed from a night gaming.

The sun actually came out on
Tuesday, a senior merchandiser contacted Su and praised her work highly and on
her run she managed to almost get to the seafront before having to stop to
catch her breath. Certainly an above average day and the evening was better. Her
housemates Becky and Lynn dragged her down to Ye Olde Pumphouse in the Old Town.
She didn’t want to go at first, but it turned into a good night, they solved
all the world’s problems over two bottles of Rosé, came third in the quiz and
she got chatted up by someone quite good looking, rather fun and a gamer too. Pity
she was a girl really.

Cal got back into Spinward a bit
late. Jen was already up and about making something in the Jester’s machine
shop, so she went over to investigate.

‘Good morning Calisto, had a
nice lie in?’ inquired Jen.

‘Sort of, actually I was down
the pub a bit late, sorry.’

‘No need to apologise Love, hope
you had fun.’ Jen smiled. ‘Anyway I’ve been having a little think and I’ve got an
idea to make us some money and raise our profile a bit.’

Jen explained. She’d had a good
look at the video they’d recorded a couple of days ago. It was only 1080p, the
colours were a bit off and the view had that weird perspective you always
seemed to get from dream video, but it was nothing her suite of plugins
couldn’t fix, the video was very useable. Her plan was to make a video of them
and the ship, some establishing shots, a bit of action, long pans and so on,
just a few minutes in length and put one of those old tracks they use in the
lifts as background music. Cal wasn’t convinced and didn’t quite understand how
it would make them money.

‘Think about it, how many videos
out of Spinward have you seen? Normally by now the tubes would have millions of
clips and thousands would be streaming every second of their rat hunts, but
there’s nothing, only official stuff from Snow Storm. People don’t even know
they can do video, we shoot one, post it and we have our fifteen seconds of
fame,’ explained Jen enthusiastically.

‘But how does it actually make
us money?’

‘People will want to know how we
did it. We’ll charge them for the secret.’

‘But once the secret is out it
will be all over the boards and streams in hours.’

‘I agree, our window of
opportunity is going to be small but it could be lucrative. What do you say?’

‘It doesn’t feel right, no. Plus
I hate doing vids and selfies.’

‘Really?’ Jen looked crestfallen.
‘I can’t do it without you. Please?

‘Sorry, the answers still no.’
Cal was resolute. ‘We’ll have to earn the money for the superluminal drive the
old fashioned way, there has to be something left on this station I haven’t
shot yet.’

‘So I have go back to shaking my
tush and hustling for tips in the red zone?’

‘I suppose, but there are plenty
of regular quests you can get credits for you know.’

‘Actually I quite like the tush
shaking bit.’

Cal tutted under her breath and
returned to her cabin to gear up, she had quests to do.

‘FRACK!’ Cal stormed into the
lounge holding her pad out. ‘Look at this!’

Jen peered at her screen, it was
a message from Upsilon Carinae
Gateway Control.

Calisto Hudson,

Vessel LF-ZZPA-7691-1701-MC
“Script for a Jester’s Tear” for which you are the registered owner of was
tracked by station control at a velocity of four hundred and sixty five within
the Upsilon Carinae Gateway
station’s local docking zone. Speed in this area is restricted to two hundred.
As this is your first offense, a permanent mark on your license will not be applied
if you pay a fine of one thousand, seven hundred and fifty credits to station
admin within forty standard hours of the offense taking place.

Please note: Failure to pay
fines and obey traffic regulations may result in your vessel being impounded by
the station authorities.

Administrator Nilsson,

Upsilon Carinae Gateway Control.

‘I got a speeding ticket!’
wailed Cal. ‘And it has to be paid like now and I can’t afford it. I can barely
afford a cup of Synth caff, never mind one thousand seven hundred and fifty and
if I don’t pay they could take the ship!’ Cal was panicking.

‘I’ve still got a bit left, I
could lend you the money.’

‘Oh please.’ Cal breathed a sigh
of relief. ‘I’ll get it back to you as soon as I can, honest, you’re a life
saver Jen.’

‘There is one condition though.’

‘Oh.’

‘You do the video.’

Cal looked around at the ship,
then back to her pad and then up to Jen who had this little grin on her face.

‘Oh OK then, it’s not like I
have much choice.’

Jen looked sympathetic as she
took Cal’s hand and tapped her money. Cal just looked away, head hung low.

‘Don’t be like that, it will be
fun, I promise.’

‘If you say so, but I have to
run up to admin to pay this fine before we do anything.’

‘No worries, I’ve got a couple
of things to do first anyway, cya later’.

There had to be hundreds of
these administration offices Cal thought to herself as she searched for the
right one. When she eventually did find the right office the administrator gave
her a lecture on safe flying before he would let her pay the fine.

When she got back she found Jen
in her shiny space suit setting up some sort of tripod in the bay.

‘Are you going to put Blit on
that tripod, he won’t like that?’

‘Oh no, no need, Mr Blit is
actually stabilised. The video came out really smooth, so much better than your
usual shaky eye cam. No this is for the lights.’ Jen picked up an LED array she
must have recently fabricated and started attaching it to the tripod.

‘Lights?’ Jen was getting serious
about this video.

‘Absolutely, lighting is
everything with videography.’

Jen went on to explain that
video shooting in the real was one of her other hobbies and her vids had a few
thousand followers on-line. When asked what she shot she replied quietly ‘Mostly
me’ and then quickly changed the subject. Cal decided not to push that one any
further, she didn’t want to intrude, but was a little bit curious about finding
out why Jen in the real would have thousands of people watching vids of her, or
in this case since it’s the real world, vids of him.

Jen was hard task master and the
shoot took hours. She took the video very seriously, more seriously than
anything Cal had seen her take before. This was another side to her, Jen’s
usual rather camp nature and exaggerated femininity was replaced by a
professional and almost perfectionist manor. The first set of shots seemed to
just be of Cal, walking around the ship, sitting on the sofa legs out stretched
on the little table, posing with her gun, standing propped up against a
bulkhead, no dialogue, just a look on her face Jen described as Space Captain
bad arse. Cal described it a scowling.

Everything had to be repeated, small
changes with the lights, move your body just so or tilt your head slightly more
this way or that, some of the things didn’t appear to make sense, some did, Cal
decided to just go along with it. Other shots were of the ship, mostly from the
outside, but they also did a couple in the cockpit and engineering bay.

Then Jen got Cal to be the cameraperson
and shoot her walking down the side of the ship running her hand along it,
standing in one of the airlocks looking out, sitting on top of the ship, all
with a rather distant dreaming look on her face.

For the shots of them together Jen
got the Mule working as a camera dolly. She had to explain what one of those
was to Cal. Taking hold of Blit with its long arm Mule drove along taking long
panning or orbiting shots of the two of them standing together back to back.

They fired up the Jester for the
next set of shots. Cal very deliberately kept her speed down near the station
this time. Jen shot from the back seat or standing over Jen’s shoulder as she
put the craft through a series of rolls and turns. For the last set of shots
Jen insisted they were done from outside.

Cal watched through ships
cameras as Jen got ready in the airlock. Even with her helmet on Cal could see
some of her confidence going, her chest was heaving and she gripped Blit very
tightly as the atmosphere vented, even though the little robot was attached to
her with a safety line.

‘You Ok Jen?’

‘I’ll… I’ll cope.’ Her breathing
was laboured.’ Just don’t leave me out her OK.’

‘No worries Jen I won’t leave
you. This was your idea though.’

‘Yes, Yes it was, the things we
do for art.’ She sighed. The outer door had opened by now and Jen was staring
out into the big black. She paused for a second before gently pushing herself
out of the airlock.

Cal looked over her shoulder as
her friend floated out into space. A light pulsed on her passive scanner display,
it had picked up Jen’s suit beacon.

‘So you just want me to do flybys?’

‘Yes, fast and slow ones. Roll
towards me while you’re doing it and try to look at the camera, sorry, Mr Blit.’
Jen’s voice was strained, she clearly wasn’t happy floating in space.

‘Sure, starting my pass now, you
just keep calm and still OK, you didn’t go out with an EVA thruster pack and
can’t correct if you get into a spin.’

‘Yeah, the big one in the suit
locker isn’t compatible with this suit, I ought to look to see if I can fab a
suitable one sometime.’

Keeping Jen talking seemed to
keep her calm. ‘Ok, we’ll be done in a minute, turning back now to do my run.’ Cal
pulled the Jester into a tight banked turn before throttling up for a fast pass.
She heard Jen quietly swearing on the com as she passed within a couple of
meters of her before performing a two seventy flick roll and going to a power
climb at full throttle. She was trying to put on a show and flying came more
naturally than acting.

‘You get that Jen? Want to come
in now?’

‘I got it, but we could do with
another few shots. Did you know the Jester leaves a little blue line of light
behind it like some sort of vapour trail when its going fast?’

‘No, didn’t know that.’ Cal
flipped over a camera window to show the rear view, yes blue trails, pretty.
’And are you sure about staying out, you don’t sound very comfortable.’

‘Well it’s certainly a new
experience, floating helpless in outer space in a skimpy suit, but it’s not one
I recommend to anyone, ever.’

‘Relax Jen, it’s just a game.’

‘My conscious or whatever state
it is inside the dream brain knows that, it’s just the rest of me isn’t
listening to it. I think I’ve found a phobia I didn’t know I had, but I think I
can manage a bit longer. See if you can do a pass with the planet in the
background…  And please don’t stop talking.’

They did four more passes before
Jen asked to come in. Cal slowly manoeuvred the Jester up to her helpless
friend and caught her in the right airlock, she closed the outer door the
moment Jen was inside. Cal waited at the hatch for it to cycle, just before it
greenlit she heard a thump and a lot of swearing. She stepped into the lock to
find Jen sprawled across the floor.

Jen lifted up her head. ‘The
gravity came on quite suddenly,’ she whimpered.

She tapped her helmet and it
retracted itself into the collar, her hair was a mess and her skin shinny with
sweat. Cal offered her hand to help her up, which was graciously accepted, and
lead her to the lounge’s sofa, before stepping into the ship’s small galley.

Cal placed a mug of water before
Jen, who picked it up without looking and started sipping it slowly.

‘So?’

‘I think we’ve got enough shots
now. Can you take us back?’ replied Jen rather meekly.

‘Of course I can, you just relax
for a bit.’ Jen said nothing more, she just continued to sip her water and
stare at the bulkhead.

Cal returned to the bridge and found
the bearing to take them back to the station.

Jen appeared to be back to her
normal self by the time they docked. She’d changed out her space suit into one
of her extremely small dresses and was shining a laser pointer around the room
for Blit to chase. The little robot had been on video duty for a few hours but
seemed no worse for it.

‘Feeling better?’ Cal asked.

‘Much better. Thanks for the
water by the way, but I feel I need something a little stronger now, want to
hit the clubs down on red?’

‘Well, actually I was out
drinking before in the real beforehand so I was going to see if I can find some
more quests to do and earn some cash instead.’

‘No worries Hun, we need the
cash, you go adventure, but I’ve had enough excitement for one day, need to
relax a bit.’

‘Well OK, but are sure you are
going to be all right by yourself?’

‘Oh sure, there’s bound to be a
few people I know down there and if I don’t find them, well, in this dress I’m
never alone for very long anyway.’ Jen grinned. ‘But before I go, let me give
you my stream address so you can send me some ideas for music tracks.’ She typed
out an ID onto Cal’s pad. ‘I’ll edit the video in the real tomorrow and send
you a copy, OK?’

‘OK, you take care now, message
me if you need me.’ Cal waved Jen off before going back to her cabin to equip,
but she still felt a bit guilty about letting her friend go out alone. That’s
what Jen was now, a friend.

Jen didn’t push the button for the
Red deck, she pushed the one for Blue. She had to check on something first, a vendor
she had noticed before but never went in. Digipets was a small store sandwiched
between a medical supplies vendor and a large armour shop. Once inside Jen was
greeted in by a small metal puppy like creature that kept jumping up at her leg
before the shopkeeper came along and shooed it away. She explored the shelves,
dodging Blit’s identical twin which floated around the shop making bleeps and bloops
chasing what looked like what looked like a clockwork sparrow.

Well that’s why it isn’t busy thought
Jen as she looked through the shop’s wares, the prices are putting people off,
even the simplest robot pet started at over seven thousand.

After a short search she found
what she was looking for, a row of boxes on a low shelf with BX-12
Semi-autonomous robo pet in large green letters in the front and a little
picture of Blit. Jen picked up one of the boxes for a closer look, yes they
were exact copies of Mr Blit, but no mention of network or video capability was
on the blurb, which instead extolled their friendly personality and learning
capacity. She was not even a little bit surprised by that, but what did cause a
sharp intake of breath was the price tag, thirteen thousand five hundred
credits. Jen put the box back quickly and made a couple of notes on her pad, if
she was going to sell the secret of video, she would have to be able to tell
people where to buy the camera.

In the next lift she pressed the
button for Red deck, she had a party to go to. It was a good day, evening,
night, whatever, Red deck always seemed like it was stuck at two am on Saturday
night to her, which was good. Jen spent most of her night dancing, vertically
to start with and horizontally later, all thoughts about being lost in deep
space alone were purged.

Jen walked back to the lifts
with a smile on her face and her heals in her hand, even she couldn’t last all
night in those ones. She got a couple looks off people, some of the looks weren’t
that nice, but she carried on, head held high. She did have one little regret though,
it would have been nice if Cal could have joined her, even just for a cocktail
or two and a spin around the dance floor. They could have had fun, but she
suspected Space Captain bad arse and all round action girl Calisto Hudson was
actually a little bit shy underneath. That plus she almost certainly wasn’t
Cal’s type, which was a pity.

The first part of the quest was
easy, the quest giver, a self-styled maverick undercover cop who had a lead on
the space Mafia’s or whatever’s Smoosh operation, he went on a bit and Cal
didn’t listen to all of it. He wanted her to bust some heads, specifically those
attached to Mafioso goons down in the dock four’s warehousing zone for some
information.

The goons were easy to spot as
they all wore identical dark suits. They only had basic handguns and a poor
agro radius so most didn’t make it past her opening salvo. The only time Cal
got some trouble when she went to take down one and two more she hadn’t seen
popped out of a door way and opened up on her. She had to use the med kit after
that one, bullet wounds stung a bit. She guessed she was a bit over geared for
the quest, a couple of other players seemed to be after the same mobs as her,
but going after them with a light laser pistols was a lot harder, she had to
help a couple out.

The ninth goon she sent to swim
with the fishes had the quest’s data chip, which after a diversion to a vendor
to sell the assorted trash weapons she had picked up from the goons, was returned
to the quest giver.

He decoded it on his pad and
directed her to the next stage, an accountant working for mob who was holed up
in fancy private house up in Accommodation one had the rest of the data on the operation.
He pinged over the address to her pad. Why exactly a self-styled maverick
undercover cop would be asking passing strangers to take on a dangerous mission
to attack the space mafia was dismissed as simply quest logic in action. But
what did make Cal think twice was his warning that the house was heavily
defended and had a security system, so a subtle approach was recommended.

The house was in what Cal
assumed to be an upmarket part of the Accommodation deck. The corridors were
wide, spotlessly clean and dotted with large potted plants, totally unlike the
grubby hovel the game gave her on the first day. One of those plants was what
Cal was currently hiding behind, six or so meters from the two goons, bulky
guys in same old dark suits, who were guarding the doorway her pad had led her
to. Luckily they appeared as myopic as the last lot.

So how to take down these two?
Cal considered her options, sure she could blast them to pieces with a hand
full of shots from her plasma carbine, or hose them down with fifty or sixty
flechettes from her machine pistol, but both of those options would be loud and
might attract too much attention. Which was a pity, Cal had found a handful of 2mm
flechette clips on the goons from the first phase and wanted to start levelling
up her kinetic auto pistol skill. Nope, she was just going to have to use the quiet
gas pistol. Cal drew it from her belt and chambered a round, the mag only held
five and she didn’t have reloads, every shot had to count.

She stepped out from behind the
large fern and fired two almost silent shots in quick succession, one aimed at
each goon’s heads. The drop on the gas propelled tranq darts was as bad as she
expected, the first round hit goon one in the neck, the second got goon two in
the shoulder. No matter, both fell like stones. Cal clicked the weapon’s safety
back on and stuffed it into her belt. Cal knew she really could do with some
more ammo for the gas pistol, but the going rate for tranquiliser darts at the
weapons vendors was eighty credits each, which was kinda out of her budget
right now. This mission better pay off.

Goon one had a key in his
pocket, which was handy, the lock on the door screamed high security. Cal
slotted it in and the double doors opened with a gentle wine. What no hiss? Cal
gingerly stepped in, weapon in each hand.

The doors lead to what appeared
to be, at first sight, a small gazebo in the garden of a Tuscan villa.

Cal quickly ducked down behind a
chair and took in the peculiar scene, it wasn’t quite what she was expecting. A
neat garden with trees and a pool, lined by low stonewalls lead up to a large
two story house. Beyond the garden walls were the rolling hills of northern Italy,
complete with a vineyard in the middle distance and above was a blue sky with a
single pale yellow sun casting midsummer shadows.

What the frack was her first
thought, but as she looked around she started to see that beyond the garden
wasn’t quite right, something was off with the perspective. Still hidden behind
the garden chair Cal looked around the floor for something small, a twig or a
stone perhaps, ah yes there, a little pebble. She picked it up and tossed it
into the county side. It hit something invisible just past the garden wall and
bounced back. The tranquil scenery near where it hit shimmered for a second
before returning to normal. Holograms, had to be, the house and the garden were
real enough but they were still inside the space station, in a bay that was
about the same size as the Jester’s.

So this is how the other half
lives then she thought and then went back to studying the garden. The house was
the target’s location but she had to get there without being seen if possible.
There weren’t any more goons around but there were some small wheeled bots
trundling about, gardening robots?  Then something small, possibly a rat,
scuttled out from behind a tree and ran across the lawn, a bot near it stopped
and flashed a green scanning beam at it. The rat froze in the green light, but
after a series of Blit like bleeps and boops from the bot, the beam faded out
and it ran under a bush. The bot resumed its patrol. They weren’t gardeners,
they were security.

So what are my options Cal
thought, run across the lawn and trip the alarms and face goodness knows how
many coming from the house, no that could be tricky. Just shoot the bots
instead? No that would almost certainly trip the alarm as well. Distract them
with Blit on remote? Er no, she’d left the little bot on the Jester, so that
left sneak past them? Cal watched their movements from the gazebo for a few
minutes, fortunately they didn’t go up to her end of garden and instead just
made regular rectangular paths around the lawn. Regular and predictable paths
so you could avoid then she realised, this was a security system that was meant
to be beatable because it was all just a game.

After a couple more minutes,
Cal had memorised the bot’s paths and worked on a route. Sneak to that tree,
wait twenty seconds then dash to that bush, then over to that one, then when
the coast is clear over to that little wall and then down the side of the
house. Yes she could do it, just wait for the moment, just wait, just wait, no
no no not now, just wait, just wait, just wait, now!

She dashed to the first tree and
started counting. This was like some of the stealth games she used to play on
her old PlayStation, but the third person viewpoint on those made it somewhat
easier. She heard a bot bleeping loudly as dove behind the little wall, had it
seen her? She drew her PX22 and waited for all hell to break loose. Hell didn’t
come, false alarm, but she’d messed up her timing.

Cal risked a glimpse over the
wall. Shazbot! The droid was maybe four meters from her, she ducked back quickly,
expecting alarms to start blaring any second. Another bit of luck, they didn’t,
but she couldn’t rely on just luck. Cal closed her eyes and tried to recall the
droids patterns, if that one was there by the wall it would turn ninety degrees
a couple of meters from it, then traverse another eight or so before making
another left turn away her and that would take about forty seconds, about, she
wasn’t completely sure.

She counted down from forty. At
two Cal ran for it, not looking behind, not once. She reached the side of house
in seconds and stopped, finally out of sight, no bleeps, no alarms, no shouts,
she had made it, relief. A glance at her HUD showed her stealth skill had gone
up point two. Cal let her heart rate come down, task one, get to the house
unseen, done. Task two, get into the house, the front door was out, the bots
would see her and you never use the front door in a mission like this anyway. So
options, nope no convenient windows left open or anything, so she would have to
go around the back, there was always a back door.

There was a back door, well more
like an open conservatory that lead out to another garden, but no bots
patrolled this one. But there was someone in the conservatory. Back to her,
slumped on a lounge chair, was another goon, he was watching some kind of sport
on a large 2D hanging on the wall.

Again options, go loud? No not
necessary just yet. Tranq him? Difficult to get the right angle and there’s
only three rounds left, so that just leaves the knife. Backstabbing an unaware
target was bread and butter for rogues in Masters of Avaline, Cal had done it many
many times in that game, but she was max level in there and the amount of auto
aim it put on your skills was ridiculous. You could be completely ham fisted
and clumsy in the real and still be able to cut a high level mobs throat in a
single silent stroke. It wasn’t like that in Spinward, especially when your
knife skill is only point nine.

The sound from the video masked
her approach, apparently someone had scored a goal or something and the crowd
was cheering, much to the annoyance of the goon who swore and gesticulated at
the screen, can’t have been his team that scored. He didn’t get to see the rest
of the game. Cal put her free hand over his mouth and the knife into his chest
with as much force as she could muster. It took two more stabs to finally finish
him and there was a lot of blood, on him, on the chair, on the floor, on the
knife and on Cal’s hands.

She massaged her left finger
while planning her next move and waiting for the blood to fade, the bastard had
bit her after the first blow, the second and third stabs were done through
gritted teeth. Still no alarms, so far so good, but a dead body would be found
soon, she had to move.

Target was likely to be on the
top floor according to the quest and there that couldn’t of been the only the
guard, so find the stairs?

Cal crept through the hallway,
she could hear some voices from the front rooms, just low voices making small
talk, probably two more guards. She didn’t want to engage them just yet ,as she
might not be able to take down two silently. Fortunately the house layout meant
she could get to the stairs without going past them.

The stairs went up and down,
down? There had to be a basement or something. Always make sure you’ve explored
thoroughly before going after the boss mob she reminded herself and crept down
stairs.

Downstairs was far plainer that
the above, gone was the wood and stone, it was back to metal and plastic, rooms
and corridors on a space station not an Italian villa. Cal slunk down the
corridor past some double half-glass doors. She risked a peak, inside was a
large kitchen, more like a restaurant kitchen than a farmhouse one, with lots
of harsh light and stainless steel. Its sole occupant was a woman in a uniform,
a maid or a cook or something, chopping vegetables with her back to her. Cal
didn’t want to stab the help, sure she was certainly just an anonymous NPC, but
it just wasn’t right. She moved on. The rest of the basement was storage,
mostly for food and wine and some basic looking accommodation, probably for the
guards or the staff, but the last door was interesting, it was labelled
“Security”.

The door was slightly ajar. Inside
was another goon, jacket off and sitting in an office chair in front of a
control desk and a wall of video screens showing the CCTV feeds from the bots
in the garden and cameras on the upper floors of the house. The goon looked
bored and was playing with his pad ignoring the screens, Cal realised that’s
why she had managed to get so far without raising the alarm. She decided she
couldn’t rely on him being distracted any longer.

This goon only took two stabs
and she got a good grip on his mouth this time to stop him biting, she was
getting better at this. She searched the body, just another generic laser
pistol unfortunately and then pushed him out of the chair, but waited for the
blood to fade before taking it. There was, again, rather a lot of it.

The screens showed there were
two guards in the front room as she had suspected, but these looked tougher than
the last lot, their jackets were bulked out with muscles or, more likely, armoured
vests, but worse was what they carried. Each cradled a rifle, a large calibre
kinetic fully automatic Cal guessed from the design. That’s what would have
been coming at me if I tripped the garden alarms isn’t it she thought.

She would have to deal with them
later, the target was upstairs. A grainy black and white, seriously black and
white? Video feed showed a large office on the upper floor, towards the front
of the house she guessed. Behind a huge dark wood desk sat a thin older man with
grey hair who worked a terminal, her was flanked by two more of those large
goons. These mobsters didn’t have rifles but were almost certainly packing some
concealed artillery. To one side lounging in an armchair was a younger man with
slicked back hair, a fancy suit and wingtip shoes, your basic gangster stereotype.
It looked like he was talking to the older man but there was no sound. The
older man was the target, he had the information she needed.

Cal went through her options in
her head. So how to get in? A frontal attack would be risky, the heavies will
be armed and are facing the door, also the younger guy flanking would almost
certainly have a gun too and there’s a chance the old guy will have a pistol as
well. No she might get one or two of them but would be cut down by the others.
Stealth? No, only one way into the office. Wait it out, they had to sleep, but
she had to walk up in a few hours, so that probably wouldn’t work.

Other ideas? Well if she had
some grenades it would have been easy, but she didn’t. Steal a uniform, the
cooks or the maids, and bluff my way in? She supposed that’s what Jen would try.
She’d manage to find some sort of skimpy maid’s uniform then mince in with a
feather duster and say she’s the new help. She would get her bottom pinched while
she just talked and flirted with them to get the chip. But that’s not me is it
thought Cal, they probably wouldn’t fall for it anyway, not with my powers of
persuasion.

Then she noticed what was
happening in the office. The younger man had walked over to panel in the wall,
opened it and brought out some plates of food. What was behind the panel, a
replicator? No of course not, it was a dumb waiter taking food up from the
kitchen. This gave her an idea, these gangsters were dinning Italian style with
lots of courses and she was going to be their desert.

Cal still didn’t want to kill
the cook, she got one of the precious tranq darts in the back instead. She
waited in the kitchen for small elevator to come down, it did a few minutes
later holding empty plates, they were ready for the next course.

She clambered into the dumb
waiter, it was a tight fit, and hit the button to take it up. The journey up
the two floors in the pitch black metal box seemed to take for ever. Cal forced
herself to keep calm.

Joey walked over to the hatch.
‘Let’s hope Maria does a better job with pasta, that Bresaola was just poor.’

‘I know, how does anyone get
Bresaola wrong? You take it out of the refrigerator and put it on a plate,
maybe drizzle some olive oil and she still messes it up,’ Gianmarco replied. ‘As
I keep saying, you just can’t get the help these days.’

‘You’re telling me. I swear her
cooking will be the death of me.’

It was, sort of. Cal put all
sixty flechettes in the clip into the room as soon as the dumb waiter’s door
was half-open. That took just under two seconds. The younger guy got cut in
half, goon one got about fifteen rounds in the back and the older man got
clipped by a couple, the rest cut up the desk, the furniture, the carpet and
the paintings on the wall. It wasn’t a subtle weapon.

Cal dropped the hot machine
pistol and took out her carbine in both hands before diving out of the hatch,
she knew she hadn’t got goon two, he wasn’t in the line of fire. The combat
roll was entirely justified this time, the heavy had pulled an oversized
handgun from his jacket by now and was firing. One shot went in the dumb waiter
where Cal had just leapt from, two more smacked into the desk she had just
rolled behind. Goon two was fast but he wasn’t smart and hadn’t taken cover, a
green plasma bolt smashed into his chest from the side of the desk, its follow
up got him in the head. He dropped like a sack of gnocchi.

Cal got up, the maid would have
her work cleaning up after this. She tried to come up with some witty Italian
food based pun to say out loud, proper action hero style, but the best she
could think of was “Pasta la Vista” so she decided to keep quiet. Instead she
put plasma bolt in the old guy’s chest instead, turns out the flechettes had
only clipped him and he was going for a gun in a draw. She knew he would have
had one.

Dario shouted into his mike as
he ran up the stairs two steps at a time. ’Hit in
progress, number of assailants unknown, everyone get your asses to the
office.’

But
the only one who heard that was Salvatore who was right behind him. They paused
either side of the office doors, they were still shut.

‘You
OK in their boss?’ shouted Dario. He didn’t get a reply. He looked at Salvatore
and nodded. They both shouldered their rifles and kicked in the doors.

‘What
the?’ was as much as rifle goon one managed to get out before plasma fire took
out his legs. Cal had hidden under the desk. Rifle goon got two the second shot,
he held down the trigger on his rifle as he collapsed, remodelling the celling
with thirty two rounds of six millimetre. She put another two bolts in each
just to make sure they didn’t get up again.

‘What a mess,’ exclaimed Cal.

The blood had mostly gone by
now, but the room was still a shambles of wood splinters, shell casings,
flechette sabots, upholstery foam, plaster flakes and goodness know what,
probably body parts. It didn’t smell very nice either.

Now everyone was accounted for Cal
could give the place a good search. The first thing she found was a large gash
in her leg, a bullet wound, through and through. Cal didn’t even recall being
hit, they usually stung quite a bit, but she guessed with the amount of adrenaline
flowing though her in the last minute, she would have had to have her leg
completely shot off to notice. It took several applications of the nano stuff
to heal the wound and bring her health back up and another couple of minutes
just breathing for her body to settle down.

The data she was after was in
what was left of a desk draw, luckily these, like pretty much all quest items, were
indestructible. Actually the quest giver had said there would be just one data
chip, but there turned out to be two, she took both. Also in the draws was
about two hundred in credit chits, which was nice. Cal didn’t have enough room
in her bag for all the weapons and armour left behind so only took one of the
assault rifles, it’s stats weren’t quite as good as she’d hoped but it was
useful. The young Mafioso’s pistol that he never managed to use was a really
high quality heavy slug thrower, but it’s the chrome finish was rather flashy
in her opinion.

The rifle goons vests were
pretty good stats wise, size large though, far too big for her but she took one
and stuffed it into her bag anyway, present for Jen. It was the items in the
vest’s pockets that was the big reward. Four of them in all, cylinders about twenty
centimetres long and about five in diameter with a dial at one end and
“FRAGMENTATION” written in big black letters down the side. Grenades, she
counted herself lucky they didn’t throw these into the room before they came
in, there wouldn’t have been a lot left of her after that.

Also slipped into another of
their pockets were a couple of medical tabs. At first Cal thought they were for
first aid but on reading the labels they turned out to be something quite
different. “HAVOC combat enhancer” they called themselves and promised to
increase your strength, speed and endurance for a short while. Buff’s is what
they were. The rest of the bag got filled with those big fancy watches the gangsters
all seemed to affect and some other valuable looking knickknacks, all stuff to
sell.

Detective McCloskey gave her eight
hundred and fifty for the first chip, he didn’t want the second. That wasn’t a
lot considering the body count, Cal tried negotiating but only managed to get
another fifty out of him, cheapskate! But he did pass on the next quest
location. The data on the chip confirmed his hunch, the space mob were using a
certain bar down in Red three as a front to their Smoosh operation. He now had
to go back to division to try and talk his Captain into raiding the place, but
he did mention that if someone and their friends did feel like paying them a
visit first he wouldn’t mind and they might even find it worthwhile. Smoosh was,
after all, a cash business.

Red three wasn’t like the main Red
decks. Yes it had the same kind of architecture, twisty corridors and
passageways, small open chambers and bays with steam blowing from vents and
slow fans caught in spotlights, but it was darker, much darker, far less neon,
far fewer holograms and lit in a dim red. Only the most desperate of people were
down here, it was the dregs of the station. Cal followed the side passages to
her target location on high alert, this was group quest in a PVP location and
she was soloing in it. Every noise, movement and shadow had her on edge, at one
point she was sure she was being followed.

The Carina Gentleman’s Social Club
was a non-descript doorway with a malfunctioning neon sign above it, only half
the letters lit up. She wouldn’t of thought it was the right place if it wasn’t
for the doorman, he was another of the those cookie cutter besuited and bulked
up mob foot soldiers. Cal decided just to brazen it and strutted right up to
the door.

The heavy stepped in front of
her. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he demanded.

‘Oh Hi.’ Cal was putting on her
bad American accent again. ‘I’m meeting someone in the club.’

‘I don’t think so toots, tonight’s
a private party.’

‘Can you just go in and ask for
Mario, Mario is expecting me.’

‘There’s no Mario here. Now are
you going to leave like a nice girl or am I going to have to make you.’ He
flashed open his jacket revealing a heavy laser pistol stuffed into his
trousers’ waistband.

Cal looked him in the straight
eye and gave him her best doe eyed pout, just before stabbing him in the neck.
He went down in one blow.

I’m definitely getting better at
this she thought. Checking her HUD she could see her knife skill had gone up
again, it seemed successful stealth attacks gave good XP. Cal peaked into through
the doors only to see some stairs going down, she could hear music and
conversation and smell sweat and booze from the bar below.

Lucio hadn’t been drinking that
night, he’d heard a rumour someone was gunning for him and was keeping a clear
head, so when the body came tumbling down the stairs he was first to react. His
reaction was to put three rounds into it. Five others had drawn there weapons
by the time he had fired his second shot and were pumping shells into the
corpse. It must have had thirty rounds in it before if finally came to rest.

‘Every stop shooting now!’ Sub
boss Santino roared above the gunfire. ‘You, Fausto and Saverio.’ He waved his
piece at two guys nearest the stairs. ‘Check the body, everyone else, it looks
like we have guests, shall we make them welcome?’

All eight mobsters in the club
moved en-mass to the stairs following the sub boss, heavy lasers and slug
throwers at the ready.

‘Hey boss, the body, its Renzo,
he was on…’  Fausto didn’t finish his sentence, that was the moment the timer
on the fragmentation grenade Cal had stuffed in the doorman’s pocket had got to
zero.

Cal was waiting outside the
building when the grenade went off, but she ducked instinctively all the same,
they made quite a noise. Now speed is what was required, she didn’t know how
many were down there and if the frag had got them all, but even if they did
survive they would be stunned for the next few seconds. That should be long
enough.

She descended the stairs
quickly, carbine in her right hand, machine pistol in her left. A pile of
bodies and body parts lay at the foot of the stairs, it looked like the grenade
worked, only two bodies were still twitching, each got a shot in the back of
the head. The rest of club was clear, well as far as she could see but it was very
dark, it looked the grenades had taken out some of the light fittings, and
smoky. The smoke was, again, mostly her fault.

A flicker of movement in her
peripheral made Cal spin around. An older man had just got up from behind the
bar, bald, wearing an apron and holding a glass he had been polishing with a
cloth. He froze and the whiskey tumbler fell from his hands smashing on the hard
floor tiles.

‘S S Sorry.’  He stuttered.

‘You the barman.’

‘Er yes ma’am.’

‘And do want any trouble?’ Cal
inquired, her large plasma carbine now levelled at his face.

‘Er No ma’am’.

‘Good. Now I’m looking for a
drug factory, there wouldn’t happen to be one around here somewhere?’

‘The, the, the storeroom,
there’s a door behind the wine rack, code is seven four nine one six.’

‘Thank you for that, it was most
useful. So useful in fact I’m going to be generous and give you the night off,
I don’t think your bosses will mind.’ Cal waved at the bodies with her off
hand.

He pointed gingerly at the
stairs, still trembling.

‘Yes.’ Cal gave him an evil
little grin. ‘Run.’

He ran. She didn’t shoot him in
the back, that would have been cruel. Instead, let out a little giggle, being a
bad arse was fun sometimes.

The bodies didn’t have much on
them apart from a few more of those fancy watches, generic weapons, some spare
ammo and a few cash chits. Slightly disappointed with the haul she found one of
few remaining unbroken glasses and poured herself a drink from looked like the
most expensive undamaged bottle behind the bar. The first sip made her start
coughing and she spat out the rest.

The wine rack in the store
pivoted effortlessly and behind was a solid looking air lock door. The code let
her in, the outer door slammed shut she had entered, as expected, but instead
of cycling the air, a blue beam enveloped her for a few seconds. It made her
skin tingle.

A robotic voice announced
‘Decontamination complete’ and the heavy inner door opened into a small bright
room. The dark and grubby dive bar décor had been replaced once again by
shinning metal and plastic. The room had a line of lockers across one wall and
some white one-piece coveralls and gas masks hanging up on pegs, the other side
had a doorway, which lead to a lift platform, and a window, which looked down
into a medium sized hanger.

Except it wasn’t a hanger this
time, it was a factory. Three production lines ran across it, taking fluids
from large vats at one side, processing and mixing them in the middle, and then
rapidly moving nozzles put drops of the resultant fluid into plastic trays
moving down a conveyor belt. The fluid hardened instantly into little pills. The
plastic trays fell off the conveyor into boxes at the end of the line. This was
the Smoosh lab.

Most of the work seemed
automated, the production lines pretty much ran themselves, but a few small wheeled
robots were taking full boxes of the pills from the end of the line and
stacking them up. The robots weren’t going to be much trouble, but the three
guys patrolling probably would be, each was in a gas mask and clean suit, like
the ones in hanging up the room and each was cradling a shotgun.

Cal considered trying to snipe
the guards, her PX22 had the range and she was certain she could get one at
least one before they reacted, but that left one or two with plenty of cover,
nope wouldn’t work. She had to get them to bunch up and take them out them out
together. Cal went over to the coveralls hanging up on the other side of the
room, one of them was size small, perfect.

Giorgio looked up at the lift,
someone was coming down carrying a toolbox. Shift must be over, funny, it
didn’t feel like it had been four hours, but time just dragged down here in the
factory, he never really could keep track and couldn’t see his watch under the
stupid suit. The shorter figure in the standard issue gas mask and baggy
coveralls stepped off the platform and beckoned him over. Paolo, it had to be,
he was the only short ass in the family, but what was he doing here?

‘Hey Paolo, what you doing down
here, didn’t think you were doing factory shifts now.’

‘Er change of plans,’ the new
guy replied over the com.

It didn’t sound like Paolo. He
looked over to Mirco and Angelo, they nodded, they had heard the voice too,
something was up. The three of them confronted the interloper at the base of
the lift platform. ‘So just who are you and what are you doing here.’ Giorgio
finished the sentence by racking his shotgun.

‘Hey keep calm, I’m er Luigi,
the new guy. Look I’ve got the paper work from the boss, see.’ The shorter
figure reached into the toolbox.

It wasn’t paperwork Luigi took
from the toolbox. The little machine pistol roared and half a meter of flame
shot from its barrel, the three of them were cut down in a hail storm of steel flechettes
at point blank range before they could react.

Mario and Luigi were always the
first Italian names that came into her head. Cal tore the gasmask off and shook
her hair, the nasty thing smelt of rubber, restricted her vision and made her
start sweating buckets the moment she put it on. The air did smell a bit funny
though, perhaps they needed these masks to prevent them from inhaling the raw
Smoosh for extended periods or whatever. It didn’t matter, she wasn’t planning
to stay very long.

The factory was noisy, good, that’s
probably why alarms weren’t sounding thought Cal as she pulled off the white
suit and recovered the rest of her weapons from the toolbox. Sitting above the
factory floor on a little mezzanine with a small office on top, it had windows
but the blinds were down. That looked like the final location for the showdown
with the big boss.

A metal staircase took her up to
the office. It only had one door and the blinds were closed, no other way in,
no secret entrances or panels and no handy dumb waiter this time. We’re going
to have to do this the hard way she concluded. Cal stood outside the door
psyching herself up for the attack, but some movement caught her eye. She
traversed her carbine over the factory floor, no it was just the bots, she
hadn’t missed any one.

Right back to the door, Cal took
a deep breath and kicked it in. Any overweight man in an expensive suit that
had to be at least one size too small looked up at her from behind a plain desk
in the centre of the room. Cal took his head off with a single plasma bolt.

That was it that was the boss?
Cal felt a bit disappointed. It had been a good quest, you would expect it to
end with some kind of epic fight with a high ranking mobster with a high tech tommy
gun or something, but nope, just one guy who was too slow. He didn’t even have
a gun, all he had was a really fancy watch. Cal added it to her growing collection.
The rest of the office just seemed to contain files, boring, well boring until
she found the safe behind a cabinet.

The safe had a keypad, so what
was the combination? Cal tried the one she had used to open the airlock, then
one two three four five and a few other random numbers before giving up on it.

This was a quest, she would have
been given the number already or it would be hidden somewhere nearby. Cal dug
the second chip from a side pocket on her pack, the chip she’d found in the
house, the chip the cop didn’t want. Of course, that would be it, games work
that way. She plugged it into her pad. It didn’t. It actually had navigation
data on it to somewhere in the local asteroid belt.

Dam. Where else, then, she’d
checked the boss’s pockets already. The filing cabinets didn’t reveal anything
and neither did the desk draws, but…..

Cal took out all four draws from
the desk and flipped them over. Tapped to the bottom of one of them was a piece
of paper with the numbers seven three nine zero two written on it. Hidden, but
not hidden that well, games were so much easier than real life.

The code worked. Inside the safe
were some documents, legal ones of some sort, an old revolver and cash chits,
lots of cash chits. She stuffed the lot into her bag. The chits weren’t the
kind that credited your account when you touched them, these had to be
converted into credits at an actual bank, so that was where she was going next.

Cal was walking back through the
factory floor thinking she should maybe she do something about it when the bus
hit her in the back.

Well it felt like a bus anyway.
Cal was slammed into the floor, winded and probably heavily bruised. What the
hell had just happened? She picked herself up from the floor but stayed low
behind the production line and checked her HUD. It indicated she’d just taken a
fair old whack of stun damage, her jacket had absorbed enough of it to keep her
conscious but she didn’t feel well at all. Her attacker had to be…  She closed
her eyes and visualised the room, where would someone have be to shoot her in
the back from her current position, there, there over in the corner.

Snapping a fresh clip into her
machine pistol Cal lifted it up just above the production machinery to let off
a long burst in the targets general direction. She wasn’t aiming but hoped to
suppress her target for long enough for her to get around for a clear shot. The
machine pistol fired off a dozen shots before locking up and emitting the
ominous bong sound. She had the direction and range to her target all right,
but the target wasn’t an NPC, it was a player.

‘So you’re still with us then Leather
girl, not many get up after a hit like that. Problem is you won’t get up from a
second and as you’ve just found out, your little toy gun doesn’t work on me.’
The player laughed, it was a girl with a slightly posh Home Counties accent. ’Congrats
on clearing the dungeon solo by the way, it took three of us when we tried,
guess you’re a little tougher than most, but you’re still not tough enough. Now
if you’d just like to hand over the contents of the safe I’ll be on my way. I
doubt you’ve noticed but you see those little chits don’t have an owner flag
and so you don’t keep them if you die, all that matters is who hands them into
the bank, as my two former party members found out. So throw them across and
maybe, if you’re very nice, I won’t shoot you again.’

Bitch! Cal holstered her machine
pistol and drew out her gas gun. Her plasma and flechettes were useless against
another player, the tranq darts would work but it only had two rounds left and it
wasn’t the most accurate weapon in the world, she would have to get closer. Cal
crept down the production line, head down low, her tormentor would be still
covering the point she popped up last. Well she hoped she would be.

Cal stood up from behind the
chemical mixer. There she was, one line over, slim with dark brown hair in a ponytail,
armoured vest over a grey newbie jumpsuit and one of those very large pump action
shotguns. Cal got her shots off before she could turn, the first whistled past
her ear but the second slammed into her chest.

Good… not good. Cal ducked as
the hostile player’s return fire smashed into the machinery beside her. The
player hadn’t dropped like the NPCs did.

‘Oh dear little Miss Leather
girl, was that supposed hurt me?’ The PVPer pulled the dart from her thick
vest, it hadn’t penetrated. ’I’m afraid since you were so rude, I’m not going
to be nice and let you crawl out of here after all.’ To make sure she pushed
another couple of beanbag rounds into her shotgun’s magazine.

Give in and take a ride to the
medical centre? Well that was one of her options, but she would lose all the
cash and she would lose the fight. Cal didn’t like losing, but all she had left
now was the knife. She could try and throw it, but it wasn’t balanced for
throwing and she knew that would a separate skill in this game, one she hadn’t
learnt, so the chances of her hitting the target was slim to nothing. No, she
just had to close the distance.

A black clad monster roared as it
bound up on top of the production line machinery and leapt the three metres
towards her, knife in hand and eyes burning with fury. The startled player got
a shot off on reflex, it smashed into the beast’s chest but it didn’t even seem
to slow her down.

Cal landed on PVPer bringing her
to the floor, they wrestled for a second, but she was no match. Cal pinned her
opponent down and plunged the knife into her chest, punching though the armoured
vest like it was made of paper. But that wasn’t enough, she pulled the knife
out and stabbed her again and again and again. The body drezzed while she was
still stabbing it.

She looked up, confused, raging,
angry, but there was no one left to fight apart from herself. She had to force
herself to drop the knife and rip the patch of her neck. Cal had applied on of
the HAVOC patches to her skin before attacking, just a buff she thought, just
something to give me an edge, she didn’t think it would turn her into some sort
of mad psycho Wolverine thing.

In the real she never took
anything stronger than ethanol, sucrose or caffeine, though she took them more
often than perhaps she really should, but in games she had no qualms about
taking strength potions and the like. This HAVOC patch, that was something
else, something bad, very bad, she might report it as a bug. Cal threw the
other patches away and tried to get up.

Owww, her chest hurt, her head
hurt, her limbs hurt, everything hurt. Her health bar was way down and her
fatigue bar was nearly maxed. She sat back down again and rested for a minute
or two. She managed to get up for the second time but had to steady herself
against the production machinery. After collecting all her stuff she hobbled
back over to the lift platform.

From the top of the lift she
realised she had just one more thing to do. Cal aimed her blaster at a pile of
red barrels in a corner and let off a shot, the recoil made her wince. The red
barrels did what they always do in all games when shot, they exploded. Cal shut
the air lock door behind her and let the factory burn.

She kept the vest, the shiny
pistol, an assault rifle and one of the shotguns to add to her arsenal. The
watches and some of the spare weapons went for nearly four hundred and the bank
gave her two and a half thousand for the cash chits, no questions asked. That
plus the money from the second part of the quest and all the stuff she’d
already sold netted her just over five thousand, plus several skill level
gains, not bad for a afternoons work she told herself.

Her only regret was that Miss
Congeniality, Jenista Harrington hadn’t come along. It would have been fun and
she certainly had some different approaches to things, which might have made
the mission a bit easier, but Cal guessed she was actually a little bit
squeamish underneath all that confidence, pity.

Chapter 13: We’re in Business

Su woke up aching, did she sleep
funny or did something transfer over from the game? Breakfast and a quick
shower got rid of most of it.

Work was fortunately light today
and she wasted time surfing news articles. Some politician looking to grab
clicks was playing the won't somebody please think of the children card with Dream
games, which were apparently turning the nation’s youth into an army of psycho
killers. Just like VR did before them and video games before that and Dungeons
and Dragons before that and television did before that and comics did before
that, it was surprising that anyone was still left alive. Su had played games
since childhood, as had her parents and grandparents and none of them had killed
anyone, yet. Of course she had the usual fantasies about strangling her boss,
but she was pretty sure everyone had those. Anyway, most kids couldn’t afford Dream
Boxes.

She also found time to put
together a list of four songs for Jen, JenniFabulous69@stream.spinward.co.uk. A
couple were early nineties Britpop, not quite out of copyright yet but she
figured no one would mind. Jen got back to her quickly, well one of her
disposable email address anyway, Su compartmentalised games and the real.

Hello Calisto darling,

The footage is fabulous,
you, me and the Jester all look amazing, the video is going to be so wonderful.
Love that third track you sent me, Girl from mars, sounds old, like from the
twenties or something, but it has a great feel, I’ll use that, it matches up so
well. Hope to get the vid edited by tonight, I’ll drop you a link when it’s
done to get your feedback.

Love and Kisses Jen

---***XXXXXXXX**---

Yeah that was her, Su was glad
she liked the track, but was fearing the video, she hated watching herself on
video. The second message came through later that evening.

Calisto Honey,

I’ve been slaving over this
edit all day, but I think I have it, it’s a masterpiece, even though I say so
myself and you know me, humble to the last. Can I have your approval before I release
it? Here’s the link httpsx://stream/Spinward/JenniFabulous69/GirlsFromMars

Hugs and Kisses Jen

---***XXXXXXXX**---

Su watched the
vid through her phone. It looked OK, but she had to stop it after about thirty
seconds. Her, well optimised her, Calisto, looking all well you know, all fuck
me and fuck you all at the same time was just a bit too much, how did she end
up like that? She stopped the vid, curled up on the worn out sofa in her
stained dressing gown and moth eaten slippers, and finished her tea. Fortified
by PG tips she managed to type out a quick reply five minutes later, Jen had promised
to keep her anonymous and she’d obviously put a lot of work into it so she
could hardly deny her the fifteen seconds of fame it would bring.

Jen,

Video’s great, post away,
cya later in game.

Calisto

She actually typed in Su at
first, but managed to stop herself and overtype Calisto before she sent it.

Jen wasn’t in game when she
entered, so she went looking for more quests, someone had to pay the bills
around here. Turned out the underhog quest on the Green deck was repeatable, so
she spent a few of hours hunting pigs before her fatigue bar filled up. She had
to level up her kinetic rifle skills anyway since she now had had two of them.
The butchering of the steaks was still gross though.

After four hours and thirty-six steaks
Cal was definitely going vegetarian, well for a day or two anyway. But she now had
another three and a half K in the bank even accounting for ammo costs. But Jen
still wasn’t online, it has nearly two am in the real now and being this late
wasn’t like her.

She eventually got a message
from Jen, very late, nearly five am in the real.

Cal, Love,

Meet me in that coffee shop
on Blue, I think I might have broken the Internet…

Jen

Jen had two empty cups of Synth
caff in front of her and was working her way through a third when Cal got there.
She was modestly dressed, for her anyway, and was wearing sunglasses. She
looked up as Cal approached, lifted her glasses and gave her a meek little
wave.

‘Oh Hi Cal, thanks for coming,
I’ve had a hell of an evening. You know me, I’m a card carrying attention
whore, but this has gone even a little too far, even for me.’

Jen recounted her story. She’d
posted the vid on the Spinward stream around eight GMT and it started to get
noticed quite quickly, but the comments mostly were split between people
decrying it as a fake and people, well teenage boys mostly, noticing the tits.
People couldn’t and wouldn’t believe it was in game footage, they said it was
faked, it was rendered, one self-acclaimed video expert said it was done in
FastFace. Cal pointed out FastFace was just a selfie editing app, Jen knew
that, but the idiot that posted it apparently didn’t it. But around eleven,
Carl Tremblay, a developer from Snow Storm Toronto, reposted it with the simple
comment “Cool” and it went mainstream global.

‘Then it went nuts,’ explained Jen
after another sip of Caff. ‘Thousands of comments and votes up, down and
sideway. We started to gather more complements, but some people still called it
fake and self-appointed experts pointed out apparent errors that meant it
couldn’t possibly be real. Others just cried, begged, demanded and threatened
to get the secret of Spinward video. More called me, you and both of us whores,
plants or Snow Storm employees and so on and yet more claimed we had to have
bribed, seduced, blackmailed or whatever Snow Storm employee’s to get the
secret. ‘

Cal tapped Jen’s hand to show
some mutual support, she got a little smile in return.

‘It got worse when people started
noticing the Jester and not just our boobs. Not only could we produce video
from Spinward, we also had a spaceship after one week in the game.’ Jen paused
for another gulp of her muddy brown liquid.

‘That caused another s*&! Storm.
Loads more started throwing their rattles out of their prams. How could we
possibly have a ship this early into the game? That got more calls of fake or
plain insults. A number called the Jester stupid and ugly and threated to shoot
us down on sight when they got there, obviously better, ships.’

Jen had nearly finished her
third Caff by now.

‘The ship and video arguments
broke into separate mainstream splashes, which grew to a point where they
eventually got big fish posts. A senior producer from Snow Storm Santa Clara came
on and gave official statements. Yes recording and posting video from Spinward
was possible and the original video posted was legitimate footage. The exact
method to get video out Spinward was hidden but had been discovered earlier
than they had expected. ‘

Jen finished her not coffee with
a gulp.

‘The producer also stated that I
was an ordinary registered player and not staff and had not been in direct
contact with any employee of Snow Storm. That took the wind out of the sails of
most the people crying fake and the complements started coming in faster, but a
hard core went into total conspiracy theory mode. The producer also came on to
the ship splash and noted it was possible for low level players to obtain some small
vessels and the Jester was one of those, but she didn’t go into any details,
which just got more people asking how.‘

Cal got Jen another Caff. She
started drinking it straightaway, not even adding the essential sweetener.

‘After that I came about the
most popular person in Spinward for a couple of hours. My mailbox is full and
I’ve had to set a digi agent sorting it all out. The video has also gone viral
across the tubes, vlogs and many major and minor gaming news sites, I haven’t
had time to follow any of them. They’ll probably be three of four analysis videos
by morning and possibly a couple of parodies.’

Jen continued her story. ‘Before
I got in game, the number of posts and message asking me for the secret of the
video and or the ship were in the thousands, plus several hundred from boys,
mostly, pointing out I did actually have boobs. Then there was over a hundred
requests for my phone number, sixty seven invites to join their corps, twelve
interview requests, four proposals of marriage, and several detailed
explanations on what exactly they were going to do to my arse, of which at
least two were anatomically impossible. And that was just only the positive
messages.’

Cal didn’t really think all of those
were all positive, but Jen had slightly different standards to her.

Jen carried on. ’Another
elevenity baziliion were calling me slut, whore, bitch and every other name
under the sun. Others accused me of that most heinous crime, attention seeking,
hah, and then there were the threats. Mostly in game ones, people going to hand
my arse to me in PVP and so on, but several people apparently know who I am in
the real. They are going to hurt, rape, kill or some combination of those three
to me any day now, even though they live on different continents and finally there’s
this one guy who has a knife to my throat at this very moment. My digital agent
and the stream moderators are having a field day with those dickheads. ‘

Cal was concerned. ‘You do have
your Dream box linked to an alarm don’t you.’

‘Motion, heat and smoke, you?’

‘The same. ‘

They both paused for a moment to
gather their thoughts.

‘So anyone notice me then?’ Cal
asked quietly, feigning nonchalance.

‘Oh gawd yes, they love you,
well most do anyway. About two thousand want to know your name, contact
address, ASL and so on. Plus you got almost as many suggestive posts as me. Requests
for lesbian scenes with me or threesomes with them was a common theme.’

Cal wished she hadn’t of asked
so she changed the subject. ‘So you and me are internet famous for what, the
next few hours then?’

‘Looks like it honey, we’ve
already been getting some glances and whispers from others since we sat here.’

Cal looked around, there were a
number of players on the concourse or in the coffee shop looking suspicions. ‘So
best keep a low profile for a day or two?’

‘Yeah we might want to that.’  Jen
had finished her forth drink by now. ‘No more not coffee stuff, let’s get back
to the Jester.’

‘Yes lets.’

‘Oh one last thing, one message
did get though my filters, it was direct from Snow Storm, marked priority.’

‘Really?’ Cal was impressed, a
message from the gods.

‘Well there legal department
anyway.’ Jen sighed again. ‘They pointed a section of the EULA we all signed,
but I or I guess everybody didn’t read, that prevents us from selling digital
assets from Spinward or information about Spinward for real world physical or
digital currencies. ‘

‘Oh, so we won’t get rich
selling the video secrets or the ship then?’

‘No, unfortunately, actually
some streamers, big names I think, have been offering me two, three or even four
figures for the secret, but I think Snow Storms lawyers would tear me a new
arsehole if I took them up. But in the mail they did emphasise real world. They
never mentioned in game.’

‘So….’

‘So we might have a solution to our
faster than light problem.’

The pair returned to the Jester,
they had to share the lift with another player for a couple of levels. He kept
looking at them, but didn’t say a thing. Both Jen and Cal could be rather
intimidating when they wanted.

Jen’s solution to their money
problems was a tee shirt. A tee shirt, as she explained, was about the simplest
thing to fabricate, the trick was the custom pattern she had just designed. It
spelt out where to buy a Blit, what to say to him to link to the net and how to
code the little video app. Most of the crucial details went on the back of the
shirt.

‘So we just sell this on the
auction house?’ Cal pointed at the picture on the fabbers screen.

‘That’s the plan. Well it is if
Snow Storm authorise the design.’

‘Assuming they do, how much do
you think we should sell it for?’

‘I’d like to put it on for
million, but has anybody in this game got that kind of cash at the moment?’

‘I doubt it. Price to sell, set
the buy it now price to ten K.’

‘Sounds more reasonable, we’ll
probably only manage to sell a handful before someone posts the info on the net
though.’

‘True, but that’s..’  The rest
of Cal’s next sentence was drowned out by incessant beeping from Jen’s pad. She
had a message. The design had been authorised.

Jen ran off twelve copies of the
tee shirt before she ran out of materials, but she didn’t think they would sell
that many anyway.

‘Want to go down to the market
and hock these now or leave it until tomorrow?’  Jen had a point, it was
getting late.

‘Too late for today and I don’t
want to go down to the market full stop given our current profile. Isn’t there
an auction house we can put it on?’ Cal also had a point.

‘Bizz Sss Sss Awk Bop YES!’ Blit
didn’t have a point.

‘You know I hadn’t even checked,
give us sec.’ Jen pulled out her pad and started searching. ‘Oh yeah, here it
is, up on Blue two in the commercial exchange, but… Oh, it’s closed now. It
only operates office hours and you actually have to bring the stuff into the
building to sell it!’ She did not sound impressed.

‘Leave it until tomorrow then,
you need a good night sleep anyway.’

Su tried very carefully to avoid
any gaming news or streams the next day but failed and caught some of it, but
what she saw wasn’t exactly very complimentary about her or Jen. She instead she
tried to distract herself with some analysis for work, which didn’t go so well,
going for a run, which ended up in her getting soaked, again, and trying to
cook some healthy vegetarian food, which ended up in the bin. She microwaved a
frozen lasagne instead and ate it in silence.

Cal woke up in her cabin, still
in a grump. Wandering into the Jester’s living area she found Jen was there already,
dressed in her shinny space suit and reclining on the sofa reading something on
her pad. She looked up as Cal entered with a big smile on her face.

‘Have you been following the
streams?’ Jen asked excitedly.

‘No,’ Cal lied. ’Sorry, I had a
prior appointment jabbing needles into my eyes. I’m really not into that level
of net drama.’

‘Oh… Each to their own I
suppose, I been following them all day, can’t my eyes off them. Anyway it’s not
as bad as it was, most people seem to have finally accepted we, you, me and the
Jester are the real deal now and it’s getting a lot more positive and there’s
far fewer serial killers hiding under our beds.‘ Jen sounded like she seemed to
have recovered from the previous night and back to her usual bouncy self, which
didn’t help with Cal’s mood.

‘Several new splashes have blown
up with people hunting for ships or how to make videos and they’re going
through our vid frame by frame looking for clues. A number of people are making
wild claims already, but someone, a little smarter than the average net knuckle
dragger, realised we used some sort of camera instead of an eye capture and
people have started hunting high and low for those.’

‘So?’

‘They’ll work it out eventually.
We have to sell those shirts ASAP’.

‘Oh OK, look If we have to go up
to the auction house we better change into something a little more inconspicuous
first’. Neither of their current outfits could be described as subtle.

‘No, not just yet, we have to
take some photos first.’

‘We have to take photos?’

‘Well we have pictures of the
product for the auction listing, I checked. Plus if we, The Girls from Mars,
aren’t in the pictures as well, nobody will believe they are legit. Believe me
there are several spams, splashes and threads going around with people claiming
to have the secret and offering it for sale for silly money.‘

Their pads had a very basic
camera on board. Jen took a couple of stills of the shirt, a couple more of it
draped over the Jester after they shooing Blit out the shot and one with Cal
holding it, glaring into lens, that’s all she would allow. They swapped places,
Jen as the model with the shirt and Cal behind the camera where she was happier.
Well she was until about the tenth shot, by the thirtieth she was getting more
than a bit narked with her supermodel that had gone into full diva mode.

‘Didn’t you say we have to sell
these things as soon as?’

‘Yes, but it’s the light, it’s
not quite right here, I’m getting bad shadows, we have move and reshoot the
whole lot,’ pleaded Jen.

‘No.’

‘But the light…’

‘No! The pictures look fine, now
go change, we’re going to the auction house in five minutes.’

‘Yes mistress,’ replied Jen quietly
and went to her cabin.

Cal’s idea was on inconspicuous
was the yellow heavy maintenance jumpsuit and hard hat, Jen’s was another one  of
her clinging jumpsuits, in black this time, with matching high heels and large
sunglasses.

The commercial exchange was like
something out of an ancient 2D movie Cal had once seen, she seemed to remember Michael,
or was it Kirk, Douglas was in it. They made their way through the heaving
trading floor, past people in coloured suits pushing and shoving, shouting buy,
sell and lunch is for wimps, while waving bits of paper at each other in front
of screens showing the changing values of three letter acronyms.

Why didn’t they just use an app?

The actual auction house was in
another room. This was less busy and was mostly full of players scrolling
though displays of weapons, armour and all sorts of dangerous looking hardware on
screens bolted to tables, all trying to find that perfect item at a knock down
price.

They ignored the screens and
went straight to the long line of counters at the back of the room where people
set up auctions or collected goods they had paid for. Only a couple of them were
staffed. Jen entered the details and uploaded the photos, she’d been forced to
choose just one of her, into the terminal while Cal loaded the tee shirts onto the
counter, under the gaze of an bored looking NPC in a black and red jumpsuit. The
auction fee was five percent, six hundred credits for the twelve shirts and the
auction was only for this station not the whole server. Jen paid up
begrudgingly and the NPC picked up the shirts and carried them into the storeroom
without saying a word.

‘Does this place remind you of
Argos?’

‘Now you mention it, yeah.’

They argued in the lift on the
way back down to their bay.

‘We should of gone to the market
instead and saved the six hundred auction fee, we don’t get it back if they
don’t sell you know,’ moaned Jen.

‘Yes but we would have had to
stand there all day hawking those shirts and getting noticed,’ Cal countered.

‘True, but we could have done
deals, had a banter with the customers, signed autographs and get our pictures
taken, it would have been a laugh.’

‘That sounds like hell, I
thought the idea was to lay low for a bit. Also you sound like a sales person,
I thought you were a programmer?’

‘I am a programmer hun, but I’m
a contractor not a permie, I have to go sell myself every few months.’

Jen had one more thing to do when
they got back to the ship.

‘But why do I have to be the one
actually in the video?’ Cal complained vocally as she stepped out of her
jumpsuit.

‘Because Calisto darling, the
person in it has to speak and you do have the, erm, better speaking voice. Plus
you’re hot, I have no idea why you dislike cameras so much, they love you.’

Cal shook her head and just got
on with it, the faster they started the faster they finished.

‘Hi, I’m Captain Calisto from
the Girl from Mars video and if you want to know the secret of Spinward Video listen
up. Get yourself down to the Upsilon
Carinae Gateway Station auction house on the Trifid Nebula server right
now and look up lot seven one six one to get yourself one of these custom made
shirts that have all the details.’ Cal lifted up the shirt and forced herself
to smile.

‘Cut, print and that’s a wrap,’
announced Jen and released Blit. She didn’t actually think the video was
perfect but could see Cal wouldn’t stand for reshoots. ‘I’ll get is posted as
soon as I get back in the real, sales will go boom.’

‘You think?’

‘Trust me, I’m you head of
marketing.’

Cal returned to her cabin, her
head wasn’t in the game tonight, well it was technically she told herself, it
had to be to get here, but, argghh, she threw up her hands. She thought about
on picking her guns and going out to shoot stuff, lots of stuff, but decided
against, an early night was what she really needed and so turned in. All this
video crap would be over soon.

Jen got the notification that someone
on her friend list had logged, she popped her head around the Captain’s cabin
door to see, but Cal had already derezzed by then.

‘Mr Blit, do know what was wrong
with Calisto today?’

‘Urrzzz Bep Bep Bep NO!’

‘No neither do I, she keeps her
personal life very much to herself doesn’t she.’

‘Kvvvrrt Bep Bep Blip YES!’

‘True, so what to do, what to
do… I could got and try and disassemble the Jester’s old broken Exotic Matter
Lens, I think the materials will earn us some more cash.’

‘Leeennzzz Crzz Bap NO!’

‘No you’re right, she really
would want to be consulted about first, so….’Jen checked the auction on her
pad, none of the tee shirts had sold. ‘Time to do some more marketing I think,
Cya tomorrow Mr Blit.’

‘Byzzzzz Byzzzzz Beep YES!’

Whatever it was,
Su suspected there was still some of that in game drug, was finally out of her system.
A long dreamless sleep with a bit of a lie in seemed to have done her some good
and she didn’t feel like stabbing everyone anymore and managed to get back on
top of work and real life.

The mundane was
living up to its name on a rainy March Thursday afternoon when Su got an IM
from an old Masters of Avaline guild mate, Lars. Well it wasn’t exactly Su who
got the IM, Kit Moonfox, one hundred and tenth level Dark Rogue did.

Lars:          That was you in
the Spinward video Moonfox, don’t deny it, I would recognise you anywhere, even
with that short hair.

Kit:              Yeah that was
me, Sorry.

Lars:          What you talking
about, sorry? That vid was awesome, all I’ve heard about Spinward so far is
people in jumpsuits chasing on rats with pea shooters and there you are, a
Space Pirate flying around the galaxy already.

Kit:              I’m just a
Space Captain and actually the ships got problems.

Lars:          Oh don’t keep
knocking yourself, you’re The Space Captain as far as I can see and you’re
going to rule Spinward like you did MoA.

Kit:              I didn’t rule
anything.

Lars:          Moonfox, you are?
Were? Whatever, one of, if not, the highest rated PVPers on the cluster and you
were a key part of the raid that cleared Drakfall’s Lair on Mythic difficulty
for the very first time and that’s just for starters, you’re a legend.

Kit:              .

Lars:          Anyway your vid
has got me and guys thinking about giving Spinward a spin cause it does look
amazeballs, where do we go to find you? Does it have shards or servers or is it
all unified?

Kit:              Servers, it’s
a bit retro in that respect, I’m on one called Trifid nebula in a faction
called the CFF, if you want to meet I’ll invite you into my corporation, it’s
what they call guilds over here.

Lars:          A space ship and
a guild already! If/when we get in we’ll definitely be heading towards that
server at warp factor six.

Lars:          Oh and you’re
going to have to introduce me to your friend, the one with the erm…

Kit:              Enormous
tits? She’s called Jenista and she’s a bit unusual, I don’t think she’s your
type.

Lars:          Why not?

Kit:              Complicated.

Lars:          I like
complicated.

Kit:              LOL she’s way
more “complicated” than you could possibly ever handle.

Cal woke in the Jester feeling
relaxed, she got in a couple of hours early and wasn’t expecting to see Jen for
a bit, so the hug request the moment she stepped out of her cabin came as a bit
of shock. She accepted, but regretted a few seconds later.

‘Calisto Darling, I have some
fabulous news.’

‘Mmmrrggggg .’ That was the most
Cal could get out, as her head was buried in Jenista’s chest.

‘Opps sorry.’ Jen let go quickly.

‘Thanks Jen.’ Cal took a breath.
‘So what’s the news?’

‘We’re rich honey, stinking rich.’
Jen had a huge smile on her face. ’Check the corporate account.’

Cal did, one hundred and ten
thousand credits, she checked hers and then pushed another eight thousand into
it.

‘That’s pretty good, guess the
tee shirts sold. Can we sell any more?’ asked Cal.

‘Fraid not, a generous sole, or
gratuitous karma whore depending how you see it, published the secret on the
streams. He’s being held up as a saint, while we, for the heinous crime of
selling the secret for an apparently obscene and unattainable ten thousand
credits means we’re worse than Hitler. The splash went full Godwin and that
doesn’t include all the ones claiming discrimination, racism and forty seven
other different kinds of unpleasantness for only listing the auction on our
sever and station,’ explained an exasperated Jen.

‘Oh! So there goes the fame,
which is somewhat of a relief really, but the one hundred and eighteen isn’t
going to get us a four light year drive.’

‘One hundred and eighteen?’ Jen
raised a perfect eyebrow.

‘I haven’t been sitting on my
arse you know.’

‘Oh, thank you.’

‘But as I said, one hundred and eighteen
still isn’t enough to get us out of this system.’

‘We don’t need a four light
year drive to get out of this station.’

‘Say what? The nearest star
system is three point four light years away.’ Cal was a bit confused.

‘I didn’t say out of this
system, I said out of this station,’ countered Jen. ‘There are over a dozen
locations in this system we can visit with a light hour drive that costs way
less. We buy a cheaper one, trade with the other local stations and hustle our
way up to a multi light year one.’

‘That sounds like a plan.’

‘Yes it does, now can you give
me hand pulling the old broken unit from the drive bay. If we get a new one we’ll
have to get the old one out first and they might accept it as part exchange.’

Removing the complex part from
the drive bay turned into a one-hour job. A dozen links and subsystems had to
be disconnected, including the antimatter feed that needed draining and made
safe first before they could even get it out of the housing. Just lifting the
lens a couple of meters out of the bay took both of them. They only got it two
meters as Jen dropped her end at that point.

‘ARGGGGGGGG  FUCKING HELL THAT
FUCKING HURTS WHY IS SUCH A FUCKING LITTLE THING SO FUCKING HEAVY!’ Jen had
dropped it on her foot taking forty percent off her health bar.

‘You Ok?’

‘No I’m not fucking OK. Mule get
your fucking arse in here and pick up this thing,’ Jen shouted angrily before
hobbling off. ‘If you want me I’ll be with the autodoc getting my foot unbroken.
‘

‘CONFIRMED.’

The Mule unit rolled in from the
cargo bay and picked up the twenty five kilogram lens with its long arm like it
weighed nothing.

‘And will someone please tell me
why I didn’t ask that bloody robot to pick it up in first place instead of
trying to lift it myself,’ Jen shouted angrily from the galley.

Cal stayed quiet.

A patched up but still moaning
Jen, a bemused Cal, a heavily loaded Mule and an ever chirpy Blit made their
way to  Marlow Interstellar on commercial three. Even Jen’s negotiating skills
weren’t up persuading them to take their broken unit in part exchange. But she managed
to bargain them down to seventy two thousand for a brand new, one hundred
percent condition, McKinley and Western KL2-X4LHa type two Exotic matter lens rated
for four light hours that could get the Jester to the system’s Kuiper belt in two
jumps.

‘So what do we do with the old
one?’ Cal asked as they walked down the shiny white corridors to the lifts.

‘I don’t think anyone will buy
it, so I say strip it for materials and sell them. I think some of my crafting
friends might be skilled enough now to dissemble it.’ Jen had obviously been
working this all out. ‘They’ll all be hanging out in the municipal fab bay, its
only one deck up.’

The crafting bay wasn’t as busy
as the last time they visited, but four or five people were there, slaving over
complex machines levelling their skills and building gear. Jen spied one in
particular, a young man engrossed in a process running on the largest fabricator
machine. She strode over to him and tapped him on the shoulder, the young man
in a stained jumpsuit turned quickly, then groaned.

‘I’m not helping you anymore
Jenista.’

‘What? Oh sure you can Joe,’ Jen
purred.

‘It’s Josan not Joe and I don’t
want to help you, I know what you are now!’

‘What, a beautiful and sexy
person who adores you?’ Jen gave him her best five star come-hither smile

Josan looked away. ‘You know what
I mean, you’ve been playing me, Trey told me all about you.’

‘Trey’s just jealous I like you
more.’ Jen replied with a pout.

‘The answer is still no,’ Josan
insisted, arms folded.

‘Even for this?’ Jen beckoned
Mule forward and pulled off the dustsheet they had covered his flat bed with.

‘No, not for……. Fruk, are those
they Exotic mater lenses? Where the heck did you find those?’

‘Well that’s a secret, for now,
but if you help me dissemble this one.’ Jen patted the broken unit. ’I’ll make
it worth your while.’

‘Make sure it’s that one, not
the good one,’ Cal interjected.

Josan turned to look at the
newcomer. His jaw dropped. ‘Oh my gawd is that is that her, Captain Calisto,
from the video,’ he whispered into Jen’s ear.

‘Yes, that is my personal
friend, the one and only Space Captain Calisto,’ Jen whispered back.

‘Wow, she’s even more gorgeous
in person, I mean do you really know her and she’s erm, not like you.’

‘I have no idea what you mean by
that,’ Jen snorted. ‘Anyway I know Cal very well and if you help with the lens
I’ll introduce you.’

‘Ok deal.’

Jen and Josan got to work, it
didn’t look that complicated to Cal, they just took bits off it and put them in
the hopper of the big fabricator and twiddled some of the knobs, but Cal wasn’t
a crafter, crafting bored her to tears. But she did notice the looks she was
getting from Josan and several others guys in the bay, she pulled Jen to one
side.

‘What’s going on, I thought we
were now public enemy number one?’

‘Well, sort of, mostly, well I
am, cause I made the splashes and asked for the money. But you, well, I did
post the short video with you talking about the tee shirt to drum up sales and
that got you some fans. Quite a lot of fans. Possibly a cult following…. Oh, Ok,
thousands of absolutely devoted crazy fans, they love you Calisto,’ Jen replied
sheepishly. ‘The Americans just love your accent and everyone loves the look, a
sexy, strong and confident Starship Captain, whereas I’m just the greedy slut
with big tits.’

‘Oh sorry, I didn’t know it was
like that, I’m sure they love you too really.’ Cal put her arm around Jen’s
waist.

‘Don’t worry hun, anyway I’ve
been called worse, far worse. These day’s I take slut as a compliment, it’s
made my online life far more pleasant,’ replied Jen with her trademark smirk.
‘Anyway to back to the plot, to sweeten the deal with Joe, I had to promise to
introduce him to the famous Captain Calisto, he’s a touch smitten you see, hope
you don’t mind.’

Cal rolled her eyes. ‘Just
introduce or did you promise anything more?’

‘Just an introduction, so can
you be nice to him until we get the stuff?’

After fifteen minutes of
de-fabrication a nervous looking Josan presented Cal with a small but
surprisingly heavy vial containing a purple pulsing and glowing material. Cal
took the vial, but Josan still stood there looking expectant. Cal sighed and
tried to be nice.

‘Thank you Josan for all your
help, you’ve been wonderful.’ And with that, she leant forward and gave him the
tiniest little peck on the cheek. His consent setting was on.

Josan stepped back and touched
his cheek with his hand, apparently lost for words for a second, before rushing
back to the machine to get on with the rest of de-fabrication.

Jen leant over and whispered in
Cal’s ear. ‘Not bad for a beginner, I’ll make a professional nerd baiter out of
you yet.’

Cal gave Jen a sideways look. ‘Just
to let you know I’m altering your status from incorrigible to pure evil.’

‘Oh yes I’m evil.’ Jen grinned.
‘But not totally, look I’ll make it up to him. He’s a nice kid really and
anyway just disassembling that lens probably got him another point three on his
ship component crafting skill, it got me point one and I was just doing the
easy bits.’

They went up another deck to the
main shopping concourse, past the pet store, which now had a queue outside it,
past gawkers and onlookers who were starting to put Cal on edge and past a
weapons dealer she insisted they had to go back to before getting to M-MART.

The vial of purple material
turned out to be actual exotic matter, which, although it shouldn’t exist under
conventional physics, still managed to net them seven and a half thousand credits,
which Cal promptly spent about half in the weapons shop. She stocked up on
tranq darts, assault rifle accessories and ammunition, flechette magazines, slug
thrower ammo, grenades, three different flavours of shotgun cartridges,
assorted medical nano packs and an advanced personal sensor module. Just the
essentials she explained.

They returned to the Jester with
a heavily loaded Mule discussing their next moves.

‘The new Exotic mater lens is
going to take me about an hour to fit and test and then we have to fuel up with
a couple of kilos of antimatter,’ explained Cal.

‘You need a hand?’ offered Jen.

‘It’s OK, I can do all the tech
stuff and if I need help lifting I’ll ask the Mule.’ Jen nodded in agreement. ‘Can
you spend some time figuring out where we are going to go and plotting a course
or whatever you need to do?’

‘Already had a think about that
Hun. You see there’s this large mining station out in the asteroid belt, Pedersen
Station they call it, it’s just one quick jump for us. Figure we can buy all sorts
of nice locally produced stuff here and sell them to the big gruff miners at a
profit, then take the raw materials they mine back to sell at a good mark-up.‘

‘Sounds feasible, but all that
cargo’s going to cost us a packet, is it really going to make us more money?’

‘I really don’t know if it’s
going to work out, you see you can’t access other locations commodities markets
so it makes trading a bit of a gamble. You have to speculate to accumulate.’

‘Any guides or anything on the
net?’ Cal pointed at Blit.

‘Baaa Baaaa Gzzzzrttt NO!’

‘Not that I’ve seen, since
virtually nobody else has their own ship, tutorials for locations outside the starter
zones and the main hubs are mostly non-existent.’

‘Oh Frell! This game never makes
it easy does it,’ groaned Cal. ‘Ok, you get the cargo, get no more than twenty
containers, the smaller ones, and choose a variety of stuff, as we don’t know
what will and won’t sell, but please don’t spend too much. I’ll give you access
to take the money out of the company account.’

‘Shopping with a fat corporate
account, ah the stuff dreams are made off.’ Jen smiled. ‘I’ll have to go to the
exchange, you can’t just buy cargo over the network for some illogical reason.
Cya later, have fun with the oily bits.’

‘Will do.’ Jen headed back to
the lifts while Cal accessed the corporation settings on her pad to grant Jen’s
access.

Oh gawd I hope she doesn’t spend
it all on shoes was Cal’s last thought.

Jenista wandered around the
commercial exchange dodging pushy NPCs, many of which were stuck in a loop
shouting buy and sell, determined to take the task in hand seriously. The guide
she had downloaded from the local net was helping, it explained the boards, symbols
and acronyms, RFV was frozen vegetables, RPS was plasteel, RTA was trialloy and
so on. The boards showed the current prices per standard cargo unit and the
current direction the prices were moving. If you needed more details, the public
screens could be used to show a price history graphs, details on large trades
and news. Jen made notes, watched and read.

For all the bluster and show going
on she reckoned it was actually quite simple, far simpler than the derivatives
she’d played with in the real and the market appeared actually quite stable. New
Dakota’s main exports were agricultural, both raw fruit, meat and vegetables
and processed food and drink, mostly shipped in bulk to the rest of the CFF and
beyond, whereas local tech and manufacturing was weak and most was still
imported, but it was rebuilding and growing so there was a small demand raw
materials by local industries.

So what would a group of hard
working asteroid miners want that’s cheap here but would be hard to get out in
the belt on a station outside of main trade routes Jen pondered while watching
the traders rush this way and that. The answer came to her quickly, beer of
course. She ordered five containers of the local brew and then, as requested,
diversified her portfolio. One container of local sprits, one of luxury
personal hygiene products, eight of New Dakota assorted vegetables, they were
cheap, four of local meat stuffs and one of local fruit, apparently it was the
wrong season in the northern hemisphere and the price was higher. Haggling with
the traders got the price down to thirteen thousand two hundred and fifty six
credits, including delivery to their hanger bay.

Shopping was definitely
something she was good at, but there was something about the transactions bugged
her. Credits, why did it always have to be credits? It was like there was some
sort of rule, in Fantasy games it was always gold pieces and in Sci-fi it was
always credits, why couldn’t we have Space Dollars or Mega Zloties or Spondooly
Bucks for a change.

Jen nearly missed the page at
the back of guide that mentioned the special delivery board. This was like a
list of generated fed-ex quests, people offered over the odds money for
deliveries of small amounts of goods, to certain locations, under a time limit.
Courier this package to that station, deliver twenty units of spirits to this planet
for a party, take emergency medical supplies to that platform within the next
three hours and so on. The difference being from regular quests is that you
needed your own starship to do it, but it was good money for flexible people
with fast ships, like there’s.

Jen scrolled through the list
looking for anything for Pedersen station, most of the jobs were taking stuff
to other systems, but yes, there, a job, deliver a half container of
unspecified goods to from Gateway to a Mr Beard at Pedersen station within the
next eight hours for four thousand eight hundred, cash on delivery, no
questions asked. Perfect, Jen tapped the accept button and hurried back to the
Cal and Jester, they were in business.

Chapter 14: System’s Edge

Jen returned to ship and changed
into her skin suit before trying to find Cal. She poked her head into the
Jester’s engineering bay, Cal wasn’t there. She eventually found her in the
cockpit with her feet up on the console.

‘You all finished with the lens
thingy?’ inquired Jen.

‘Yup, all done, installed,
tested, fuelled and calibrated, we are ready to make Einstein spin in his grave,’
replied Cal confidently. ‘Where’s the cargo?’

‘I thought it would be here by
now…’

And as if on cue, amber lights
started flashing and a warning alarm sounded from the bay’s inner lock. The
doors rolled back and twenty one cargo canisters slid into the bay pushed by a
couple of drones. The drones fell back and the doors slammed shut as soon as
the cargo was in place. They took the lift down to inspect the delivery.

‘How much did you spend?’ asked
Cal.

‘Just over thirteen thousand,
got a variety of stuff as requested.’

Cal checked the containers.
’That’s a lot of beer, you like beer?’

‘In moderation, but it doesn’t
agree with my figure or my image, but I guessed that’s what the miners would
like and it’s a cheap local New Dakota brew.’

‘Hrmmm, can’t fault the logic in
that. Shall we get it loaded?’

Neither Jen nor Cal could figure
out how to move the containers, they were too heavy to lift and didn’t budge if
you pushed them. The bay did have a crane, but they had to get the cargo on to the
Jester’s big lift, which was under the ship so that didn’t help much. Blit made
beeping noises at them but that didn’t help either, but the other robot did. A
carefully worded request to the Mule got the cargo loaded in minutes. The trick
turned out to be pressing a certain panel on the containers, this lifted them
up a couple of centimetres and let you push them. Cal felt stuff like that really
should be in the manual. Then she guessed it probably was and she simply hadn’t
read it, as usual.

‘What’s this one? I thought I
said only get twenty.’ Cal pointed at the twenty first container. It was half
sized and the contents not listed.

‘Special delivery, didn’t have
to pay for it. We just have to deliver it to Pedersen in the next seven hours
and we get four and a bit grand for it, it’s a kind of quest,’ Jen explained.

‘So what’s in it?’

‘Dunno, it’s a no questions
asked sort of job.’

‘Sounds like it could be trouble,
my spider sense is tingling.’

‘Nah, it will be straightforward.
It was listed on the stations mission board so should be legit.’

‘Famous last words.’

Cargo loaded, umbilical
retracted, ship sealed, bay depressurised, authorisation given and with
everything green they launched. Jen set the course and passed a waypoint over
to the pilot console and Cal brought them about, noticing the controls felt
slightly heavier.

‘So how exactly how do we go
about going superluminal? There’s a button for it on the throttle but it
doesn’t appear to do anything,’ Cal asked.

‘There’s a bit of process to it
I’m afraid, you know this game. I’ve got the superluminal drive charging and the
navigation system computing the phase shift now. When it’s done you’ll get… ah
it’s there now, follow this.’ Jen tapped a button and a tunnel like display
appeared on the pilot seat’s heads up.

‘Follow that tunnel, the idea
is to hit the exact point in space the shift is computed from at an exact heading
and velocity, I’ve set it to four hundred. When you hit it, engage the Tachyon
phase shift. The more accurate you are the nearer to the destination we get.’

‘And if I miss it completely?’

‘If you are too far out the
phase shift won’t engage, there’s a safety interlock. If that happens I’ll have
to reinitialise the drive, re-compute the jump and be forced to make
disparaging comments about your piloting skills.’

‘Well we can’t have that then.’
Cal made a minor correction their heading, throttled up the sublight drive and
thumbed the safety cover off the shift control.

‘Here we go, hang on to your
bits.’ Cal shouted out the range over a steadily increasing whining noise and
vibration that came from the back of the ship.

‘Two hundred…..’

‘One hundred.…’

‘Fifty…’

‘Twenty.. ‘

‘Five.’

‘One, GO!’ Cal stabbed the phase
shift button.

The brightest whiteness Cal had
ever seen seared itself onto her retinas while a massive pulse of deep bass
sound she felt more than heard went through her, all accompanied by the oddest
feeling of not actually being there.

Cal blinked, and blinked again
and kept blinking until her eyesight recovered. Outside the cockpit were blue
shifted stars flying past in in psychedelic swirls of colour and space. She
just watched it for a few seconds before turning to look at Jen in the back
seat. ‘Did you see that?’

Jen lifted up her sunglasses. ‘It’s
hard to miss Hun. Are your eyes OK? I should have warned you about the light.’

‘They’re getting better, thanks,
still getting these flashes though, do have you any spare sunglasses?’

‘Not on me but I’ll get you a
pair later.’

‘Thanks. So how long is this
flight going to take?’

‘Well we are currently cruising
at three point five two times the speed of light, so we’ll be there in just
over seven minutes, isn’t pretend physics grand.’

‘Sure is.’ Cal grinned. ‘So do
we have to do anything to get back into normal spacetime?’

‘Nothing at all, the waveform
will collapse by itself and we’ll pop out at, oh let me check.’ Jen tapped a
couple of icons on her display. ‘You actually overshot the target by thirty six
meters when you engaged, so we’ll pop out about four kilometres from the
station, hrmmm not bad.’

‘Oh, I thought I was dead on. So
there’s nothing to do but wait?’

‘Fraid so. Give me sec.’ Jen
lifted herself out of her seat and headed back into the ship.

Cal just watched the lights go
by, they were quite pretty.

‘Here you go.’ Jen popped a pair
of mirrored aviators on Cal’s head. ‘I had a spare pair, but I think they suit
you better, they’ve got that fighter pilot look.’

‘Oh thank you, I…’

The ship shook, lurched to the
right with a booming sound and wave of darkness seemed to pass through them.

‘That wasn’t seven minutes.’

‘No it wasn’t and waveform
collapses aren’t supposed to be like that,’ replied a worried sounding Jen as
she climbed back into her seat.

‘Has something gone wrong?’ asked
Cal.

‘Checking…’  Jen went through
her navigation diagnostics. ‘Oh Shiong mao niao, we’ve been interdicted in deep
space, is there anything on the sensors?’

‘Eh what?’

‘We’ve been hit by a waveform
collapser field, someone has deliberately pulled us out of tachyon phase back
into regular spacetime.’

‘Why would someone do that
unless they were….’  Cal realised what they were. She flipped her pilot HUD
over to tactical and slammed the throttle to the stop. ‘Pirates.’

The sensor display pinged. New
contact dead ahead, no beacon, active sensor lock, intercept course.

‘Is there anything we can do? I
did mention the Jester doesn’t have any guns didn’t I?’ said Cal quickly.

‘I believe you did and I also
believe you said we wouldn’t need them for simple trading runs,’ replied Jen unhappily
from the back seat. ‘We could just surrender and appeal to their better
nature?’

‘And get pushed out of an
airlock.’

‘Probably, what happens then?’

‘I’m not sure, but I guess it
will be very painful and deeply unpleasant for about a minute while we die a
horrible death in the hard vacuum and then we respawn,’ explained Cal coldly.

‘Respawn where? And what happens
to the ship? Do you have insurance?’ Jen was starting to panic a bit, Cal could
hear it in her voice.

‘There’s insurance?’

‘I’ll take that as a no then. The
only other option to get back into tachyon phase, I can compute a new jump but
we have to get enough distance from them.’

‘Why distance?’

‘Their mass will disrupt the
phase shift, we need to be at least a couple of kilometres from them.’

‘So we run.’

Cal evaded at the last second. Two
red shafts of light flicked out from the pirate craft, glancing off their
forward shields before it passed them. She flicked one of her displays over to
a rear view, the enemy was coming about for another attack run.

‘Compute another course, velocity
six hundred this time, I’ll evade and try to get some distance on him,’ barked Cal
at Jen.

‘Yes Captain.’

‘And did you get a scan? I want
to know what’s attacking us.’

Jen hands flew over the controls.
‘Jump computing, waypoint sent, scan results… it’s…. It’s .. it’s called a Flycatcher
MkII.’  She read out from the description pulled from the Jester’s database.
‘An obsolete GDS customs and patrol vessel  now sold on the open market, type
two hull, phase shift capable, crew two to eight, thirty four cubic metres of
cargo space, max velocity five ninety, two grade three forward weapon mounts...
‘ Jen glanced back to the sensor display. ‘And we’re not losing it.’

‘I know.’ Cal could see it had
made its turn and was coming in for a second pass.’ We need more speed, the
cargo is slowing us down.’ Cal glanced at her HUD, velocity was five eighty five
with the throttle maxed.

‘Eject it?’

‘No! Not likely.’

The ship bucked as the pirate’s
lasers found their rear shields.

‘Sure?’

‘Dam sure, we just need more power.’
Cal brought up her engineering display. ‘Fish, take the reactor up to one
hundred and five percent, shut down auxiliary sub systems one, three and four, forward
shield, active sensors, proximity sensors, internal gravtics and take life
support down fifty percent and then redirect all remaining power to sub light
drive.’

‘Of course Captain Hudson,’ Fish
replied far too calmly. The power bar displays started moving.

‘Don’t we need the life
support?’ Jen asked nervously. ‘To you know, breath and stuff.’

‘We don’t need all of it, it’s
rated for four people and there’s only two of us.’

‘Good point, good point,
actually make it twenty five percent.’ Jen tapped her suit’s collar and her
helmet formed. ‘I’ve got my own air.’

The ship shuddered again, rear
shield was down to sixty four percent. Cal cursed under her breath, but the
next burst she dogged by slamming the ships manoeuvring thrusters sideways at
the last second. She was learning its pattern.

Velocity crept up, five ninety,
six hundred, six zero five but she needed more and shut down another couple of
systems. They were getting distance on the pirate now, but slowly and the rear
shield was starting to fade, she couldn’t dodge all the incoming fire. It was
going to be close.

The phase shift tunnel appeared
on the pilot HUD, three km to shift point, enemy ship at one thousand eight
hundred, velocity up to six twenty, rear shield down to twenty-eight percent. If
they get two more hits in were toast.

Cal was lost in task, all that
existed now was the Heads Up, the sensor display and the rear view. Her hands
moved by themselves, jabbing the thrusters this way and that to evade incoming
fire, acting consciously was too slow. The next three bursts missed by
centimetres, but she was now off course, correct, correct, correct. She couldn’t
evade the next burst and the ship shuddered again. Shields were failing.

Meters to go, shield at eleven
percent, enemy at two thousand one hundred but we’re going too fast. Cal
dropped the throttle to zero and mashed the manoeuvring thruster control to
full reverse. The last three seconds seemed to take thirty, the tunnel display was
in slow motion, no time to evade now, have to be on course, have to be at
target velocity, have to be on the ……. …… … .. . POINT. Cal hit the phase
shift.

The sunglasses helped.

Jen retracted her helmet and
breathed a deep sigh of relief, or tried to it, came out as gasp. ‘The air?’ she
coughed.

Cal’s hand darted to the
engineering controls and tapped a couple of icons. ‘Oh sorry, I turned off all the
life support in the end, figured I’d hold my breath.’

‘That was very silly thing to do
young lady, don’t do it again.’

‘Yes mom. But it did work, we
escaped.’

‘By the skin of our teeth, that
was not fun.’

‘Depends on your idea of fun I
suppose, I thought it was quite exciting actually,’ replied Cal cheekily.

‘Exciting for you, I would have
shat myself if that were actually possible in this game. When we get to the
station I’m making you a space suit, which you will wear and then we’re going
to get insurance on the ship, us, the cargo and everything.’

‘The space suit is probably a
good idea,’ Cal agreed reluctantly. ‘But it doesn’t have to be that tight and
shiny does it?’

‘I can make it less shiny, but
it does have to be tight, that’s the way it works.’

‘Oh Ok then, but make it black.
As for the insurance, we’ll see how much it costs. But what we definitely are getting
are some guns for the Jester, that’s the sort of insurance I like.’

There waveform collapsed only two
point two kilometres from Pedersen station. Cal explained she worked better under
pressure.

The station was huge, four maybe
five kilometres long, a massive machine that ate asteroids whole and smelted
them down into base metals precious, rare and mundane, water, silicates and carbonates.
A queue of asteroids were being towed in by tugs and work craft to be fed into
the funnel like far end before they were sliced up into chunks with high energy
plasma beams. These hunks and chunks were then pulled through the factory space
by powerful gravtic motors before being vaporised under massive lasers and
distilled down their elementals, which were then reformed into valuable alloys
and raw materials. What little waste there was got spat out the near end.

Cal flew the Jester down the
hull, past the giant habitat module that clung to factory’s body like a shell
on an industrial hermit crab. The module gave shelter, food and entertainments
to the hard working miners, this was where their goods would sell. Clustered
around the smelting modules hung an array of docking ports and booms inhabited
by an ever moving swam of freighters large and small.

Local traffic control gave them
heading to a small bay K14-S2 and Cal brought the ship around, dodging
ponderous bulk freighters and darting shuttles. Holographic landing lights
winked into place as they approached, forming a glowing runway landing strip in
the blackness that led towards a pair of doors which started rolling open. The
doors were fifteen meters wide, a mere pin hole on the massive station.

‘It’s bigger than I thought it
would be,’ said Jen, sounding genuinely impressed.

‘Yeah, it’s not bad,’
understated Cal. She was concentrating on the docking manoeuvre, slowing the
Jester down to a crawl and lining up on the doors. She flicked her HUD over to
docking assist mode, the bay looked a little tight. The pilot HUD reported not
available.

‘What the?’ She tried again,
the HUD didn’t change and the bay doors loomed. She pressed the button
repeatedly, more in frustration than in any real attempt to get it working. ‘It
won’t go into docking mode, what’s the problem with this Fuk….’  Then she
remembered. ‘Fish return the reactor and all power levels to cruise configuration.’
The computer never did anything by itself.

‘Of course Captain, power levels
reset, active and proximity sensors on line, gravtics online, all sub systems
on line,  reactor at seventy percent, energy banks at ninety eight percent and
stable.’ The docking Heads Up flickered into life and guided them towards a
safe landing.

The bay closely resembled the
one in Gateway station, so closely in fact she suspected a lot of the geometry
had been borrowed and a slightly different shader slapped on it. Jen and Mule,
mostly Mule, had the bulk of the cargo unloaded when Cal jumped down from the
ship, pad and scanner in hand.

She pointed at the odd half
container. ‘I want to have a closer look at that one before you get it
collected.’

‘Sure, suspect something?’ Jen
inquired.

‘I did before we even launched,
it was too much money for such a simple job and then that pirate popping up
confirms it, that thing is well dodgy.’

The container’s contents weren’t
listed and it was locked tight so Cal ran her scanner up and down it, trying to
get a reading. ‘It’s shielded and my scanning skill is barely above base, but
I’m pretty sure it’s got an active power source as I’m getting some energy
readings. It’s definitely not regular cargo.’

‘What do you think it is?’ asked
Jen.

‘Well I reckon it’s either a
beacon of some sort, one that works faster than light, or it’s the waveform
collapser itself, or possibly both.’

‘That makes sense, actually
finding one small ship in tachyon phase in deep space to interdict is a needle
in a million kilometre wide haystack sort of problem, there would have to be
something to guide them.’

‘I agree, we were set up. So
this Mr Beard we were supposed to deliver it to, does he have an address or
something?’

Jen checked her pad. ‘Says here on
the quest details he can be found in the Iron Bar, Commercial deck three.’

‘So shall we pay him a visit
then?’ Cal put her hand on her plasma gun. ‘I want to ask him some questions.’

The cargo was collected by
station bots to be held in escrow until it was sold. Cal and Jen debated about
keeping the mystery container, but decided it was best to get rid of it, it was
probably illegal an there was still a chance Mr Beard would still pay out. Cal
stopped Jen before they left the hanger themselves.

‘Go get your gun Jen.’

‘You think I’ll need it?’

‘Yes, and a backup if you’ve got
one, if not borrow one of mine, plus bring spare clips at least one melee
weapon and medical kit. We’re not in the newbie zone anymore and it’s a
dangerous galaxy.’

Jen quietly tutted to herself
and went back into her cabin.

‘BBzrt Gnzzz Bop Beep YES!’

‘No Blit you can’t have a gun,
you know robots aren’t allowed weapons.’

All the docking bays and ports
lead into a central open space, which a chipped and dented sign space
designated as Arrivals and Departures. The space’s hazy atmosphere, low ceiling
and even lower light levels gave it an oppressive air. Several spotlights
behind large fans and flickering fluorescent tube all cast moving shadows,
which added to the effect.

Cal, Jen and Blit were herded
into line of incoming spacers by heavily armoured and armed guards for
inspection. Exactly what they were being inspected for wasn’t clear but it
certainly wasn’t weapons, everyone was carrying. A bored looking officer in a
heavy flack vest ran a buzzing wand over them before grunting an approval and
indicating they should move on.

“Welcome to Pedersen Station, an
Outland Mining Corporation facility” read a large sign over the exit. Someone
had spray painted Orwellian in red under word Outland and it looked like no one
had made any effort to remove it. The two faceless guards in super heavy power
armour suits flanking the exit reinforced the point. This wasn’t a happy place.

Multiple long corridors lead off
from the Arrivals and Departures area, they followed the one sign posted Commercial.
The Commercial deck on the mining station more closely resembled the Red areas
on Gateway station with its neon and steam rather than the clean shopping malls
of their home base’s Blue decks.

Cal looked around. ‘The
designers have really been channelling those old films for inspiration for this
station. I’m getting hints of Blade Runner, Aliens, Moon forty four, that one
with Sean Connery as the sheriff and hint of Highlander two.’

‘There was no Highlander two,’ insisted
Jen.

‘Yes there was, I’ve seen it,’
Cal replied indignantly.

‘No, No there wasn’t, it was all
just a bad dream, honest. I had the dream too, worst evening of my life, best
try to forget about it.’

‘Barp Hi Hi Li Twoop NO! NO!
NO!’

‘See, even Mr Blit agrees.’

They found the exchange, it was smaller
than the one on Gateway and dimly lit with blue neon but it had same vibe. Jen
haggled with a large sweaty trader in a half-open orange jumpsuit to get a deal
for their cargo. The beer wasn’t the money spinner they expected and they only
got a small gain on it, the vegetables did OK but the meat, the liquor and the
especially the fruit went down well and made a tidy profit, but they took a
small loss on the hygiene products making them a net six thousand plus change.

‘I thought the beer and bubble
bath would gone down better, I’m mean after a hard day working in the mine
surely you would want a beer and then a nice hot bubble bath?’ apologised Jen.

‘No worries, but I I’m kinda
getting the feeling you expected the mining station to be full of people who
hit rocks with pick axes whereas it’s all lasers here,’ replied Cal.

‘Well I did a bit, sorry. The
only mine I’ve ever seen was a Dwarven one in MoA.’

‘It’s all right, we made a
profit and now we know what they want here, did you take notes?’

‘Yup, meat and fruit is in high
demand, as is Synth caff and certain spirits and we can load up on plasteel, tungsten,
trialloy, and  monocrystalline silicon to sell back to Gateway for good money.’

‘Good, get another mix and not
more than twenty units again, I don’t want to slow down the Jester too much.’

Jen got the cargo at a discount,
her trading and haggling skills were going up. Next stop was the insurance
broker, insurance for their ship, which was valued at one point two million
credits, was only one thousand two hundred, a thousandth of the price. This
seemed absurdly low but Jen reckoned it had to be kept low, ships were very
expensive and if people thought they would lose it all when they got into a
fight they would play it safe and you would have no ship to ship combat, no PVP
and no raids, it was game logic at work. But they couldn’t insure cargo, you
had to lose something.

Personal cover came from the
medical facility, again another low ceilinged side space lit in blue and again
it wasn’t too expensive, even to get insurance that covered this whole sector
of the asteroid belt. There was an excess of two thousand for resuscitation thought,
it was to encourage people not to die too often.

The Iron bar was two decks down,
in an adult zone. This zone rejected Gateway’s red theme and followed the
station’s blue and black colour scheme but with even lower light levels, more
haze and a greater sense of desperation. Player versus player was enabled here
but this time lethal ranged energy and projectile personal weapons up to grade
three were permitted, Cal made of point of reading the small print this time. She
didn’t think they weren’t likely to meet any other players, who else had a ship
to get here, but she checked the power levels on her plasma carbine all the
same.

The location looked like a BDSM
club held a disused chemical factory, multiple levels, all with hard steel
surfaces and gratings, exposed ducts and wiring, populated by the station’s most
desperate and lonely. Hard faced bar staff clad in leather and lace worked their
way around taking orders and collecting glasses while lithe dancers in thongs,
and little else, gyrated on high podiums under cones of blue laser light to
unheard beats. The bar’s handful of solitary patrons ignored the dancers and instead
propped themselves against high tables and concentrated on their hard liquor.

‘Ohh what a lovely place,’ said
Jen with her usual levels of sarcasm.

‘It is a bit you though, ‘Cal
replied.

‘Well I’ve got the outfits for
it I suppose, but it would need a livening up a bit first. It’s like Torture Garden
at ten thirty were most of the people haven’t turned up yet and those that have
hadn’t had enough to drink.’

‘Suppose so.’ Cal didn’t actually
have any experience of that sort of club, not her scene really, but she was
starting to think it was Jen’s. ‘So where is this Mr Beard then?’

Jen craned her head. ‘Over there
I think.’ Cal pointed to man leaning against a table in the corner.

‘You sure?’

‘Not one hundred percent, but he
is the only one in here with a beard.’

‘I’ll go with that. So how do
you want to play this?’

‘I’ll go and talk to him and ask
for our money nicely.’

‘And me.’

‘Stay out of sight. If he
doesn’t pay up or try anything funny, you can come in and persuade him
otherwise.’

Cal pulled out her weapons.
’Persuade as in shoot?’

‘Yeah, pretty much.’

Jen, sans weapons, she felt they
would send the wrong message, approached the goateed man. He was wearing a long
black leather trench coat in the over warm bar and was studying a glass of
scotch intensely.

‘Hi, Mr Beard is it?’ asked Jen huskily.

‘Yeah, who’s asking,’ he growled,
not even looking at Jen.

‘Just an honest trader who has a
shipment for you.’ Jen decided seduction wasn’t going to work and instead took
out her pad and brought up the docket, she was going to play it straight. The
man gave the document a once over.

‘Yeah that’s mine. Did you have
any trouble getting it here?’

‘Oh nothing we couldn’t handle.’

Mr Beard looked up and scanned
the room. ‘Ok, look I don’t do business here, too many eyes and ears.’ Actually
nobody was even paying them the slightest bit of attention. ‘Let’s go into my
office.’ He led Jen out of an emergency exit into to a very dark side corridor.

He fixed Jen in the eye. ‘So,
you really had no trouble.’

‘Oh nothing me and my friend
couldn’t handle,’ Jen replied flippantly.

‘Your friend?’ He reached under
his coat and grasped a concealed laser pistol.

‘My friend, the one behind you
with the very large plasma gun pointed directly at the back of your head.’ answered
Jen coldly.

Cal had been following them
quietly using her stealth skills. She pushed her carbine against his head. ‘So,
do you feel lucky, punk?’

‘Bip Lurzz Pnkzzz Beep Beep
YES!’

Mr Beard froze for second. AI
routines on Snow Storms servers consulted their decision trees and deduced the
appropriate course of action for the character. He went for his gun. Cal
decorated Jen with his brains.

‘Eeewwwwwww, did you have to do
that, I’ve even got it in my hair,’ moaned Jen as she looked down at the bloody
mess that coated her.

‘Don’t be such a wuss, it was
him or you and the gibs will disappear in a few seconds anyway.’

‘I suppose, but “Do you feel
lucky, punk?” Really, bit of cliché don’t you think?’

‘Oh go on, I’ve always wanted to
say that. So anything on the body?’

They found three thousand one
hundred in transferable chits, a generic heavy laser pistol and the coat, Cal
felt it was quite cool and had good armour stats, but it was size medium and
wouldn’t fit either of them. He also had an unmarked data chip, Cal pocketed
that to scan later.

Cal handed back Jen her weapons,
she was more appreciative of them this time.

‘So back to the ship?’ Jen
asked.

‘Not just yet, I want more
insurance.’

‘What sort?’

‘The kind we use to shoot back
if we are attacked. I’m going to check if this station has a ship component
dealer and get some weapons for the Jester, we should be able to afford some.’

The component dealer in the main
commercial area didn’t have a great selection. Cal chose a pair of grade one
pulse lasers for the ship’s turret, they were low powered, but the turret mount
couldn’t fit any bigger and they were quite cheap. For the type two mounts
under the cockpit, she selected a pair of one hundred and ninety kilowatt
phased plasma cannons. Weapons like that had a flight time, which meant they tricky
to aim in a dogfight, but their rate of fire and damage was high and they
didn’t consume ammunition, apart from a little gas, like rail guns did. Cal was
confident she could get them on target, it was just like shooting down ME109s in
a Spitfire, she’d that done a hundred times before in VR. The plasma cannons did
cost a lot more though.

‘You’ve nearly cleaned us out,’
Jen complained. ‘Do we need all these big guns?’

‘We do and yes we’re broke
again,  but look at this way, we’ve still got cargo and now he have insurance
and know what to trade, we’re in a better place to earn money now.’

‘Suppose.’ Jen did sound entirely
convinced. ‘Guess they have to be fitted? You OK doing that? I have another
errand to run.’

‘It’s OK, I’ll manage.’

The cargo and the weapons had
been delivered to the bay by the time Cal returned. She got Mule to load the containers
while she went to inspect the weapons. All four were heavy grey metal cylinders
with few markings, the lasers were about twenty-five centimetres in diameter
and a meter and half long, the plasma guns about the same length but twice the
diameter. All four had multiple ports in them to hook them up the ships
systems.

In other games Cal had played,
fitting new systems was usually just a couple of clicks on a menu screen, but
Spinward actually forced you to move physical components around and wire them
up. It was time consuming, but she had to admit, far more immersive, it made
everything more real, even though it wasn’t.

With Mules help and lowering the
bay’s gravity, the guns were heavier than they looked, she got the weapons
fitted, which also got her another couple of points on her engineering skills.
Integrating them with the ship’s systems and setting up configurations took
almost as long, Fish, as usual, was little help.

Cal was still working on the
configuration settings when Jen tapped her on the shoulder.

‘Hi Hun, got a present for you.’
Jen produced a bundle of black material. ‘Your body pressure suit, I had to run
it off on the stations public fabricators, the Jester’s one isn’t high enough
level.’

Cal looked up from her screens.
’Oh thank you Jen,’ she replied and took the odd feeling suit, she still wasn’t
keen on wearing one of these.

‘So go try it on then, they’re
dead easy to get into. I thought it would be like struggling into a latex
catsuit when I first tried on mine, but they just glide on effortlessly.’

‘So you have experience of
wearing latex catsuits then?’

Jen looked away with a coy
little smile on her face.

Cal retired to her cabin to try
the suit on, Jen was a friend and this was just a virtual world, but she still
didn’t feel comfortable taking her clothes off in front of her just yet. It did
just glide on and was so light she could barely even feel it and her boots,
belt , jacket and gloves just slipped over it. She returned to the cockpit all suited
up.

‘Hey, you didn’t tell me you
could wear clothes over these things,’ complained Cal.

‘You can?’ Jen replied in mock
surprise.

‘Yes you can, not that you would
have tried.’

Jen smiled. ‘Anyway, it looks
good on you.’

‘It’s not bad.’ Cal wouldn’t
admit it, but it did look good as it conformed to her virtual body’s athletic
frame. ‘But it’s still a bit shiny.’ The suit did have a synthetic leather like
sheen to it.

‘Best I could do,’ answered Jen.

Cal doubted that.

They departed the station, but
before going superluminal, Cal flew them a few kilometres away over to a field
of small debris asteroids the station had ejected.

‘We’re not going straight back
then?’ asked Jen.

‘Nope, got to test these guns
and get some practice in,’ ordered Cal.

‘Oh, Ok, I’ll be back here
twiddling my thumbs, just let me know when you want the course plotted.’

‘Practice include you Jenista,
you’re the turret gunner and you can tell me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure
your space ship weapons skills are non-existent.’

‘You’re completely not wrong
about that. So what do I do?’

Cal shifted the ship into its
new dogfight mode, which activated the weapons and altered the power
distribution to combat systems, and then locked the sensors on a small asteroid.
She lined up her sights on the rock and opened fire.

She missed. The simulator had
got her the very basic ship gunnery abilities but they needed some work. They
spent the next half hour doing attack runs on harmless rocks to get their
skills off the bottom tier. Jen insisted she was useless at this sort of thing
and struggled to start with, but was regularly hitting tiny asteroids during
fast passes by the end of the session. Grinding skills was a bit dull and repetitive
though, again Cal wished for some sort training montage mode.

After destroying two dozen rocks,
Cal felt a lot more confident about tangling with pirates now. ‘So do you have
the coordinates on where we got interdicted?’

‘I’ll check the logs.’ Jen
tapped some keys and scrolled through the lists. ’Yup, here they are, but
you’re not actually planning on going back there are you?’

‘Actually yes, I feel like some
pay back is in order.’

‘You think that ship will still
be there? Surely it would have got bored and flown off somewhere else.’

‘It would have it was piloted by
human beings, but it’s just a mob, it will sit there for eternity.’

‘Ok, sounds reasonable, plotting
course.’

The waveform collapsed with a wall
of darkness and low booming sound that pushed the Jester back into conventional
space-time. Cal checked the passive sensors, one contact, range fourteen
kilometres, changing course to intercept. The sensors got a good enough look at
the incoming ship to confirm it was the Flycatcher that attacked them before.

‘Ha, knew it, the little git is
still here. Fish, set defensive mode two, Jen, don’t open fire until I move us
into dogfight mode, I want to surprise him, but please watch your heat and
power gauges this time.’ Jen had manged to overheat the lasers several times
during training.

‘Roger wilco Skipper, lets show
the Bally Hun what for eh!’ Jen obviously felt that manually aimed guns on a
space ship was a bit of an anachronism as well.

Cal snorted a laugh as her
helmet formed around her, but she still thought space combat in Spinward was
more the early 1960s rather than the 1940s.

Cal turned the ship onto a
reciprocal course, trying to look like she was running, but kept the speed down
and the rear shields on full as the opposing ship approached. She watched the
range count down, the enemy ship was coming in full tilt and its weapons range
seemed to be about two and half kilometres. Five km.. Four km… Three km.

‘Fish Dog fight mode now!’

Power levels to the weapons
surged, the pilot and navigator’s HUD switched to targeting mode and the
forward active sensors swept to try and pick up a lock. Cal slammed the
throttle to the stop and put ship into a pair of rapid zig zag turns, red pulses
of laser fire passed over what felt like centimetres from Cal’s right shoulder,
but they only grazed the shields. The flycatcher only got two bursts in before
it overshot the tail sliding Jester.

‘Now you’re mine.’

Cal was now in the pursuit
position. The forward active sensors picked up the enemy craft and switched
over to target track mode, highlighting it in a red octagon on the canopy and the
turret gunnery screen, with its velocity, estimated shield strength and hull
integrity listed by the side. The last two were both at one hundred percent,
but weren’t going to be for very long.

‘Open fire! All weapons!’ Cal
was in the moment.

The Flycatcher snap rolled and
went into a hard climb, bleeding velocity, before going to a randomised set of twists
and turns to try to shake the Jester. It wasn’t good enough. Cal rolled to
match and pulled hard back had on the stick while Jen, now with a clear target,
opened fire. Pairs of pencil thin red beams rapidly strobed from turret,
finding the enemies shields and causing the ovoid energy field to glow and
ripple as it tried to absorb the incoming kilowatts.

The Jester had the manoeuvrability
advantage over the unnamed Flycatcher and Cal exploited it ruthlessly. But it
was slowly pulling away, it still had an edge on velocity and Cal couldn’t push
more power the engines, she needed it for the guns, thrusters and shields,
unless…

‘Fish, shut down the shields and
transfer available power to sub light engines, designate current configuration as
Dog Flight Two,’ shouted Cal.

‘Don’t we need the shields, to, you
know, stop us being destroyed,’ asked a slightly concerned Jen who was head
down in her targeting screen.

‘Not while we’re behind it, it
hasn’t got a turret or tail gun.’

‘Ok, just make sure you stay
behind it then.’

The Jester was
now in lead pursuit and started gaining and the Flycatcher’s evasive jinks
weren’t good enough. Cal got her bore sight over the lead marker while the
enemy was mid turn and opened up. Electric blue bolts of nuclear plasma erupted
from their cannons and crashed into the enemy’s shields. Jen had brought them
down to forty two percent with a dozen bursts from the light lasers but the heavy
plasma fire tore down the remaining fifty eight in barely a second. The shields
glowed white hot for a moment before shattering. The Flycatcher was now
defenceless.

The enemy had to
be desperate, it slowed right down trying to push all available power back into
its shields to bring them back up and to cause the Jester to overshoot. It
didn’t work. Cal anticipated the move and pulled the ship into a tight loop,
coming back down on the now stricken patrol craft at in a power dive.

An extended plasma and laser
burst at the stricken craft took its hull down twenty two percent. Electrical
arc’s sparked across broken hull plates, grey smoke billowed from the rear left
quarter and its velocity dropped to walking pace. The Flycatcher was done for.

The Jester sped past the wrecked
craft, Cal turned to look as they passed and smiled. Revenge was sweet. They
looped back around and throttled back, Jen took a couple more pot shots at the enemy
ship with the laser turret. She must have hit something vital as series of
explosions rocked the small craft before it disintegrated in a blinding flash. Their
sensors didn’t pick up any escape pods.

‘Splash one bogie.’ Cal smiled
to herself.

A shower of sparks erupted
around both Cal and Jen’s heads and a fanfare went off, another achievement. They
both checked their personal HUD’s.

Bounty Hunter Achievement
Unlocked: You may now use the title Bounty Hunter in game and on official Spinward
forums and streams.

‘Achievement unlocked, but why
…. Oh that’s why.’ Jen caught the messages coming up on her screens. The enemy
ship, designated PC-ZZPA-1482-1031-KL, belonged to a known pirate, Joseph
“Green Beard” Patterson, wanted dead or alive.

A confirmed kill certificate
popped up on Cal’s pad, which, when handed in to the appropriate authorities,
would net them five thousand four hundred. That was more fun than trading and
almost of as profitable.

‘Plot a course for Gateway,
we’re done here.’

‘Plotting, but there are new
contacts on the scope,’ replied Jen as she checked the readouts. Most of it was
wreckage from the Flycatcher, but there were two loose cargo containers,
seemingly undamaged. She pushed the readout over to the pilot’s display.
‘Engage tractor beam and pick up that free loot?’

‘I would, but we don’t have a
tractor beam, actually I don’t think they even exist in Spinward,’ responded
Cal.

‘So how we get them?’

‘Think we have to go out there
and pick them up.’

‘Out there….’ Jen paused. ‘You
can, not me.’

‘No problem I’ll go. I’ll take
the heavy suit and the EVA pack though.’

The thought of going out into the
vacuum of space in what felt like a gossamer thin body stocking didn’t sit well
with Cal, even though Jen had proved the skin suits did what they were supposed
to do.

Cal needed Jen’s help to get
into the heavy suit, it weighed a ton in standard gravity and that was before
they attached the EVA pack. The pack contained a set of mini reactionless
thrusters on gimbals that would allow her to fly through space. The skin suit
had a little kinetic and energy armour but the heavy suit’s stats were far
better, it could shrug off rifle fire, had built in long range comms, lights, medical,
sensors, a grappling gun and tool pack. It also had gecko pads on the hands and
feet, a voice activated computer and air and power for eight hours, it was
practically a miniature space ship. It did smell a little funny though.

They had parked the ship a
couple of hundred meters from tumbling containers. Cal hit the switch to
depressurise the air lock, breathing heavily, even though she told herself this
was perfectly safe. The gravity faded leaving her floating as the suits weight
disappeared. She engaged the thrusters, gently at first. The suit’s gloves
acted like haptic VR gloves giving her virtual joysticks to adjust her velocity
and trajectory. The controls were just like the Jester’s and every other ship,
perhaps a little less responsive, but comfortingly familiar.

Thrusting through deep space in
an untethered suit was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. Traversing
the deep black behind the thick glass canopy of the Jester was one thing, but
this was something else, something special. Cal was enjoying herself.

Jen’s voice came over the comm. ‘You
OK out there Hun?’

‘No problems here, it’s kinda
fun actually,’ replied Cal.

‘Glad you think so, but I’ve got
your vitals on the monitor, your heart rate is going up.’

‘Just excited that’s all.’

‘Ok, please just be careful, I
don’t want to lose you.’

‘Oh thank you Jen, I didn’t know
cared.’

‘I do care, you’re lovely Calisto.
That plus I can’t fly the ship home without you.’

Cal stopped about ten meters
from the tumbling container and activated the targeting display, when the cross
hairs lined up she fired the grapple. The magnetic grapple hit the container
dead on but as she reeled it inits momentum started to get transferred to her,
pulling her this way and that. She fought it with the thrusters but was getting
disorientated. The stars were spinning, up, down, left right made no sense any
more, Cal was losing it.

She hit the container with a
thump, still tumbling out of control, but now joined to a two-tonne module. Cal
tried to correct in vain but had lost her frame of reference, she didn’t know
which way to counter thrust and started to panic.

The spinning suit and the now
attached container came to a sudden stop. Cal’s head slammed into suit’s bubble
visor. ‘Owwww, what the frack.’

Jen’s concerned voice came over
the comm.’You were out of control Hun, I hit the emergency remote stop. You
still OK?’

‘I’ll survive, thanks. I was a
bit out of control wasn’t I. Didn’t know there was an emergency stop though,
should of read the manual.’

‘Don’t worry, it takes NASA
years to train astronauts to spacewalk, so I think you’re doing great for a
first timer,’ reassured Jen.

Cal pushed the container back to
the ship, more carefully this time. It might be weightless but still had two
tonnes of mass to contend with. The cargo lift opened up as she approached, Jen
was there standing of the lift’s floor in her skin suit, safety line attached
to the deck but still holding onto a hydraulic strut tightly. She gave a quick
wave and then grabbed the strut again.

‘I thought I would come out and
offer moral support.’ Jen’s voice was touch shaky.

‘Thanks Jen, it’s brave of you
to come out here. So do you have any good ideas on how to get this thing inside
the hold, I don’t want to start it spinning again.’

‘Think I have that covered, just
let it go.’

‘Really?’

‘Trust me.’

‘Er Ok.’ Cal released her
grapple and electro adhesive pads from the container and thrusted back
slightly.

‘Now what.’

‘Just watch. Mr Mule, go fetch.’

Mule sat impassively on lift’s
floor for a couple of seconds before lifting off and floating straight to the
cargo pod. The droids movements looked effortless, it grabbed the container
gently with its long arm, pulled it back to the cargo lift deck and locked it
in a spare slot, before returning to its parking place.

‘That’s…. clever.’ Cal was
impressed.

‘I had a word with our Mr Mule
while you were out, turns out he’s got some small reactionless thrusters built
into his chassis and can perform all his normal functions in micro gravity,’
explained Jen.

‘So we can send it to get the
other container?’

‘No he won’t go more than twenty
meters from the ship in zero G, safety regulations or something like that, so
you can go grab the other one or we can just fly there.’

‘I’ll go get it, I need the
practice my zero G skills, but I’ll be more careful this time. You go back
inside.’ Replied Cal. ‘Oh and just one last thing, next time we have to move
something really heavy, shall we stop arsing around trying to do it ourselves
and just ask the Mule to do it first?’

‘That won’t get any complaints
from me.’

They got the next container into
the hold without issue. Once the hold was re-pressurised they inspected their
prizes. One was full of high-end alcohol, worth at least four thousand by Jen’s
reckoning. The other contained locally produced natural fabrics, probably a
grands worth, not a bad for a set of random loot.

Cal was running deep diagnostics
and checks on the Jester in the docking bay, her head inside an inspection
hatch under the drive manifold. She heard the lift and looked over to see a
tall red head on the platform. ‘Hiya, how’d you do?’ she shouted.

‘Not bad, not bad at all. I
turned in the bounty for you, you have yet another one of those stupid little identikit
admin offices and fill in yet another form, but we got the money,’ replied Jen
as she walked over to her compatriot.

‘Great, how did it go in the
exchange?’

‘Pretty dam good actually, the
stuff we picked up at Pedersen got us just over nine thousand profit, that
Trialloy’s really in demand at the moment, those fabrics got us a straight one
K and the booze got us another three thousand eight hundred. We’re back in the
money.’

‘I thought you said the booze
was worth four thousand?’

‘It would have been if the
container was full, but a couple of bottles of bubbly were missing.’

‘Where did they go?’

‘Here.’ Jen grinned and lifted
up the bottles. ‘We have to celebrate.’

Chapter 15: Engage

‘This is getting a bit dull,’ said
Cal as she lined up the Jester on the landing lights for the fifth time that
day. They’d ran cargo missions for the last three days straight, earning
themselves well over a hundred thousand in credits, but the repetition was
getting on both her nerves.

‘Yeah, it’s another grind. Buy
cargo, load cargo, fly from A to B, unload cargo, sell cargo, repeat,’ moaned Jen
from the back seat. ‘You can go and run up to commercial and sell the stuff if
you want, good practice for your trading skills.’

‘I’ll pass, it doesn’t sound
that exciting and I won’t get as much cash as you any get anyway.’

‘Perhaps we could try some of
the other stations?’ Jen offered with little conviction.

‘We already tried three of them and
they were even less exciting than the mining station, what with their cut and
paste graphics and generic NPCs. It’s like Snow Storm felt they had to put in
these other locations in the system, but didn’t want to waste time and money
fleshing them out.’

‘True, it’s a shame really, it’s
like the crafting grind, potentially lucrative and you get nice stuff, but too
much like actual work and not really much fun.’

‘Some people like it I guess,
but it would be more fun if we go attacked more often, but the pirates around
here seem a bit rubbish,’ replied Cal as she brought the ship smoothly into the
landing bay, not bothering with the docking assist, she’d got quiet adept at
threading the needle.

‘True. It would also more fun if
we could find something to smuggle or whatever instead of just being space truck
drivers,’ replied Jen.

‘Anything on those mission
boards?’ Cal asked.

‘They’re all just legit fed-exes,
nothing that sounds even remotely dodgy.’

‘Pity, any idea where we can get
smuggling missions from?’

‘Nothing concreate, but I was
thinking about putting on something piratey and going bar hopping in Red. There
are some criminal looking types that hang around in there, maybe I can get the
word on the street, you know what I mean.’

‘So you’ll put on something
tight and shiny and hang around in rough bars getting chatted up?’

‘Pretty much,’ said Jen as she
started the bay’s pressurisation sequence.

‘Isn’t that what you do most
evenings anyway?’

‘Urmm, Well I suppose I
occasionally might visit the odd drinking establishment wearing something nice,’
replied Jen sheepishly, ‘but this time it will be different, I’ll have
mission.’

‘A mission other than getting
guys to buy you drinks?’

‘Absolutely. Want to join me and
we’ll paint the deck red?’

‘Isn’t it already red? You go
have your fun Jen, I’ll do what you said and go sell the cargo for a change.’

Cal left Jen choosing an outfit
and went to unload and sell the cargo. Selling the cargo as much fun as Cal
expected and she only got eight thousand for it. Bored now, she wandered Blue
deck, the shops weren’t selling anything better than what she already had and
she’d done every non repeatable quest she could find. She really had out
levelled Gateway station and had to move on, but the thought of grinding cargo
for another week so she could afford to upgrade her FTL drive didn’t fill her
with much enthusiasm. She returned to the ship and called it a night.

Cal got back into the game
before Jen. After another long shower she sat in the Jester’s lounge, feet up
on the little table going through the local system map on her pad. She was checking
again to see if any other the other stations that they hadn’t yet visited
looked any more interesting when Jen came out of her cabin, still in her bodycon
dress from the previous night. ‘Hi Jen, late one last night?’

‘Just a bit.’

‘Find any smuggling missions?’

‘Er, well, I did interrogate a
number of suspicious looking types down in one of the dive bars, but none of
them seemed to know much about pirates or smuggling or anything  really,’ explained
Jen.

Cal expected as much. ‘Find
anything at all useful?’

‘Well I did find a local wine
that was rather good,’ answered Jen with a little smile. ‘Let me grab some brekkie
and get changed and then we can get back to work OK.’

‘OK, no need hurry.’ Cal went
back to her map and Jen disappeared into the galley.

‘Calisto Honey, what’s this?’
Jenista returned to the lounge with a quizzical expression on her face and a two
kilogram carton in her hand.

‘Erm, Vanilla protein shake mix,
like it says so on the packet?’ replied Cal, slightly confused, Jen had
demonstrated on multiple occasions she could read.

‘That’s the problem, it’s not.
I’ve been having these shakes for breakfast the last few days and...’

‘You like protein shakes, eewwww.’
Cal pulled a face.

‘I do actually,’ Jen replied
indignantly.’ That chocolatish one is actually quite nice, but it’s run out now
and I fancied a change anyway, so pulled out this packet from the back of the
cupboard. But the problem is I can’t mix this one with water or drink or eat it
or anything, it’s just not edible’

‘Gone off perhaps? Those protein
powder cartons were in the ship when I found it, they must have been sitting in
that cupboard for months.’

‘I don’t think things can actually
go off in here, but it’s not that, it’s simply not a food or drink substance
and so the game won’t let me consume it.’

‘So what is it then?’

‘I was assuming you knew, but if
it came with the ship…’

‘I’ll get my scanner.’

They had to take a small sample
of the odourless ultra-fine white powder from the carton before the scanner
would read it and even after that, it took a few passes before it reported its
findings.

Base programmable nano matter material

Warning: Controlled Substance
in all Major Factions.

‘Not protein powder after all
then,’ said Cal. She pulled up a more detailed description of the material. The
base matter was a stable form of generic un-programmed nano machines that could
be used in the creation of items such as medical packs, fabricator components, computronium,
directed toxins, tissue knitters, gene re-programmers and the dreaded grey goo matter
dissemblers.

The description also noted that although
base programmable nano matter was very valuable, that due to its potentially
highly destructive nature the material could only be handled and traded by appropriate
government departments and specially licensed corporations.

Cal let out a long whistle.
‘Must be worth quite a bit then, I guess our Captain Choi was smuggling after
all. Clever, leave those special compartments empty in case she’s stopped and
searched and just hide it in plain sight in the pantry.’

Jen nodded in agreement. ‘This
packet must be worth a packet, so to speak. So she must have had a buyer
somewhere, it’s not like you can just sell controlled substances on the
exchange.’

‘I think you’re right and you
know what else I think.’ Cal concluded, ’I think we’ve just found a quest
item.’

‘Find the nano matter buyer
quest, on completion get a massive fat wedge of cash sort of thing?’ replied
Jen.

‘Yup. So where do we start
looking for this mystery buyer? I would guess they are on this station, since
this is were Choi last docked?’

‘And I would guess they are
called Finnegan Balakrishnan. ’

‘Why would you guess that?’ Cal
was a bit confused by Jen’s apparently magical insight.

‘Cause that’s the name that’s scrawled
on the bottom of the packet.’ Jen lifted up the carton to show.

Cal smiled. ‘Oh, that’s
convenient, thank you game.’ Then a thought crossed her mind. ’Finnegan, Finnegan,
Finnegan, where have I heard that name before.’ She drummed her fingers on the
table while she searched her memory. ‘Ahhh, it’s not a person, it’s a place.’ And
with that she got up and darted into her cabin.

She returned with two datachips
in her hand. ‘The first one I found on a quest, some mafia guy had it. The
chip’s got navigation coordinates to on it to somewhere called Finnegan’s Rock.
I’d forgotten about it, we didn’t have the Jester’s FTL running at the time and
coordinates didn’t mean much. ’ She handed the chip over to Jen.

‘Oh exciting, I’ll add the
coordinates to the navigation system as soon as.’

‘Ta. The second chips a bit more
of a mystery, I got it off that Beard guy in the mining station, remember him.’

Jen nodded.

‘There’s a folder on it called Finnegan
which has some dated files in it, but they’re all encrypted.’

‘So we decrypt them.’

‘How? You got the phone number
of someone in GCHQ or The NSA or something?’

‘I might.’ Jen grinned. ‘But no
need, decrypting and hacking is a lot easier in Spinward. You see I’ve got this
app for my pad where you just play this little mini game and poof, stuff is
hacked. You have to level your hacking skills a bit and the game gets harder
the more security there is, but it’s still a dam sight easier than faffing
around with SQL injection and then trying to crack the password hash.’

‘Where did you get this app?’

‘Well I met this suspicious
looking character in this dodgy bar you see and we got talking and… ‘

It took Jen a couple of goes to
decrypt the files. Her excuse was her hacking skill was really low. The files
turned out to just contain nonsense phrases with date ranges next to them. The
second from last phrase, “Mary had a little clam, its grease was white as
dough” had today’s in game date in it.

‘So, if you had an off the books
station in the middle of nowhere, linked to pirates and the mafia, would you
let just anyone fly up to it?’ thought Cal out loud.

Jen must have been thinking
along the same lines. ‘No, you would need some sort of ID or password or ... pass
phrase.’

‘Exactly. Get changed Jen, we
have a new station to visit.’

Their waveform collapsed in the
outer reaches of the asteroid belt. Cal checked the sensors but got nothing but
rocks.

‘This the right place?’

‘Your jump was forty meters off,
so we’re a couple of K outside the target zone, but if there was a station here
it would be in sensor range,’ Jen retorted.

‘So faulty information or it’s
hidden?’

‘I would go with hidden, look
for something big.’

Cal powered up the sublight
drive and started a search pattern. The sensors showed most of the rocks in
this region of the belt were small, less than a fifty meters across, and were almost
all C-type, carbonaceous,. These were poor in the metals the miners wanted.
After a few minutes a big asteroid, maybe three kilometres across, popped up on
the edge of her screen. The rock was cold and not emitting radiation but it
looked like the only thing around here that could support a base. Cal adjusted
her course and headed for it.

Five kilometres from the rock a
male voice boomed from the comm. ‘You’ve got three seconds’.

Cal cursed under her breath, a
number of active sensors had just lit up and had them locked.

‘Try the pass phrase,’ Jen
whispered.

‘Erm yea, OK, Mary had a little
clam, its grease was as white as dough.’

The active sensor locks on them
didn’t disappear.

Ten anxious seconds later the
voice came back. ‘I dunno why they pick such stupid phrases, but yeah that’s
the right one, you’re free to approach, but you know the rules.’

Cal whispered back to Jen, ‘The
rules?’

‘Erm don’t cause trouble? Speak
like a pirate? Drink rum? I dunno, guess we play it by ear from here on.’

Cal looped around the large
asteroid, it looked like a reject potato, a pockmarked dirty brown lump with no
signs of habitation. But as she circled she spotted a shaft of light, the base
of a crater had started splitting apart. No not the base of the crater, doors,
two huge doors in the crater and they were sliding open to let them in.

Cool thought Cal, it’s like “You
only live twice” and rolled the Jester over on to an approach course. The doors
opened maybe thirteen meters, just enough to let then through. They started closing
the moment they passed them.

The asteroid was hollow. Within
its rocky walls sat a motley collection of space ships, small freighters,
shuttles and attack craft more often than not painted in garish clashing colours.
Most of the ships sat on pads or were docked against pylons that linked to a
central hub. The hub’s architecture has haphazard, it looked like a collection of
mashed together ship hulls, large cargo containers, tanks and vats all crudely
welded together to form structures.

They weren’t given any
instructions on where to dock so Cal picked a small unused landing pad off to
one side to set the ship down on. The pad had a localised gravity field,
perhaps point eight G, that pulled them down, nothing the Jester’s thrusters
couldn’t overcome,  but made the landing was trickier than normal. The ship
came down with a bump.

Cal strapped on her gun belt and
slotted her carbine, flechette pistol and knife into it and then took a shotgun
out of her wardrobe as extra insurance, this didn’t look like the place to
wander around under armed.

‘Is there air out there or do we
need our suits?’ Jen shouted from her cabin

‘I checked, there’s a breathable
atmosphere and low gravity, not sure how they keep in air in here but they do’
replied Cal.

‘Ok was figuring out what to
wear that’s all.’

Cal quietly tutted to herself.

The met up in the airlock, Cal
inspected Jen. She was wearing skin tight leather jeans and a loose white silken
blouse with several buttons undone, accessorised with high heeled knee high
buckle boots and a low slung belt with a holster where her machine pistol rested.
Well at least she didn’t have to be reminded to carry weapons this time thought
Cal, the rest, oh dear.

Jen must have read Cal’s
expression. ‘It’s the best I could come up with, I wanted to look kinda pirate
like, so I could, you know, blend in.’

‘So where’s the eyepatch and the
parrot?’

‘There are parrots in this
game?’

‘Bip PPaa Paa RRRTTT NO!’

‘No parrots Mr Blit? Pity, you’ll
just have to be my parrot then, repeat after me, pieces of eight, pieces of
eight.’

‘Peee Xxss Bip AATTe  Peaxxx
OFzz AAyyTT  YES!’

‘That will do, now just hang
around by my shoulder and we’ll be golden.’

Cal shook her head and hit the button
to open the airlock.

The walk from the landing pad
over to central hub required crossing some rather flimsy looking walk ways and
gantries with vertigo inducing drops and a complete lack of hand rails, the
Pirates lack of concern for health and safety was bordering on Imperial. The
airlock door itself had visible rust on it and any warning labels or signs had
long been graffitied over. The open button didn’t work at first when Cal tapped
it, but a follow up hard thump brought the system into life, the door clanked
loudly and started opening.

A message flashed up on their
personal HUDs as soon as they crossed the threshold.

New Faction Discovered!

Name:                       Finnegan’s
Rock Pirates.

Current Standing:   Not
Trusted.

‘The pirates have their own
faction?’ Jen thought out loud.

‘Looks like it and we’re probably
going to have to grind reputation to get in their good books.’

The inside of the Hub was as
haphazard as the outside, a three dimensional mess of bodged together units and
modules in various states of decay with little or no signs of regular
maintenance. They made their way to what they guessed was the centre of the
station, but signposts were non-existent and the lighting unreliable. They had
to make a couple of U-turns when passageways ended up in a dead end, a locked
door or in one case, a sheer twenty meter drop.

What few people the met in the passageways
either barged past them, shunned them or stared and then whispered to their
compatriots. They weren’t being made to feel very welcome. Cal took note of the
pirate’s gear, black and heavy weaponry was the outfit of the day, so they both
did actually sort of fit in, which came as a small relief. She also spotted a
couple of people carrying PX22s, just like hers, on Gateway her weapon appeared
to be unique and somewhat overpowered, but here it just a common sidearm. The
level range of this zone had definitely gone up.

The centre of the Hub contained
a sort of multilevel market or bazaar, clustered in the middle were stalls and
ramshackle pitches selling everything and anything, military grade weaponry,
booze, drugs, clothing, equipment, cybernetics and all manner of legal, illegal
and downright dubious looking gear, all to an overloud soundtrack of clashing music,
shouts and haggling. The outer stalls mostly sold street food, the smell of
spices and frying meat clashed with the gun oil wafting in from the central
stalls. Cal didn’t want to know where the meat came from but it was making her hungry.

Dotted around the central market
were the more permanent vendors, a lot looked like bars or cantinas, but others
sold medical services, insurance, ship components and not an insignificant
number offered pleasures of the flesh. Cal checked her HUD, this wasn’t a PVP
zone nor an adult zone, but she suspected if she walked through the wrong door
that would all change rather quickly.

Blit ran free, bleeping and
buzzing at anything that caught its camera while the two of them made their way
through the tightly packed stalls. Jen tried asking the price of some choice
looking items, but even with her high Charisma most traders waved her off or
wanted outrageous sums. They would need to boost their standing with this
faction before they could go shopping. The market was packed but Jen seemed to
have knack for getting through the crowds, people seemed to part to let her
through, must be her height and self-confidence Cal guessed.

In a small alcove on the second
level they found the local insurance broker. They’d learnt getting insurance
and medical cover was the first thing to do when arriving at a new location,
especially dangerous looking ones, and this one sure looked dangerous. The broker’s
price for both ship and medical cover wasn’t as bad as Cal feared, still pricier
than the legitimate stations but nothing they couldn’t afford.

They ducked into a quieter side
passage to discuss their next move.

‘So any idea where to find this
Balakrishnan character then?’

‘BBarp Merz Medzz Bip bop YES!’

‘Well there’s Blit’s option, or we
could go into the bars, chat up the locals and get the word, you know,’ offered
Jen.

‘That’s your solution to pretty
much everything isn’t it Jen. I don’t think it will work this time, our
reputation is too low, we’ll need to gain some of that before people will start
talking, you saw what they were like in the market. ‘

‘Any idea on how to do that?’

‘Usual way would be to do
quests, let’s go see if we can find a mission board or some NPCs in need of stranger’s
assistance.’

A figure with scruffy looking
blue dyed goatee in a black trench coat watched the two newcomers talk from his
vantage point in the cantina opposite, when they left he pulled out a worn out
pad from an inside coat pocket and typed in a short message.

It took Cal ten minutes to find
a quest giver. They weren’t as obvious as they were in other games but she’d
got a good idea what to look for from her time on Gateway, a lone person,
standing around for no adequately explained reason, looking a bit lost or needy,
often wringing their hands. She guessed they shared a set of common animations.

This one was an older man who called
himself Ohlson and he needed a shipment picking up from Gateway. Ohlson explained
most of the people and ships in the Rock weren’t welcome around there so he
needed an honest trader to do the run. He was offering good money and a rep
boost was almost guaranteed so Cal was trying to figure out the catch when an
almost deafening alarm started blaring throughout the station.

Cal clutched her ears. ‘What the
freck that?’ She had to shout to make herself heard.

‘Oh shoot, that’s General Quarters,
the Rock’s under attack. Best get yourself to a shelter or a ship young lady.’

‘But what about our deal?’ Cal
asked, but then man had turned and had started to run by then.

Jen and Cal looked at each other.
‘Back to the ship,’ they said in unison.

The market was pandemonium,
people were running this way and that screaming and shouting while dealers
frantically tried to pack up their wares and shopkeeper’s were rolling down their
armoured shutters. Jen pushed her way through with Cal and Blit in tow. They
broke into a run when they hit the clear corridors. The fact Jen could run and
run fast in those heels had to be a game physics glitch Cal concluded, she had
to push herself to keep up.

‘Fish, open starboard airlock,
power up and prepare for immediate dust off,’ shouted Cal as she sprinted across
the landing platform. The ladder dropped as the airlock door opened and she
took it, two rungs at a time.

Cal leapt into her seat, clipped
her com onto her ear with one hand and ran the start-up sequence with her other.
Jen was already in the backseat powering up the turret and locking down the
ship. Out of the corner of her eye Cal could see serval other ships lifting
off, it was going to be a big old fight.

‘Get our space suits?’ Jen asked
nervously.

‘No time, we’ll have to do
without,’ replied Cal as she poured on vertical thrust to get the Jester off
the pad.

Once clear she retracted the
undercarriage and opened up the sublight. They shot through the slowly opening
crater doors with two meters clearance at over three hundred and fifty, still
accelerating. Pirate stations didn’t have speed restrictions.

Without the usual cargo load the
Jester felt lighter, faster and more responsive and Cal was spoiling for fight,
it had been days since she last shot anybody. She pulled the ship into a tight
loop around the rock, searching for targets. There, seven klicks ahead,
multiple contacts. A change of setting on the sensors got it to split the
targets by faction, blue for Finnegan’s ships, red for OPFOR, faction unknown.

A dozen ships, seven red, five
blue were already in a furball, flashes of shields and strobes of laser fire
danced across the black, blue was outnumbered, but not for long.

Cal tabbed though the red marked
targets looking for prey. There, that one, out on the edge of the main fight, an
enemy craft, a CSS manufactured Crayfish assault shuttle according the database.
It was in pursuit of a slower blue highlighted ship, some sort of modified
freighter. The cargo ship’s shields were holding against the incoming railgun
fire and it was trying to fight back with turreted lasers but it couldn’t do
anything shake its more agile pursuer. It was only a matter of time before its defences
failed.

She held off turning on the
active sensors until she was in gun range, not giving the target any warning so
it never had a chance to evade her opening barrage. With its shields almost
shattered the streamlined shuttle, painted in garish pink and black stripes like
some sort of cyborg tropical fish, broke off pursuit of the freighter and
turned on the Jester.

Damm its quick thought Cal as
she wrestled with controls to avoid another burst of rail fire, maybe she
should have taken on something slower. Jen was slowly whittling down the last
of its shields with the laser turret. Her gunnery had improved again, but the
database said the enemy ship had hull armour and the light lasers weren’t going
to do much good against that. The Crayfish wouldn’t budge off her tail, she’d
tried to fool it, get it to overshoot or out turn it, but it wasn’t having any
of that, it stuck like superglue and seemed to have unlimited ammunition.
Another rail gun burst took fifteen percent off the already strained rear shields.

Did the little git have any
weaknesses Cal thought as she weaved this way and that… Yes, yes it did,
situational awareness. The Jester’s canopy worked like augmented reality and
sensor information was painted holographically all over it. Cal glanced around
searching for an ally, yes there, that light freighter, the one the Crayfish
had originally attacked, it had made a course correction and was now heading
back towards them.

While making a sharp turn Cal ordered
Fish to put the ship into defensive mode, more power to shields, more power to
engines and less to weapons, then headed straight for the freighter, collision
course. The Jester shook as another barrage of ultra-high speed projectiles
impacted on its shields but Cal stayed on heading, she knew the shields didn’t
have to take much more of this if the freighter’s Captain knew that they were
doing.

At the last second Cal rolled
away, leaving the up gunned pirate freighter head on with the pursuing assault shuttle.
The allied Captain did know what they were doing and tore into the now
shieldless shuttle with three forward mounted plasma cannons. The fragmented remains
of the Crayfish ricocheted harmlessly off the cargo ship’s regenerated shields.

Cal got a partial kill credit on
her personal heads up as she’d done most of the damage to the shuttle and a
message about faction gain. She smiled and gave a nervous looking Jen in the
backseat a thumbs up, before going looking for more targets. This was the fun
way to get faction reputation.

The next target was a boxy medium
freighter with a yellow and blue Fossian paint job, it had been converted to some
kind of corvette with multiple turrets and layers of shields and armour. It was
holding off two light attack craft, Cal slowed and watched the fight, the
smaller craft could twist and turn away from most of its turret fire but
couldn’t hold onto their target for long enough to make a significant impact on
its shields, it was stalemate until someone got a lucky hit in. Cal decided to
attack and she wouldn’t need any luck to do it.

With the shields recharged and
set to double front she dove inverted at blue and yellow craft at speed. She
selected one of its dorsal turrets as a sub target with a tap of her index
finger.

‘Hit that turret with everything
Jen,’ Cal shouted as she vectored and rolled to avoid incoming fire. With four
hundred meters to go, she straightened out and let rip with the forward
cannons. She relied on her instruments to target, incoming fired and the
flaring of shield’s, theirs and the freighters, were almost blinding.

The proximity alarm shrieked as
Cal slammed power to the vector thrusters to evade the bulky ship seconds
before impact. They left freighter far behind with its forward dorsal turret a
smoking wreck. Turrets were outside hull armour and the shields were weaker above
them to let them shoot, this enabled more nimble craft to pick them off with
precision fire. Its pectoral turrets opened up on the Jester as it came into
their line of sight, but they only had seconds to acquire their target. A couple
of plasma bolts found their rear shields, but they were out of range before
serious damage could occur.

Cal pulled the Jester into a
long sweeping turn, keeping it out of range of their target’s turrets before
lining up on another attack run. Forward shields were down to forty two
percent, but the modified freighter only had one turret with the right arc of
fire to hit them this time.

They had eleven percent forward
shields after the second run, but the freighter now had no top cover. Both of
its upper turrets were smashed, so that was more than they needed. The wallowing
cargo craft tried in vain to evade or roll around to bring its other guns to
bear, but it was laughably slow compare to the agile Jester. Cal danced around
it keeping their guns focused on the target, drilling though its shields and
pounding its hull with sustained laser and plasma fire.

Knowing it was doomed, the
freighter’s Captain must of give the order to abandon ship, two escape pods ejected
from its belly seconds before it disappeared in a fireball. A big Finnegan’s
Rock faction gain flashed up before their eyes and a bounty certificate was uploaded
onto her pad.

The Jester’s shields were almost
down, its guns red hot and it crew needed a breather. The battle was turning,
now on the sensors there were only three red targets, which quickly went down
to two as a small enemy fighter imploded.

They watched at range, waiting
while the shields got back up to strength. The red ships had started to run,
one made it to tachyon phase, the other slower ship, another converted light
freighter, wasn’t so fortunate and disintegrated under a hail of plasma and
projectiles.

Jen let of a long sigh of relief.
‘Well I’ve had enough excitement for one day, can we go back inside now.’

‘Oh come on Jen, that was fun.’

‘That’s fun? You’re completely
mad, you know that.’

‘Oh yes.’ Cal grinned and turned
the ship back towards the asteroid base.

They had to land at a lower pad,
their previous one was now occupied by a battered patrol craft with a skull and
crossbones painted on its nose and carbon scoring down its flanks.

‘I might call it a night Hun,’
said a visibly shaken Jen, as she levered herself out of the navigators seat
while Cal ran the shutdown sequence. ‘All that twisting and turning around and
us nearly getting our arse’s shot off, while all the time in deep space without
space suits has left me a little bit frazzled, sorry. This game can be a bit
too real sometimes.’

‘Oh come on Jen, we’ve got hours
left. Look I’ll buy you a drink, you did good out there and a Captain needs to
look after her crew.’

‘Oh go on then, you talked me
into it you silver tongued fiend,’ replied Jen with a laugh. ‘You may never say
no to cake but I never say no to a drink.’

The airlock next to the lower
pad led to a lift, which took them all the way to the market. They were
accompanied on their ascent by a half-decent instrumental version Rocket Queen,
which Cal found to be completely appropriate.

The market was in the process of
being set back up again, shoppers were already haggling over prices, music had
started up, traders were restocking there stalls and food sellers were tossing
fresh meat and vegetables in woks over open flames. A little thing like an
attack had barely slowed them down. As they passed vendors called out to them
to inspect or sample their wares or offer them supposedly bargain prices, their
previous coldness replaced by mercantile interest. Jen and Cal’s reputation had
gone up significantly.

They found a quiet little
Cantina on the market’s third level. The bar tender smiled as they approached
and bade them welcome to his humble establishment. Cal looked over to Jen to
ask what she wanted to drink, but she was already craning her neck examining
the line of rare and expensive looking bottles on the opposing wall.

They were just about to order
when the bar tender froze, he muttered something about the Beard Bros and
ducked behind the bar suddenly. Cal stood quietly, not turning to face and
instead watched the newcomers in the mirror mounted behind the bar.

Four men, rangy looking, wearing
rough denim and heavy black dusters over not particularly well concealed
weapons had just strode in. Each had different coloured beard.

The blue bearded one spoke. ‘Well
lookie here boys, we gone and found the bitches who got Green and Black. Figure
we‘re owed some payback.’

Cal wondered if the theme had
got mixed up, she thought it was supposed to be all pirates, but this guy
sounded like he had just walked straight out of low budget Western. Perhaps the
Developers had been binging on Firefly?

‘Green and Black were losers,
total losers to be taken by these pussies, but they were our losers and we
ain’t going to let them besmirch the Beard Bros reputation as the most ornery bad
asses this side of the asteroid belt are we Bros?

‘No way Bro.’

‘You tell em Bro.’

‘They got it coming Bro.’

‘That’s right bitches, me and the
Bros are going to teach you a lesson about messin with us and it’s going to be the
last lesson you ever take.’

Cal shook her head. Oh gawd,
will this cliché-ridden monologue never end.

‘So what do say boys, we finish
em right now or shall we have a bit of fun fir….’

All it took her was a split
second. Cal pulled her plasma gun from its holster and shot Blue beard square
in the chest in an eye blink. She hadn’t bothered to turn and just used the
mirror to aim. Blue’s wide-open coat offered no protection, the plasma bolt
left a smoking hole in his chest and he collapsed like a marionette whose
strings had just been cut.

Cal used the moment of shock and
awe to vault the bar and take cover behind. The cowering barman gave her a
little wave.

Automatic weapon fire shattered
the mirror and bottles behind the bar, showering Cal with glass, the Bros had finally
decided talking them to death wasn’t working. Cal popped up a couple of meters
down the long bar blasting plasma counter fire at the Bros. They dived for cover
but one bolt found Yellow Beard. He turned at the last second so his armoured
duster took the blast. It didn’t kill him, instead he grasped his shoulder and
stumbled, injured but not down.

Cal took a half second to glance
towards Jen. She had pushed a table onto its side and was hunkering down behind
it, weapon drawn but not looking very happy. Bullets ricocheting off the bar’s
copper top forced Cal to duck again.

‘Hey Jen, you OK?’ shouted Cal from
behind the bar.

‘Not really.’ She shouted back,
the panic clear in her voice. ‘We’re a bit outnumbered, not sure we’re going to
make it through this one.’

‘Don’t worry Jen you’ll be fine
with me, I bet you.’

‘Oh Ok then…’ Jen stammered,
before letting out a yelp as burst of enemy fire chewed a hole in her thin tabletop.

‘Always outnumbered, never out
gunned,’ roared Cal as she leapt up from behind the bar, weapons akimbo. She’d
been levelling that skill at the range. She raked the Cantina with flechettes
and plasma. Jen followed her lead and let loose with her SMG and the both of
them filled the bar with deadly fire.

Multiple two millimetre rounds
found Pink Beard’s head, tearing off half of his face in the process, while a
plasma bolt smacked into Red’s chests staggering him. Its follow up knocked him
back and the third punched him straight through the bar’s second story plate glass
window.

Cal ejected her weapons clips
and reloaded. Well tried to, in the end she had to drop her machine pistol. Reloading
akimbo weapons was a lot harder than it looked. She strode out from behind the
bar, there was only one left and he was wounded, little threat.

She found Yellow hiding behind a
table, desperately trying to reload his pistol with his one good arm.

He looked up at Cal with puppy
dog eyes and stammered, ‘S..S..S..Sorry.’

Cal shook her head and finished
him.

A small faction gain popped up
in her display. She’d actually expected to lose some by shooting up some of the
locals and a bar, but it seems the Beard’s weren’t particularly popular.

‘See Jen, that was easy, we made
it after all.’ Cal looked back towards her friend.

Her friend didn’t answer. Jen
was laid across the floor by a shredded table top, unmoving. Her once white
blouse was now a deep red.

‘Oh Jen, I really ought to get
you better trained.’ Cal sighed and went to search the Bros’ bodies for loot.

Jen sat up bolt upright with a
start. ‘What, what, what, what the…’ she shouted before the realisation dawned.
‘Oh Fluck. I died.’ Then the pain hit her, she winced as she tried sit up.

A mature woman in a white coat
standing by another bed looked over to her with an expression on her face that made
it clear she wasn’t ready to accept any nonsense.

‘Back to bed young lady, you’ve just
had a fatal wound and now need to rest,’ she instructed.

Fatal wasn’t actually all that
fatal in Spinward but it hurt more than Jen expected it to. She obeyed her
doctor’s orders and lay back down on the institutional looking single bed. She
really hated dying in games.

The Doctor came over and
examined a screen next to her. ‘Well Ms Harrington, it seems you’ve made a
remarkable recovery, but you are still going to ache a bit for the next few
hours, so nothing strenuous, stay warm and take plenty of fluids.’

Jen nodded obediently.

Five minutes later a mop of
spikey blonde hair on top of a smiling face looked around the doorframe.

‘Hi Jen, you OK?’

‘Hi Cal.’ Jen sat up and forced
a smile through the pain. ‘You know I have been better, dying in this game sucks
fetid donkey balls.’

‘I know, been there, done that.
So here, I bought you a little something to make up for it. There doesn’t
appear to be any flowers or grapes on this entire station, so this will just have
to do.’ Cal lifted up a bottle of the local sparkling wine.

Jen’s smile got a lot wider, she
opened the bottle with a practiced flick and took a large glug. ‘Well my Doctor
did instruct me to drink plenty of fluids.’

‘Any good?’

‘Oh yes.’ Jen beamed. ‘This
stuff is really expensive, thank you.’

‘Well actually I didn’t pay for
it as such, it was just lying around in the bar and the barkeep didn’t seem to
mind me borrowing it.’

‘He didn’t mind?’

‘Well he didn’t complain anyway.’

Jen took another swig from the
bottle. ‘You lost the bet by the way.’

‘Erm yes I did, but the fizz
makes up for it right?’

‘Nope.’ Jen was quite firm about
that.

‘Oh, so what do I owe you then?’

‘I’ll think of something.’
replied Jen with a little cough.

Cal looked over to the Doctor,’
Is my friend going to be OK?’

‘She will be, the pain will
dissipate in an hour or two.’

‘Can’t you give her something
for it?’

‘I would, but we are very short
of medical supplies here on Finnegan’s Rock.’ The Doctor let out a long sigh.
’I try to scrounge or craft as much as I can, but it’s hard to even get raw
materials. The problem is most of the locals are only really interested in
things they can shoot, snort or drink and many even can’t visit the major trade
centres, so deliveries are completely unreliable. For example, I was supposed
to get a critical delivery of programmable nano matter months ago but it never
turned up.’ The Doctor flung her hands in the air in frustration. ‘What can I
do?’

At that point both Cal and Jen
noticed the Doctor’s name tag. It read “Dr Balakrishnan”

Cal and Jen stared at each
other, mouths slightly open.

‘I’ll just pop back to the
ship.’

The two kilo carton of not
vanilla flavoured programmable nano matter got them over two hundred thousand
credits, it was probably worth more but even Jen’s negotiating skills couldn’t
get Dr Balakrishnan to up her price. That, plus the bounty certificate, the
money they’ve made on cargo and a trade in on their almost mint four light hour
unit got them a pristine, state of the art, eight light year Exotic matter lens
from a now very attentive Marlow Interstellar salesperson.

The Jester slowly orbited
Gateway station. Cal and Jen gave their virtual home of the last three of weeks
one last look.

‘So where do you want to go,’
Jen asked. Their upgraded superluminal drive had opened up the entire spiral
arm to them.

‘Second star to the right and
straight on till morning,’ Cal replied whimsically.

‘Star Trek Six. The Undiscovered
Country.’

‘Actually you’ll find it’s
originally from Peter Pan.’

‘Whatever. So is there anywhere
you want to go I can actually plot a course too?’

‘Dunno, your choice.’

‘My choice then….’ Jen worked
her navigation console. ‘Course plotted, velocity four hundred and you’ve got
to hit it dead on.’

Cal brought the ship around to
the required vector and watched the range count down.

‘Three hundred….’

‘Two hundred….’

‘One hundred….’

‘Fifty…’

‘Twenty  five.. ‘

‘Ten.’

‘Five.’

‘Four.’

‘Three’

‘Two’

‘One.’

‘ENGAGE!’

Cal gripped the phase shift
button and the universe went white.

EPILOGUE

Kray punched the air and Ched
high fived Virge, their tour on the Mercenary Cruiser was complete.

‘The capital, we made it, we
RULE!’ roared Ched as they strode three abreast down the docking tube into
Prime Station.

‘Only four weeks and we’re here,
Eta Carinae two, centre of the Free Federation. No more F%^@%#* noob space.
F*&^ Yeah we so rule,’ Ched yelled.

‘We so got to celebrate guys,
let’s go Red right now and find the Pink Pussy Club and get totally F@£#$%
hammered.’ suggested Virge.

‘You think they’ve got a Pussy
club here?’

‘There’ve got one everywhere man,
it’s a chain.’

The Prime station’s Pink Pussy
Club was three times the size of Gateway’s and it was heaving. The three lads
sat at in a black leather booth, ignoring their drinks and instead stared at
dancers and wait staff.

‘Those girls, they’re all
players you know.’

‘Nah they couldn’t be, no way, not
that one of the pole. No human being could do that.’

A slender waitress clad in the club’s
signature pink PVC uniform approached their table looking unsteady on her over
high heels. At one point she nearly fell, but managed to recover just in time.

Virge nudged Kray. ‘That
waitress, the one that’s coming over, doesn’t she looks like the one from those
videos.’

Kray turned to look ‘Shit you’re
right, she is. Wow, she’s hot, wonder if she’s…’

The waitress stared down at the
three lads with a look that could freeze hell. They stopped talking
immediately.

‘Hi I’m Calisto and I’ll be your
waitress tonight,’ she snapped, ’and before you ask, I lost a bet.’

Thank you

Many
thanks for reading my debut novel Spinward, I hope you enjoyed it.

It
certainly was a learning experience writing it. If you didn’t think it was too
awful please considering writing a review.

I
would also like to thank my Beta readers Pandora, Lynn and Neil for putting up
with me.

I
can be contacted on email at imwaughbooks@gmail.com