You're in Game! LitRPG Stories from Bestselling Authors Page 14

  It was him. I just knew it. The evil tongues had been right, after all. His avatar was a carbon copy of himself. His skin was pallid white, though... how weird... that was the only difference.

  He couldn't see me yet; he was too busy staring at the menu. His hands were shaking! No! He was nervous too!

  Finally, he looked up. His eyes were the same emerald hue.

  He was looking at me.

  My cheeks were burning. Thank God it was dark here.

  Finally, his gaze lit up with recognition. Surprise.

  I stopped. No idea why. It was probably my hands clenching the wheels.

  We both froze within a few paces from each other.

  Why did he look so astounded? I had every reason to be, but him?

  My anxiety began to die away, replaced by cold serenity: my defense mechanism, a mask I employ against friends, including someone I used to like very much.

  Coming here hadn't been such a good idea after all.

  Whatever. Come what may. The sooner it was over, the sooner I'd be back home. I might do a bit of crying before bedtime, then I'd get on with my life.

  I was about to roll my wheelchair forward when finally Count awoke from his stupor.

  He smiled to me.

  How weird. This wasn't the reaction I expected to see. Sympathy, yes. Courtesy, maybe. A fake smile, as if this was perfectly normal.

  But not relief.

  Count was grinning at me from the table. His gaze... I remembered it. That day, we'd been the only two left of our group. The mobs had attacked us with dogged repetition. The way he'd defended me you would have thought this was in real life. He'd been a warrior god in the flesh. We'd won. And this was the exact same look he'd given me that day. Relieved and cheerful.

  So stupid of me. How could I ever have doubted him?

  I hadn't expected what happened next.

  His burly shoulders tensed up. You'd think it was him trying to scramble out of a wheelchair, not me. I knew this movement only too well.

  Just as I squeezed my eyes tight, about to dissolve in tears, I saw the rest of him. And the edge of his wheelchair under the table.

  Translated from Russian by Irene Woodhead and Neil P. Mayhew

  The Story of a Raid

  A tale from The Galactogon series

  by Vasily Mahanenko

  “TEN DOZEN interceptors approaching from Andromeda! Distance—200 clicks.”

  “Multiple bogeys in the Aquarius constellation! Accelerating at 300 clicks per second! Sensors can’t make them out too well, but there don’t seem to be any big ships with them!”

  “Our scout is reporting that the Qualians are on the move. They’re looking for captains with cruisers. At the moment we’re facing only bounty hunters and small-time guilds. Everyone’s shocked—they didn’t expect us to pull something like this.”

  The reports were rushing in thick and fast, mixing together and contradicting each other in a confusing torrent of information. If someone less prepared had been in the captain’s place, a mere minute of this would cause panic amid the numbers and words. But Marina—captain of the level-98, A-class cruiser Alexandria—merely frowned and rubbed her temples. It was looking like today would be a long day…

  A class-A cruiser was the pinnacle of the space fleet in the virtual universe of Galactogon. In terms of firepower, defense and repair capability, this vessel was second only to an orbital fortress or a Grand Arbiter (a “Judge,” as the players liked to call them). At the moment, the Alexandria was carrying 4300 players as crew, 220 interceptors, 2 transports with 600 marines each, 10 resource harvesters, 3 resource refineries and some reserves—just in case. The Alexandria was an incredible threat that demanded respect and fear, and was accordingly marked for destruction by all seven of Galactogon’s in-game Empires.

  Thanks to her reputation as the “Iron Lady” as well as “a player with fortune ever on her side,” Marina had never found a lack of players for her raid groups. Those who wanted to play for Kiddo, as the players called this girl of average height, were never ending. Even now, although though there were already five thousand players on the ship, there were another seven thousand waiting to take their places in real life. In the hopes that someone would drop out, encounter network problems, or pressing business IRL, they were all waiting on tenterhooks for their turn, knowing that they might never see another chance. Kiddo didn’t do raids often—typically once a month—but she always came back with enormous amounts of loot which was automatically distributed among the raid party members.

  “Disruptor fields to starboard. Don’t let the interceptors breach it,” Marina began to issue orders. “Marine brigade—be ready in five minutes. “Anton,” she turned to one of the few players who had been there with her in her very first interceptor about…well, a very long time ago…“get the harvesters ready. We’ll send them in behind the marines—they can begin picking up the pieces. Vanya—as soon as the bogeys are in visual range, you know what to do. Don’t waste too much power.”

  “Roger that, Cap,” a young, almost childish voice said through the intercom. Ivan was a twelve year-old, who had been discovered about two years ago and had since then become an inalienable part of the Alexandria. How this young man managed to operate the ship’s entire fire control system on his own remained a mystery to everyone including the game developers. At a station that required up to five players on other vessels—a job that carried all kinds of problems of synchronization—Ivan simply grinned and sang. And he sang all the time, even though the kid had no sense of pitch whatsoever.

  “You know, Marina,” said Anton, the executive officer, chief aide, deputy and also the captain’s IRL husband of five years, “if we manage to do what you have in mind, you’ll have more than the seven Empires to worry about. Even the Confederate planets will deem us unwelcome. I realize that it’s too late to change anything, but tell me—are you sure it’s worth it? To risk everything over a humiliation you suffered such a long time ago?”

  “We’ve already discussed this, Anton. Even if we lose right now, we’ll build a second cruiser. We have the money. But getting our hands on a Legendary cruiser…besides being an upgrade across the board, it’ll also…Well, you understand better than anyone. I’m ready to risk it, and every one of the five thousand players on board understands that if we go down now, we’ll have to start from scratch. Launch the harvesters—I’m not about to lose this loot!”

  Turning away from the screens, Marina sank into her thoughts. For now, everything was going as she had planned it—the Qualians had not anticipated an attack on one of their core planets, assuming that no one would dare mount a raid so deep in their territory. Until they managed to pull up something heavy and dangerous, her raid party had the freedom to gather resources from across several planets, and if they got lucky even plunder some depots. If those turned out to hold Raq—the game’s main resource required for ship-building—then this mission would pay for itself after all…

  Galactogon was a virtual game world that revolved around several core game modes: starting from the standard “hit and run,” in which a mob of players decked out in camo uniforms chased each other around with blasters—and ending in a cutting-edge space flight simulator that allowed players to conquer star systems across vast reaches of space. The game had an utterly staggering amount of players playing it—almost the entire population of Earth, the Moon, and Mars, which amounted to over ten billion people, had Galactogon accounts. Even if the majority only used their accounts for social media, work or education, the fact remained: Just about everyone was connected to this game.

  Formally, Galactogon contained seven Empires, each ruled by local NPCs. Occupying provisional boundaries, the Empires were constantly waging war with one another over new territories, planets and resources—of which there were quite a multitude in the game—from the extremely expensive Raq to abundant Elo—the energy resource. In addition to the Empires, there were also a myriad of independent planets in Galact
ogon. These had allied into the Confederation, though no one took them very seriously. Players would frequently head out to these planets or their satellites in order to raid, plunder and test their recruits’ command or piloting skills.

  You could do whatever you wanted in this game, from gathering resources to building robots, to repairing these robots, to commanding an enormous space ship. Galactogon implemented a rather curious leveling up system—experience went to level up items instead of players. A person would always remain a person; however, having in one’s possession several hundred level-45, class-A interceptors would be very good for one’s health. When a player’s avatar died in Galactogon, the player was respawned on his home planet, along with all the money he had in his account. The penalty, however, was that all his items remained at the site of his death. Items, including all spaceships, were fully destructible. Destroying those left parts that could be used later, as well as the contents of the cargo holds that weren’t a part of the ship. The developers had done everything possible to impress on players the main principle, which was that lone-wolves had no business playing Galactogon.

  Everyone started out penniless on distant, remote training planets. Following a mandatory month-long tutorial and training period, players were issued a ticket to one of the seven Imperial capitals—the only thing that the game’s developer ever gave to the players for free—at which point, the players were left entirely to themselves. If you wanted to be somebody in the game, you’d have to invest real money to buy clothes, equipment and even food. Nevertheless, the game also had its rejects—quite a few in fact. Each one of them thought that he would be able to make something of himself without investing any real money. You could count the amount of them that succeeded on your fingers, and Marina was certainly one of them…

  “Captain, we have destroyed 72 interceptors. The others have fled. Should we pick up the wreckage?” Vanya’s voice came over the general comm and the entire crew froze in place. The question of loot was being decided. According to the Alexandria’s tradition, the captain would make the choice of whether a raid party was sent after the loot or whether the crew would have to content themselves with the experience added to their items. If they went after the loot, it’d be impossible to catch up to the fleeing interceptors. If they chased the interceptors, they could forget about the wreckage—the marauders would pick it clean. Where did they come from in this vast nothing anyway?

  “Anton, send out a harvester team,” the girl made her decision after a second’s thought. “Attention everyone! The raid objective is to collect as much loot as possible!”

  Grimacing from the eruption of joy that instantly filled the general comm channel, Marina went on peering into the screen before her—the Qualians were taking too long by allowing her harvesters to land and begin the harvesting. It was all just too simple…

  “Anton, what do the scouts say?”

  “Three cruisers identified, the strongest one is a class-B at level 47, so nothing really to report at the moment. The Qualian Emperor has declared war on you and promised to send his frontline Judge after us. How long it’ll take to get here is a question you can answer better than anyone else around here.”

  “Three hours until it reaches the central planet and another hour to us,” Marina said pensively. “Attention everyone! Marines—return back to the ship. Harvesters—cease recovery operations and begin hauling the loot back. We’re setting a course for Shylak XIV!”

  “You’ve decided to double down?” Anton grinned.

  “Correct,” the girl replied tersely. “We have three hours to pillage all we can on the trade planet. Get ready for battle with orbital stations and a joint deployment of marines and harvesters. I couldn’t care less that it’s never been done before or that it’s dangerous. We came here to plunder and pillage—not to twirl our thumbs out on the galactic rim.”

  The general comm channel fell silent. The players were afraid of saying anything for fear of drawing their captain’s attention. Every man knew very well that she could replace him without even bothering to find out what his name had been. All of the responsibility for attacking Shylak—one of the Qualian trade hubs—would fall on the captain, but if the ploy fell through…No one in his right mind had even thought of attacking a trade planet on his own yet. To even attempt a breakthrough against three orbital stations was impossible. However, as far as the impossible went, the Alexandria was an exception…

  “Cruiser Alexandria, you are hereby ordered to leave Imperial space immediately!” the metallic voice of the defense system blared through the intercom. “If you do not comply, you will be attacked in 20, 19, 18…”

  “Anton—accelerate by 200,” Marina ordered after coming to a final decision. Three class-B, level-89 orbital stations were an imposing obstacle. And yet she knew that they could be manipulated. If she would do things the way she had done repeatedly in the training simulator, then everything would work out fine. “And take control of the ship. Lisp—you’re in charge of shields and disruptor fields. Marines and harvesters—launch on my mark…Three…two…one…mark!”

  “Cruiser Alexandria! You have ignored our orders and will be terminated!”

  “Vanya—fire only on my personal command!”

  “I remember! Don’t worry, Cap, I’ll do everything to a T. Just give me the right target and I’ll take care of it!”

  “We’ve been hit!” Lisp announced from the shields station. “Full absorption! The orbital station is preparing for a full salvo!”

  “Shields to bow, accelerate 300, bearing 30, turn 45 degrees.”

  “We’ve been hit! Minus ten percent durability!”

  “What’s with the marines?” asked the girl, ignoring Lisp’s reports.

  “The orbitals didn’t touch them—I guess they’re leaving them for the surface defense forces. Marines have entered the atmosphere and the harvesters are on approach. There’re already interceptors waiting for them. We’ll lose them!”

  “Acceleration 700. Set bearing on a tangent with Shylak! Altitude 300 meters! It’s your turn, Vanya. When you’re through, I don’t want to see a single interceptor within a hundred click radius!”

  “I’m on it! Five seconds!”

  “Twenty seconds until the orbital’s full salvo,” Lisp added his two melancholy cents, but no one was paying any attention to him anymore. What Marina had planned on doing was entirely beyond the bounds of the imaginable and an attack on an already dead ship wouldn’t change anything.

  “Let’s do it! Everyone hold on. We’re about to experience true turbulence!”

  “Marina, you are out of your mind,” Anton injected nervously, pressing himself into his seat. “And that’s what I love about you!”

  A class-A space cruiser is an enormous 5-kilometer long leviathan designed to suppress enemy fleet forces in open space. Having ample maneuverability, power and defensive capability, the ship made for an excellent fleet escort and base. No one however had tried to use it like an ordinary interceptor before. The simple fear of colliding with skyscrapers kept even the pilots of these small and agile craft from descending down to 300 meters above the planet’s surface. It looked like Marina had forgotten to read the instructions for piloting her ship…

  “Atmospheric entry…Acceleration 700…Altitude ten thousand,” the steely voice of the ship computer, which Marina refused to change on principle, reported the condition of the vessel. The crew that had remained on board the ship froze at their stations. Everyone understood that either a miracle was about take place and they would accomplish the impossible—or there’d be a flash and the planet below them would consume them in its vast embrace. “Altitude five thousand…Altitude two thousand…Collision warning! Altitude one thousand…”

  Fists clenched, knuckles white, Marina peered into the screens before her. Another two seconds and…

  “Altitude three hundred…Collision with Shylak XIV Parliament building! Collision with Shylak XIV Communications Ministry! Collision with�
��”

  “Firing now!” came Ivan’s joyful cry and for several seconds, the Alexandria turned into an enormous sun. Two hundred cannons mounted around the cruiser’s circumference simultaneously came to life, blasting the planetary defense ships rising from the planet’s surface.

  “Altitude four hundred…Defense capability down by 40%…Adding power to shield regeneration recommended…”

  “Captain, everything is clear for 120 clicks around us!” Ivan reported with satisfaction and the general comm registered the entire crew’s sigh of relief—they had managed to do the impossible!

  “Marines and harvesters—descend to the planet. Commence gathering operations,” added Anton and the general comm exploded with cries of celebration. Even if they were destroyed now, the harvesters would teleport the loot directly to the refineries orbiting their home planet. Regardless of how the raid went from here on, the raid party’s reward was now assured.

  “Five seconds until orbital salvo!” Lisp did not partake in the team’s general celebration.

  “Acceleration 1500, hard brake in three seconds,” Marina said half to herself and the entire crew of the ship was pressed back into their seats. “Turn at 50, bearing 120…”

  “You do know that a cruiser isn’t meant to be used as an interceptor?” croaked Anton, but the girl wasn’t listening. She had only one thing on her mind at the moment:

  “Vanya—be ready to fire in ten seconds! Lisp—shields full forward!”

  “Done! Orbital volley incoming!” Lisp did as ordered and reported back.

  “I’m ready!” added the weapons officer with his finger hovering over a button situated apart from the rest of the controls.

  “Vessel has been hit…Forty percent damage taken…Durability ten percent…Emergency repairs required immediately…”

  “Let ‘em have it, Vanya!” ordered the girl over the computer’s report.

  “Blasting away,” smirked the kid, pushing the button. “Target hit! Goddamn!”