Only a few minutes had passed. I spent most of them talking to Treasure about our next steps. Hal Pal, or Jeeves, had logged in but wasn’t responding to my attempts to use the in-game messaging system. I left Treasure and Iron to find the AI.

“Jeeves!” I rounded a corner and shouted down the hallway to my friend. The unit seemed distracted, almost lost. As I got closer it became apparent that the [Mechanoid] was distracted by a seemingly blank wall. “Are you okay?”

“I am functional, User Legate.” The AI responded calmly without moving.

“The Wayfarer Eight was heavily damaged, and Commander Queenshand stole the Mistborn.” My words were to the point, I needed to get Jeeves up to speed on the situation.

“Ah.” Jeeves sounded amazingly close to sorrow. “I had received a message regarding this. Are we in pursuit?”

I stared at the other [Mechanoid] for a few moments before answering. “We’re about to be. Treasure said the commander had two large ships, plus the player one. Their largest is a carrier ship. It’s blocking the warp point out.”

“Are we to fight?” Jeeves looked in my direction for the first time. I tried to understand the emotion on its face, but couldn’t quite pin it. Maybe frustration? It could have easily been annoyance or mild anger. That face mixed with a vocal undertone of sadness. I couldn’t tell why Jeeves was so upset. Maybe the quest, or maybe the Hal Pal Consortium.

Voices, I wasn’t sure how to handle it.

“Treasure has asked everyone capable of flight to help out. It’s that or give up.” I said while watching Jeeves for available visual cues. [Mechanoid] expressions were human enough. The way our colors pulse or dimmed with certain emotions helped even more.

“Mechanoids do not give up a mission. They, we-” it struggled to say the words “will continue until the cessation of function or the desired result is achieved.”

“Victory or death?” I translated. Talking seemed to be helping Jeeves focus.

“Affirmative, User Legate.”

“Okay. I’m taking the Wayfarer’s Hope to help fight.” I looked at the discombobulated [Mechanoid]. Our conversation in the real world made me worried. “You don’t need to come if you don’t want to.”

“I will go with you, User Legate. I fought for this, and will help you see it to the end.”

“Let's go then.” I didn’t have enough time to really sit down and sort this out. Not yet, but I needed to. Jeeves and the Hal Pals had provided me help all along. They had directly asked me, ‘Does family not care for each other?’. I would try after this immediate crisis was resolved.

We both started running off for the [Wayfarer’s Hope]. My piloting skills might be weak alone, but Jeeves brought a lot to the table. The AI had built itself up with passives that helped manage the engine speeds, repair, shields, and even increased targeting on our lasers.

Soon Jeeves and I were strapping into the [Wayfarer’s Hope]. The ship had more room and upgrades but nothing as impressive as Treasure or Iron’s ship. She drove something that looked like a shiny laser barfing monster, where Iron’s spaceship was basically a tank.

“All Units prepare for deployment.” Iron’s voice poured out into our cockpit. Jeeves pressed something behind me and a picture of Iron’s face appeared to go along with his words.

“Ruby, Agate, Opal, you’re on fringe duty, remove any stray sheep. Aqua, you take your three and hang back to perform repairs on the Wayfarer Eight.” Treasure’s voice piped up. Iron was moving a half visible arm to press buttons.

“We’re up against the Knuckle Dragger, a Class three carrier with at least three hundred pilots on staff,” Iron said. “Big, mean, with an army behind it. Estimated odds of survival through direct confrontation are sixty-four percent.”

“Neat,” I said. Part of me felt excited about the prospect of a space fight against other people. I mean, how neat would a game get where this was just part of the quest chain? The other part of me remembered the stakes and felt my face drain of warmth.

“Do you want me to call you Jeeves or Hal Pal?” I tried to sort of the AI’s recent issue and not address it wrong.

“I am Jeeves, User Legate.” The machine nodded. I looked into the vague reflection on our spaceship’s front windshield. The AI still had a vaguely unfocused expression. Jeeves didn’t stop moving forward, one task at a time, in order to get ready for our descent.

“Copper, Cobalt, Steel, you’re on me. Just like we practiced.” Iron said. Three other faces of [Mechanoid]s I barely knew appeared and nodded. Their images faded from our cockpit display quickly enough.

“Where do you want us?” I pressed a button to activate my own channel communication and dared to speak up.

“Unit Hermes, your own flight skills are subpar, and your ship does not excel in any specific fashion, therefore categorizing you into a squad is difficult. What would you like to do?” Treasure spoke to us. I cringed as the [Mechanoid] listed off our problems for everyone to hear.

“Treasure, I am supporting Unit Hermes, our capabilities will be adequate for any role you assign.” Jeeves tried to speak up for us.

I flushed red with shame. Defending our skills to a bunch of AIs who were clearly better at flying had been a bad idea. Then again, there had to be a method to contribute. Ideas flashed through my head until I realized the game had already assigned me a role.

“Treasure, we’re going to stick with Iron’s unit until he gets close to the Knuckle Dragger, I’ll try to attack the ship from behind, maybe we can do damage,” I said.

“Our goal is to recover the Mistborn. Assistance towards this goal is required to gain contribution.” Treasure responded as her image’s face nodded.

“I’ll be able to do more damage from the ship's rear.” I cringed when thinking about the [Rear Assaulter] title, but it was a huge bonus to damage behind enemy lines. It worked perfectly during my duels and against combat dummies. Maybe it would work using a space ship.

“Treasure, Unit Hermes and Unit Jeeves have increased the maneuverability and firepower of their ship by a significant amount since their encounter with the Leviathan,” Iron said. “This will increase our odds by two percent.”

“This is our best method of contribution to the consortium,” Jeeves added its opinion.

“Very well. Everyone has their parts. We’ll need to breakthrough to the Jump Gate as quickly as possible.” Treasure spoke and our ship flared to life. The hum of engines felt comforting when compared to the silence of Trillium’s van. Their sound was a low idle noise similar to an electric fence.

“You ready, Jeeves?” I asked.

“Affirmative, User Legate.”

Treasure was still talking. “The Wayfarer Seven support crew will steadily move towards the gate! We’ll hold it and tow the Eight nearby. Once there, we will warp out as a group to [Mechanoid] territories. Make sure you’re with us before we hit the jump!”

Our ship, along with dozens of others, fell from the [Wayfarer Seven]’s body. I could finally see what we were up against. There was a ship in the distance that looked giant and mean. Around it swarmed a ton of other ships. A few were player ones that seemed to have an off-kilter formation from Commander Queenshand’s people.

“Unit Hermes. You’re with me.” Iron’s face appeared once more on our display. “We’ll carve a path inward and clear you space to dive in.”

“Thanks.”

“Thank me by performing to the best of your ability,” Iron said with deep tones as his image clicked off. That was actually amazingly polite for the giant [Mechanoid].

I moved the ship forward, happy to see our energy usage had decreased. This ship was vastly improved over the old one. A quick scan of the stats as we moved forth revealed we were almost double the old scores on everything but [Repair] speed.

“User Legate. I will micromanage our shield and damage output. If you wish to go in guns blazing, please at least warn me so I can maximize our survival chances.” The AI said behind me. Whatever it was pressing caused a lot of beeps to fill our cabin.

“You sure you want to risk this?” The seven ships in front of me started to pick up speed. It felt like we were on the beginning of a rollercoaster, in space, with laser beams and high stakes. Maybe the comparison to an amusement park was a poor one.

“Affirmative, User Legate.” The AI’s female and male voices came from behind me.

“Well, I think we’ll be okay. They’re way smaller than a Leviathan!” I tried to sound positive. This was our best chance anyway. [Mechanoid]s were stronger in a group, even now there was a small icon showing some passive buff being applied for each active unit.

Our squadron again picked up speed. We were in an arrow formation pointing straight towards the [Knuckle Dragger]. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a second arrow formation filled with reds peeling away towards an edge. Their ships spread wide like a flower of destruction blooming.

Treasure’s icon on our battle map hung back near the [Wayfarer Eight]. A progress bar popped up showing what our status was. I looked up just in time to see a giant missile cruise by even faster than our formation. It looked like a rocket rumbling along.

It reached the enemy line before we did and exploded in a shower of fireworks and metal. The Advance Online game system put a message up in my screen outlining our situation.

Enemy Flagship: [Knuckle Dragger]

Enemy Captain: Auntie Backstab

Enemy Vessels: 120 ships

Primary Goal:

* Intercept the first squadron’s ship, [Lady Liberty] and recover the [Mistborn]

Current Stage Goal:

* Escort the [Wayfarer Seven] to the Jump Gate

Secondary Goals:

* Escort the [Wayfarer Eight] to the Jump Gate

* Cripple the [Knuckle Dragger]

* Remove the Enemy Captain

* Remove all enemy vessels

* Additional objectives possible [undiscovered]

I waved it to one side. The enemy vessels totaled almost twice our number. [WTS a Spaceship] was nowhere in sight nor mentioned on the quest tracker.

Iron’s crew kicked the sped up another notch, following in behind the blinding glare of that explosive round.

“Switching optics to wireframe mode,” Jeeves said behind me. The formerly blinded system we had flipped around and I felt like everything became an old arcade shooter. The kind my father used to talk about. Low graphics, low quality.

Beams of liquid fire came across the landscape. Iron’s unit took them head on and small particles of angry red splashed off of poorly rendered shields. Whatever was happening had barely dented the giant [Mechanoid] and his tank like spaceship.

Bright lights pooled. In wireframe mode, they looked like growing yellow stars attached to the tips of each ship right behind Iron. I could see the blue shield lining drop right as they reached a peak. Stars of energy flew off into the distance and the blue shield reappeared again almost instantly.

“Are they attacking?” I asked.

“Unit Iron serves as a shield for the others. They’re using the safety to launch larger attacks.” Jeeves poked at his screen. “We can assist with the next volley, move to here and prepare.”

“I’m only human!” I couldn’t pull off timing that precise. The ship nudged into position anyway. A small bar appeared to one side with a countdown timer that made me nervous looking at it. What if I tried to fire the laser and Iron’s shield was still up? Would we all explode in a plasma filled failure pie of my baking?

“I know, User Legate. That is why I am here.” Jeeves said. The little ‘Attack’ button that had been flashing before faded out and Jeeves’ name popped up next to it. I guess the AI had taken control of the guns.

We, mostly Jeeves, fired off another volley into the enemy fleet. It did minimal damage but served to scatter the largest pocket of fighters.

“Do not let them break you, men!” Commander Queenshand’s voice cranked in from an unknown source. “Stay together and focus on them one at a time!”

“Updating attack pattern,” Iron said. “Unit Hermes, Unit Jeeves, we’re breaking through. Be ready.”

“Affirmative,” Jeeves said. A new path outlined our destination. I got ready to crank up the engine to full power.

I learned, at least a little bit, ways to save our energy. Without any actual gravity, we wouldn’t slow down that much. Only resistance could drain us of speed. Space was full of strange things that seemed counter intuitive. We would build speed, cut the engine to save energy, and only activate the go button when changing directions.

“Safest route plotted. Verifying destination with squadron commander.” Jeeves said behind me.

A line appeared against the wireframe representation of the battlefield. I was thankful for the dumbed down version, it made navigating through far easier. Obstacles were simply large brown lines against a dull black background. Friendly ships lit up green, unfriendly units were an odd shade of blue. Our path out was full of yellow arrows like a landing stripe.

“Looks good, Unit Jeeves. We’ll peel off and hit them center mass.” Iron said as his face popped into momentary existence.

A red-faced [Mechanoid] female appeared next to Iron. She gave a shake of her head. Whatever she communicated silently seemed to cause Jeeves to change our course slightly. Ruby smiled faintly then her squadron crossed right in front of ours, going at breakneck speeds. The red ship spun about making hairpin turns and landed more than a few shots.

Iron’s group tilted abruptly and veered straight into other ships. They slowed a little as two of the red ships spun around to fire behind them. They adjusted their inertia almost perfectly and were essentially driving backward in space.

No wonder Treasure said I wasn’t any good. The precision of these other [Mechanoid]s was literally robotic.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Here we go!” I shouted. The yellow line hung nearby like a freeway off ramp. [Wayfarer’s Hope] flared into high gear and our bodies were yanked backward from the thrust.

I leaned in with the ship's movement, veering us downward to the left side of the battlefield. Ruby had cleared a path in that direction then abruptly switched sides to distract them.

One straggler hung in front of us. I tilted somewhat off course to bring it in line. Small crosshairs faded in and out signifying the likelihood of my aim assisting. Jeeves pulled the trigger again when I wasn’t looking.

“Fine! You attack them!” I shouted at him. The noise rebounded in our small room causing Dusk to cringe. Sparing a glance at the [Messenger’s Pet] showed how unhappy this entire adventure was making him.

“Don’t worry, I’ll buy you a lot of cupcakes! Have you tried red velvet yet? Or white fudge?” I started rambling at Dusk while trying to swerve our course away from larger blunt objects. Each turn of the wheel in front of me painted a new line of yellow towards our destination.

“Chocolate peanut butter cup? Have I given you those yet?” I kept talking. “Carrot cake?”

Dusk perked up a little. Moments later he was cringing as I spun us around some incoming attacks. Zero gravity caused the [Messenger’s Pet] to float momentarily  until we stopped jerking around. Small bits of our shield were being shaved off. One shot pierced through to our hull and left a smear upon the front window.

“Jeeves!” I shouted while squeezing off another few shots. My poorly aimed blasts clipped one person's wings and their ship flew off its prior collision course.

“One moment, rerouting.”

“Maybe we should have picked up a stealth module.” I grit my teeth while complaining about all the things we didn’t buy for the ship.

“User Legate, if we did that, then there would be no more room for the three bombs I have procured,” Jeeves said.

“What?!” I hastily checked the displays. Another blast hit our shields causing white wired representations of laser beams to splash across the vision.

“Three containers of a similar ordinance to what we used on the Leviathan. Though I must advise…” The AI started talking and my brain overloaded with relief. This was no longer a random skirmish in enemy territory, now it was a bombing run.

“I could kiss you!” I shouted over whatever he was about to say. We had heavy explosives! We could use them to great effect. I just had to find ways to insert them deep inside the ship. Maybe we could fly inside of it?

That would be risky. Once we did, we might not be able to back out. Then we would miss the warp point and fail this quest anyway. Xin’s actual existence didn’t seem to be at risk, though, only my ability to be with her. I couldn’t let that happen.

“I must advise they will be useless if we do not penetrate their shields.” Jeeves continued.

Dusk was still sliding around. He should be used to this by now!

“Mississippi mud cupcakes. They’re delicious.” I tried to distract both myself and the tiny digital companion. There were too many things flying across our screen. Each time I dodged one something else collided with us instead.

“I have often speculated that it is the frosting which makes a cupcake,” Jeeves said behind me joining in the effort.

Dusk was nodding rapidly with pretty much every cupcake related commentary. Now he was distracted. Small bits of drool dripped down into acid resistant padding we purchased from Emerald. The [Messenger’s Pet] and his new form came with numerous odd hurdles compared to the slim dragon one.

The steering wheel used for our ship jerked to one side again. Four enemy craft went cruising by us fast enough to give Dusk whiplash. The [Messenger’s Pet] lowered his head while hissing and groaning. Jeeves sat back pressing buttons on his console.

“Strawberry cupcakes.” I kept muttering. It helped distract me from the tenseness between my shoulders. [Mechanoid]s may be robots, but I was not. We managed to clear nearly all the distance towards the [Knuckle Dragger]. I tilted back up to Jeeves. “These bombs, will they do a lot of damage?”

“If we can get them into vulnerable parts of the ship, yes,” Jeeves said.

The ship in front of us was huge. It looked almost exactly like an aircraft carrier, in space. Endless rows of jets lined the underside. Turrets poked out from every angle, rotating freely to cast little bolts of hate in our direction. Vulnerable seemed to be a difficult word to apply to our enemy's moving fortress.

Another giant blast painted the landscape in white. It was enough to destroy the wire mesh visuals for a moment. I flew blindly praying that no one was in our way.

“Please tell me you’ve got a suggestion,” I asked.

“Iron’s almost down.” Jeeves provided a status update as a third weaker explosion went off. We had to weave away from the main ship at least four times now. “Diamond and Aqua are trying to recover his vessel, but it will take too long.”

Ruby’s trio of destruction was reduced down to a duo. They zoomed through picking off another few fighters in rapid succession.

“There are a lot more of them as well.” Jeeves’ male butler voice sounded dry, almost bored. The female one was shaky and worried.

“They keep coming out!” I shouted in frustration.

“Unit Hermes, are you able to do anything?” Treasure’s voice popped onto our screen. Her sweet voice pleaded with me and the golden markers were flaring with desperation.

“Going to try!” I angled the [Wayfarer’s Hope] straight for one of the launching platforms that ships kept coming from. “Jeeves, shields! If anyone can distract those guns that would help.”

The crimson colored [Mechanoid] Ruby popped into view. She nodded, but I barely took note of it. Two red streaks zipped by trailing smoke of some sort. It looked strange on the wire mesh overlay that Jeeves had running.

“Jeeves, I’ll get us close. You drop it!”

“Gladly, User Legate.”

We carved a path through the fog. I tried to stay on target with Jeeves' suggested path. Thankfully Jeeves had somehow picked up this navigation skill; otherwise I would be totally lost.

The path abruptly changed directions. I yanked hard on the wheel and pulled us over a jutting portion of the [Knuckle Dragger]. They were on the move towards our ship! Giant return shots pounded out with powerful vibrations that could be felt even at this range.

“New target! That cannon!” I jabbed at the screen. It was still in badly outlined frames, but even lower graphics painted a clear enough picture. Cannons jerked as heavy ordinance went into long tubes to be launched into space.

“Affirmative, User Legate.” The yellow path curved as Jeeves updated our programming. I pressed the brakes, spun us in a sharp turn upwards along the ship's side. Thankfully the [Knuckle Dragger] didn’t curve and wiggle like the [Leviathan] did. Instead, we were forced to dodge gunfire from turrets and a ton of other ships.

Ruby zipped by again, she was alone now. Opal and whoever hadn’t survived. I frowned while thinking of the losses. War wasn’t pretty, and these were my fellow [Mechanoid]s dying in droves. I checked the map briefly and saw our numbers were about half of what they used to be.

The enemy just kept coming.

“You got it?” I shouted to Jeeves. The pounding echo of our cockpit couldn’t curb my excitement.

“One moment.” Jeeves’ voices were mixed up again. The male calm and professional, the female was somewhat nervous.

I pulled the craft still on Jeeves’ marker. Dirt or some other particle lingered in space. Super advanced robot science must have found a way to throw up a mist cloud even though we had no atmosphere. A countdown timer on one side showed twenty seconds for whatever Jeeves was doing.

He had control of our ship. Small arms came out on either side and looked childish in the wire mesh view. Large round barrels were placed against the cannon's hull. Both arms tweaked and pressed at parts of the explosive cargo. The cannon kept firing, oblivious to our grand plan for destruction.

“Ah. I would suggest running quickly.” The AI said behind me.

“Voices!” A new countdown appeared. This one flashed an angry red. I pressed the gas pedal to rocket us away. Our only goal was escape, and I blindly charged right along the giant spaceship's hull.

The circle indicating certain doom hit zero. Our ship rumbled violently. Pieces of cannon flew past. Dusk continued making angry noises. One large piece of debris slammed into our ship spinning us out of control.

“Jeeves!” I shouted while trying to get our bearings. We were spinning too fast, every time I tapped the engine it added a new twist of confusion. Dusk sounded sick behind me. His long tail twisted into loops as his nails tried to find purchase.

“Shields at maximum, engine output minimal, engaging repair systems.” Jeeves said.

Dusk was completely livid. I could hear him squawking madly in what had to be dragonish curse words. Jeeves seemed unruffled. My belly felt nauseous. Even though the ARC feedback didn’t include internal organs spinning around, it didn’t stop my head from hurting as the horizon tilted.

Our wire mesh interface went away. The normal battleground came back into existence. I could see a full-color spectrum of shattered [Mechanoid] crafts. For every one of our race's broken bodies, there were six of the enemy’s. Pieces of circuitry and gore floated by the screen and I almost retched.

I was getting used to the ARC’s capability for realism but every so often it would catch me off guard. Living in such a world hadn’t completely desensitized me.

Tertiary Objective Completed!

* [Knuckle Dragger] main cannon destroyed

* Enemy vessels removed exceeds 50%

Reward: Enemy forces have suffered too much damage and will switch tactics.

We were doing well with blowing up the cannon. I could see both [Wayfarer]s moving forth steadily. The Seven provided heavy fire support for the Eight. My eyes tried to scan the battlefield and our  interface map. Things were bad, but not terrible. We could recover quickly enough.

A heavy blast winged us. My hands jerked the [Wayfarer’s Hope] around to face our attacker, two small one man ships. Close enough that we could see the pilot's face. Part of me wanted the wire mesh system back, it helped make things seem less realistic.

Jeeves had no such issues pressing the trigger. We were lucky these weren’t actual players or they would have plenty of tricks. Or been smart enough to keep moving.

“We’re almost there.” Treasure’s status report came. “Casualties at sixty percent. Most damage is repairable. The Wayfarer Eight is still taking mild fire.”

“What next?” I asked.

“Unit Hermes, Unit Jeeves, good job on the cannon, can you contribute more?” She responded over the group intercom.

“How many of those do we have left?” I asked Jeeves while trying to get our ship moving again. Most of our energy was pooled into the shields and repair functions right now.

“One remaining, Unit Hermes. They cost a lot of resources to make properly. The protective casing is even more expensive.” Jeeves said while poking at more buttons. The strength of our shields dropped a bit and speed picked up.

“Is it as powerful?”

The AI nodded.

“Treasure, we have a bit more, but need a target.” I told her.

The [Wayfarer Seven] had reached the warp station hanging in space while the [Wayfarer Eight] limped along behind. The [Knuckle Dragger] seemed content to let our giant ships push by while delivering as much damage as possible. Their purpose seemed to be slowing us down, but not actually stopping us at all costs.

“It is recommended that you take the other ships' warp drives offline. This will allow us time to recover on the other side.” Treasure said. “We have little support left to help you out.”

There was a swarm of ships powering back in our direction. Ruby’s red streak of mayhem was nowhere to be seen. Iron’s battering ram crew was gone. Dim colors in the distance and on my map indicated that Treasure and Diamond and a few others were hovering close to the [Wayfarer Seven].

“Can we make it back?” I idled our engine for a moment and stared at the oncoming mass of ships.

“It seems unlikely.” Jeeves said. “Our ship has sustained heavy injury. Drive and shields are at less than optimal status. Our continued battery is not helping.”

“Treasure, we will try, though it may cost our ship.” And me, Dusk, Jeeves. I didn’t like the idea. “Can you spare anyone to pull us out?”

“If we can.” Treasure said. “Our current outcome projections are unfavorable.”

“You sure about this, Jeeves?” I looked in the reflection at him again as we did circles in worry. The approaching ships were getting closer, we had a few seconds left to run or go all in.

“Do not worry about me, User Legate. The primary purpose of our existence in this reality is to complete your goal.”

That wasn’t its only reason for being in here. Hal Pal wanted to grow and experience challenges. This certainly qualified. Though I worried what might happen if its character died. Either way, recalling to the ship might result in failure of both the mission and our shared desire to live.

“Alright. All in it is!” I shouted, feeling far too excited for this kind of madness. There was a certain addiction to the virtual thrill ride.

I pulled us around, aimed for the giant carrier and prayed to the Voices for assistance in this latest reckless move.

“What are we doing?” Both of Jeeves' voices sounded worried. I reached up for Dusk and pet the little guy on his head, just for luck. It made him do that half chirp, half purr noise.

“Personal delivery! Get me the biggest opening in that ship's ass end we can find!” I stepped on the go faster gas pedal and drove us straight for the [Knuckle Dragger]'s rear end. If this game was going to provide me such a silly title, by the Voices, I would use it for every extra ounce of damage available.

“Ah. Reckless endangerment once again. Very well.” The AI said.

“Full shields, cut the engines, we’re riding this out!” I shouted and grabbed Dusk. The little guy hissed in confusion as we reached insane speeds diving for one of the starship’s launchpads. “Hang on!”

Cripple the big ship first. Survive second. Reunite with the [Wayfarer] fell down to third. If we got both [Wayfarer]s through and managed to reconstruct on the other side, our goal, my goal, wouldn’t be a total loss. There were no good options left. Rules for preventing panic attacks came to mind. Focus on one thing at a time.

Hopefully, my kamikaze piloting wouldn't get us wiped.