We were immediately hailed by the system’s traffic controllers, but I was too busy taking in all the sights and did not follow much of what was said.

“All this belongs to one Corp? There is so much, an entire planet this is insane!”

Shikra didn’t respond, it sounds like she is busy talking to the controllers.

I Gawked in awe as we slipped past hundreds of ships. So many different types of them too. Surprisingly some of the ships I recognized, I could swear one of them was a Stardestroyer, and another was the Enterprise-D.

“Shikra, are those ships what I think they are..?” I ask.

“Yes and no…someone designed custom ships in that shape and had them crafted or built. They will have guts and tech in line with this game though.”

“That is really awesome! I would love to have something like that.” I say.

“There is a huge market for ships like that, but they are expensive and usually have a long wait list.” She says.

I noticed that all the inbound ships were focused around what appeared to be gate terminals, us included. I’m guessing they somehow pulled the traffic into the area so that people did not randomly pop in near the planet or stations causing chaos.

We made off the gate at a slow but steady pace, we did not fly in any lane or pattern that I could tell like the other ships. Shikra took us out into what appeared to be an empty zone heading directly towards one of the largest stations. Once we left the middle of the madness, I started to see a pattern of how it was being done, inbound and outbound lanes towards the station based off its direction of orbit over the planet. They seemed to flow to opposite sides of the station, whoever designed these traffic patterns must have been some sort of ATC in real life.

If my thinking is correct, ships coming in traveled with the rotation of the planet, and those leaving went against the rotation of the planet. They used north/South referencing the planets spin to move ships into the destinations of the planet or stations above it. Kind of like an etch-a-sketch, you could move up or down, or left and right but not both and by using the planet’s spin as a reference you could always tell the compass directions. I think the sun is also used to help assist with more detailed orientation but was not sure how.

“Why are we not merging into one of the inbound lanes?” I ask.

“Notice that did yah? Sharp, well since we are being express laned to see the boss, we get special treatment. As in direct in at best pace, he doesn’t wait for us, and no controller worth a damn is going to silly dick around with setting us up in a lane.”

“I see…”

The station we are approaching looks like a giant icosahedron, with each side having a hangar bay or several bays. Each corner of a side has various sized docking arms for ships too big to fit in the bays, some of which have such ships docked.

Drawing nearer to the station I see two monolithic ships sitting on the poles of the station. I mean these were almost stations in and of themselves! They were long sleek, gunmetal blue, with hundreds of small ports along the edges.

“What are those things?” I ask pointing up at the two behemoths.

“Those are the pride and joy of PEI.” Shikra says with a touch of pride in her voice. “They are the single most powerful ship design in the game. Designed and built by us for us. They are so expensive that we only have a handful of them in service, they exact quantity and location of them is kept very secret. Two of them are always here at the home station and there is usually another one secreted around here somewhere as backup.”

“That’s pretty awesome and all, but what makes them so powerful?” I ask.

“Well, a lot of it is classified at the topmost levels but, they are Leviathan class worldships. Just one of them is enough to besiege an entire solar system on their own, only a few of the next top corps could even hope to engage one and win.”

If this corp is so powerful, I wonder to myself. Why do they need little ants like me? I have mostly been following along with this out of curiosity but I’m really wondering if I should try and get out of this while I can. Might be too late, seeing as how I’ve managed to be dragged this far in a ship, I have no control over, with a crazy lady, great.

During my musings we landed in a small hangar that had only a few sleek looking ships and one slightly bigger ship parked in it.

Shikra powered down the ship, and I unbuckled myself from the seat and we exited the rear of the ship.

The hangar seems larger now that I’m standing in it instead of seeing it from inside a cockpit. Neat yellow lines break up the bay into smaller sections and provided a walkway to an entry with some sort of energy field for a door. Shikra passed through it in stride, so I hustled to keep up with her. Passing through the field made my skin tingle.

For going to see the big cheese, looking around I did not notice any type of security guards or heavy defenses. Sure, there were the Worldships sitting outside but if someone got this far, I don’t know that they would do much good. Possibly some sort of hidden defenses in the walls?

“Okay, nub listen up.” Shikra says interrupting my thoughts.

“Be polite, don’t say anything stupid, and remember this man is the CEO of the largest and most powerful corp in the entire game.” We had progressed through a few hallways, in seemingly a random pathway of hallways and throughways. The place was spotless clean, and everything was spartan, very militaristic and sterilized feeling.

“Make sure whatever you decide don’t piss him off, you might end up jettisoned into deep space, just a warning.”

“I will do my best…” I say with zero confidence. “You’re not exactly painting a great picture for me here, you sure about this?”

We stop in front of an actual door, like any other we have passed so far. No guards, no security or anything.

She looks over at me with a mischievous grin, and winks. “Get in there nub, good luck.” She gives me a gentle shove and I stumble through the door as it slides open on its own.

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Inside is not at all what I was expecting, it looks just like someone’s living room. Several couches sat around a richly carpeted room, paintings, TV’s and random busts sprinkled around the walls. I mean this place looked more like a leisure room than some huge honcho corporate office. Looking around I don’t even see a desk; I would have expected at least that.

Across the room a door slides open that was hidden in the wall. I short squat man waddles out. He has a huge bushy beard with colorful beads tied in it, cargo shorts, a T-shirt with a pie on it, and flip-flops.

I activate Identify on him.

A red name appears above his name.

Name: Dr. Killjoy Species: Steelan Class: Unknown Level: Unknown

Oh, this is the CEO, did not see that coming, they way Shikra talked this guy up he sounded like a super scary hard ass, was not expecting a hippie Dwarf.

“You must be Alex, welcome to my office!” He says in a jolly greeting.

He waddles up to me and puts his hand out to shake. I reach down and give his hand a good squeeze and shake.

“Thank you for coming all the way out to see me, I know you probably stopped your tutorial mission to come out so quickly and I appreciate it!”

He releases my hand and jumps up onto a couch. “Have a seat.” He motions to the couch across from him with a hand wave.

I ease into the seat he offers; the couch is unsurprisingly comfortable, and I sink in a few inches.

“I hear you got into a little scrap on the way here with an interdiction sphere. Nasty business those! Good thing I sent Shikra after you, or you’d be space dust already.”

“Or.” I counter. “I would still be doing my tutorial and maybe have flown off in a different direction after.”

“Oh, smart lad, that could have been the case too I suppose.” He says snapping his fingers.

“Let’s get into it then, yes? You probably have been told by now that you are quite rare. One of maybe a dozen Epics, the nearest thing someone in this game can get to being a god.” He says, his eyes lighting up and raising his hand to point at the ceiling.

“And I want to cultivate that potential and encourage it.” He points at me with the same hand. “So, I propose you come and work for me and we will grow your skills and abilities. I don’t even care what it is you want to do, all Epics who are passionate about their interests develop very interesting skills and abilities.” He says, with his face lighting up and eyebrows wiggling all over his face.

“I really did not intend to join any major faction, or corp. I really enjoy being able to do what I want you know, and I have not really had a chance to sit down and just think about what exactly I even want to do.” I say letting out a breath at the end.

Ever since I was dropped into this world, I really have not had a chance to think about what I really wanted to do. Fly spaceships and explore heck yeah, but what else? I imagine as fun as it would be, I would get bored and want to do other things.

“I understand that Alex, and I and PEI would enable you to do that with some major backing and clout. Like I said we want help you develop your growth, let me give you an example, maybe it will clear some things up.” He says tapping his nose in thought.

“Epics can learn any skill, from any game, magic, tech, magi-tech, low-tech, whatever!” He says flailing his arms about. “BUT! That’s not the best part, when an Epic is passionate about something or pressed to their limits they can break a skill in amazing ways, unknown ways that are unique to them. So much of our tech has been engineered by an Epic we have who loves to build. Thanks to them we have stayed ahead and even surpassed what the Devs have put in the game, and they can’t remove the stuff hah! Sure, they can nerf some stuff a bit, but because the Epics brains help run the game, they can’t remove it outright.”

If that’s the case, I can see the massive advantage we would present in the game. It kind of reminds me of the Matrix. Being a Neo esc type person would for sure be handy.

“So, what, you’re saying I’m basically Neo, and this is the Matrix?”

“That’s right my boy! Except you can’t really control the game only influence it by breaking your skills.”

“Okay, I think I get it but what if my way of breaking the game only helps me?” I ask.

“Alex, if you join our corp you will be trained, given resources, and the freedom to develop your skills and find your place. Once you do PEI will use that skill in a way that makes us both happy.”

“Yeah, but if I’m doing my own thing how does that help you? There is always a catch.”

“Indeed, there is, but I won’t know until you decide what you want eh? I’m willing to take a risk to train, equip, and send you out do find your niche. Then we can discuss a mutual beneficial contract. You see Epics are so rare and powerful I would risk a lot to gain your loyalty. Besides the credits and resources, I have are so deep and vast you could never spend it all hah! Believe me I’ve tried!”

This crazy sounding Dwarf’s deal or sale is sounding more and more tempting. Yet, at the same time sounds too good I really don’t want to get stuck being some mega-corp lacky.

“I can see the suspicion in your eye’s lad, tell you what. Our game legal team will write up an open-ended contract for you. Clean cut and to the point. We PEI will provide you with flight training up to any level you wish, close combat training to any level you wish, and any subsequent training you need that we can provide, a modest starting credit deposit, and depending on how well your training goes gear and a ship that matches the tier you achieve in training. After which time you will be released into the game to do as you, please under our banner. Once you develop a broken skill or six weeks passes, we can negotiate a new contract.”

The moment he stops talking a high-tech looking note pad appears in his hands. “Here you go.” He says, handing it over to me. “This is exactly as I’ve said go ahead and read it, let me know what you think.”

I take the device and read over it. It says exactly what he just proposed, no fine text or anything else, except the “modest credit deposit” has a number, 20 million credits! I am still new to the game but to me that sounds like a lot.

“Is this right, 20 million? Excuse my newness but I don’t know what this equates too.” I say with some shake in my voice.

“No worries, there is a Market Access Terminal or MAT over there you can use.” He points to a machine sliding out of a wall to my right. It looks like an old arcade style game with a screen, glowing with info.

I get up and walk over to it, my legs feeling like jelly.

On the screen it has a single prompt, “Touch screen to log in and open the market under your account.” Seems simple, I tap the screen and it shifts. It now displays several tabs labeled; Purchase, sell, Auction, and a greyed-out tab that says Inventory.

I Press the Purchase tab, it drops down into a shit load of sub tabs that flutter across the screen; Armor, Gear, Ships, Weapons, Ammo, Housing, Vehicles, Stations, Misc, Vanity, and on and on. Without continuing down the list, I tap ships.

The other tabs vanish, and ships jumps to the top of the screen and a new series of tabs drop down; Personal ships, Capital ships, Small Crew Ships, Industrial Ships, Rooky Ships, Drone Ships, Fighters, Bombers, Exploration Ships, Luxury Ships…and on it went. I tap Personal Ships, and it drops down a huge list of names I have no understanding of their meaning, but next to each name is a Tier, Grade, and cost. Next to the Tier I see an arrow and tap it, hoping it sorts by Tier. Sure enough it does starting at the lowest Tier 1. I then tap grade doing the same, so now it’s showing Tier 1 Grade A, the lowest of the low. The cheapest ship in this tier costs five hundred thousand credits. Something called a Mongoose personal transport. I reverse the list and look at the most advanced, top of the list it has Tier 10, Grade S. The ship is greyed out, unavailable? Or too high for me to purchase maybe?

“This ship is greyed out why? I ask.

The little Dwarf hops of the couch and waddles next to me.

“Ah, that ship is out of stock. It’s rare to find any of the high tear ships on the market. Most of them are crafted by players or big corps like ours, and as you can see it costs an insane amount.” He says pointing at the cost.

I look and my eyes nearly jump out of my head! The ship costs a whopping 650 million credits.

“So, as you can see.” Dr. Killjoy says. “Twenty Million is a decent sum, you can purchase a decent amount of kit and a solid starting ship. However, like I said.” He says wiggling his eyebrows at me. “We will provide you with both, so the credits will be for spending on anything else you may need on top of a free ship and gear.”

I feel my soul dropping out of me, I think I may have to take this little guy up on his offer. Getting a ton of training and gear right out of the gate and spending money, with no real commitment? I feel like I’m making a deal with the devil.

“Okay Dr. Killjoy, where do I sign.”