*BOOM*
“Jackson! Where the hell are you! Get to the engine room, NOW!” A booming voice screams.
A young man, barely looking like he's over twenty, jumps, startled by the sudden voice and loud explosion, and directly off of the bed that he appears to be resting on, head first into the ground.
“Wha-” He mumbles, still trying to come to his senses after the party he'd had with his fellow dorm mates after graduating from college with a degree in engineering.
“What's going on? I'm… Peter Jackson? Wait, where am I?!” He mutters before looking around wildly trying to figure out his surroundings, the metal walls with strange patterns on them and weird lighting as well as the automatic blast doors seeming to point towards some kind of Sci-fi nonsense.
“Ahg,” he shrieks, feeling memories that arn't his own rushing into his head, the pain immeasurable, before it slowly settles down and Jackson's eyes and head clear up with a new sense of clarity.
“I'm the head engineer on the Dominator, a huge spaceship used to fight in wars outside of earth… WAIT! Am I in space?! No, how did I get here in the first place? I don't remember dying?”
“Could it be that I died in my sleep? That's not fair! I had just received my degree! I could finally go out in the world and show off my creations and make a lot of money!”
“I've never worked on a spaceship before! What am I supposed to do?! I don't want to die again!”
[*PING*]
[*System Booting*]
“Huh, what's this a system? Like in those novels that I used to read? Haha, even when the word spits in my face, I alone am the-, *cough* *cough*, OK, let's not get cringy, no matter how freaked out I am, I need to avoid losing my head.”
[*System Booted!* Welcome to the Exotech System!]
“Status”
[Status]
--------------
Name: Peter Jackson
Age: 21
Level: 1
HP: 50/50
MP: 0/0
Str: 9
Int: 7
Agi: 3
Per: 4
Luck: 5
Unassigned SP: None
Skills: [None]
Rewards: Gift Package
--------------
“Ooh, a gift package? Open the gift package.”
[Gift Package rewards: 3x SP, Skill: Master Fixer, Skill: Expert Pistol Marksman]
“Not bad, not bad. Wish the marksman skill wasn't just for pistol, though. Thankfully, the pistols here do more damage than the ones on earth, or we would be screwed if an alien got on board the ship.”
*BOOM*
“JACKSON!!!!” The loud voice from the intercom can be heard screaming again, causing Jackson to jump.
“Right! I need to get to the engine room!” Jackson mutters as he scrambles to his feet and rushes out of the staff quarters.
“OK, the engine room. Gotta find the engine room.” He says, stumbling as the ship gets hit by something again. “This place is a maze. Eating Quarters, Labs, Meeting Quarters, Armoury, Engine room! Found it!”
Jackson quickly scans his access card and runs towards the engine that is currently smoking.
“Damn, the engine is smoking. If I don't fix this quickly, the ship is going to turn into a giant firework.”
He grabs his tool bag gets to work, clearing leaking blue fuel, replacing gears, fixing loose wires and soldering the metal that's breaking apart closed.
“Ok, that should hold for now. I need to check the systems to make sure that nothing is offline.”
He brings up the ship's system interface and after typing in his password for administrator access, he looks for anything that's offline before he goes changing anything that could cause more trouble for the crew.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
“Weapons are online, that's good, but ventilation is malfunctioning and won't hold for long, and the shields are completely down. At least the engine seems to be running fine again, but let's get the ventilation and shields fixed.”
Quickly re-routing some power from the ship to the shields and rebooting the ventilation, he quickly moves towards the shielding bay and replaces the Quantum Charges which seem to have cracked.
“Now that's done, let's check the ship status again… Why are Shields still down?! I just fixed it!”
Looking around the shielding controls, he notices that the light pertaining towards the power is still red, which means that some wiring must still need fixing.
“Ah, I must have missed some wires under the hatch. Everything up here seems fine now, though.”
Lifting the hatch, Jackson jumps down and crouches so as not to bump anything important with his head. The hatch area is not very big.
Looking around, he spots a big cable sparking, there doesn't appear to be too much damage. It must have just come loose from all the jerking from the ship and scratched itself on something sharp.
He quickly takes out some heavy duty electrical tape before timing his grab for the cable and applying the tape.
After doing this, he re-attaches it to the empty socket and climbs out of the ship as he notices the shield generator starting to glow with a rhythmic hum.
“Ok, everything should be good now,” he says, wiping the oil from his face. “Just got here, and I have already been put through the ringer. I guess you could call this the tutorial stage, but this was a bit too difficult for that.”
Finishing up, he goes the ship status again before pressing, grabbing his radio.
“Captain, system are back online. I've fixed the shielding, the engines and ventilation. We should be fully operational again.”
“About damn time, Jackson! What were you doing that took you so long?!”
“Um…”
“You know what? Never mind, get your ass to the bridge and have a look at the terminals. They seem to be malfunctioning, if you take longer than 5 minutes to get here, then I am rejecting you into space when this over!”
“Yes Captain!” Jackson yells as he runs to the main bridge.
[Alert]
[Mission completed: Fix the damn ship!]
[Rewards: 1x Blueprint: Advanced A.I., 1x Blueprint: Exo Pistol, 1x SP, 500xp, 100x EC]
“Nice. I didn't even know that there were missions in this system. This is going to make my life a lot easier. Maybe I can level up if I create the A.I., but what would I get from that, and what is EC? I noticed that before but didn't pay attention to it because I had none.”
Jackson ponders on this for a few seconds before his eyes light up.
“Could this be some kind of currency? I remember that some systems have a store included in them, but mine hasn't given any kind of prompt or alerts about it…perhaps I'm just not a high enough level? Hmm, let's test it. System, open the shop”
[Alert]
[User is currently not a high enough level to access the system store. Please continue grinding. Novice access is acquired at level three]
Jackson grins, his theory proving to have been right, the system did indeed have a store, he just wasn't a high enough level yet to access it.
“But needing to be level three is a little harsh. I am currently only level one, so getting access to the store is still a little far away. Perhaps I can get more missions soon, maybe when I finish helping the Captain with the malfunctioning terminals, I got an alert for a mission completion before though so these must be for the negligible stuff. Still important, but not quite as important as what we need right now.”
“Well, I'll just have to wait and see. Can't get everything off the bat after all.”
Jackson finishes his musings as he reaches the main bridge to the Captain, adorned with his military uniform and hat, glaring at him for taking so long.
Deciding that now isn't the time to justify himself, he quickly looks away, moving towards the malfunctioning terminals and gets to work fixing the screens and wiring, one by one.
While doing this, he thinks about how he's going to bring up the blueprints to the captain and how he's going to explain his tardiness. Would it be better to bring up the A.I. first, or the weapons? Now, most would say the A.I. to sort out most of the work that he would need to do with systems so that he could instead focus on the blueprints, but wouldn't this give the Captain an excuse to fire him?
If all the things he is needed for can be done without him then why would they keep him when they could replace him with another engineer...no, he'll tell the captain about the new pistol blueprint first, and then he will show off his A.I. blueprint after he has shown that he is still necessary to the crew.
[Alert]
[+1 Intelligence]
'Even the system agrees with me. Ah, I still have four Status Points to assign, don't I? System, assign 2 points to agility and the remaining points to perception'
[Acknowledged]
'Status'
[Status]
--------------
Name: Peter Jackson
Age: 21
Level: 1
XP: 500/1,000
HP: 50/50
MP: 0/0
Str: 9
Int: 8
Agi: 5
Per: 6
Luck: 5
Unassigned SP: None
Skills: [Master Fixer, Expert Pistol Marksman]
Blueprints: [1x Exo Pistol, 1x Advanced A.I.]
Rewards: [None]
--------------
'Nice, I already have two good skills and now my stats look a little more balanced. This should give me more of an edge. I had to get my agility up, though some would probably curse me for choosing this, the fact is that I may need to move in tight space and may have to run or duck under things falling apart around the ship. Let's not even mention if any aliens get on board.'
'I'm plenty strong to do my job right now, and I won' t really have to get into any action right now as I'm an engineer, but that may change in the future. Still, that's not now, and I needed these more for situations that I'm more likely to be involved in currently. That being said, it's nice to know that my stats can go up without me having to spend any SP. That's definitely a big plus.
*Cough* *cough*
Jackson quickly comes out of his musings and turns around to see the Captain glaring and him again with his arms crossed.
“Let's hear it then, Jackson. Why were you late to do your job this time?”