Chapter Two

Manual Not Included

The Star Hummer dropped out of hyperspace.

“Livy, mask our transponder and set course for that asteroid mining station.”

“Done, Captain.”

“Great. Let’s hope those repairs hold up.” It had been about a week since I’d become the new captain of what I called the Star Hummer. We’d drifted in space for half that time. Luckily, when we jumped, some of the other ship’s hull came with us and we were able to patch together most of the ship’s damaged area. It took longer than usual because Livy had to teach me step by step. Yeah, I was very new at being a ship captain, but it had been my objective.

“Captain, I’m not detecting any life forms from the asteroid station. Could be shielding but I’m also sending docking request and I’m not receiving a response.”

“Well, that’s not good. Any other… umm… mining stations nearby?”

“Negative.” Livy was certain.

“Ok Livy, take us in. Let’s see why no one is responding and hopefully get parts.” It was your basic asteroid floating through space and was rich in ore, so it was being mined. With that kind of work going on it should be a cinch to get what I needed.

We cautiously pulled into the hanger, a huge hole drilled into the asteroid, and fortified with shielding. Ships could pass through, but the atmosphere was maintained. The lights were on but not a single person or any other creature was present. The hanger was big and spacious, void of any ships. Weird. The strange thing was there were tools laying around and containers opened like everyone just stopped what they were doing but left no signs of combat, no blaster scoring, nothing. It was like one of those Left Behind Tv shows or something, only in space. Okay, maybe not the best example, but you get the idea.

“Livy, are you seeing anything out here?”

“No. Captain. Not reading anything. If you can hook into the computer in the docking tower, maybe we can learn more about the situation.”

“Looks like the tower might be on the second floor.” Elevator or stairs? I decided to go with the stairs. I’d seen too many movies as a kid where the power would go out and then the idiot would get stuck in the elevator. No thanks. I made my way over to the stairs and began the long walk up. I’d miscalculated. It was more like three floors up instead of two. The door to the docking tower was shut tight and wouldn’t budge.

“Livy, any idea how to open this door?”

“There should be a panel to the right. Crack it open and hotwire it. It’s easier than it sounds.”

I began to look the door over trying to locate the panel, when I noticed there was a child’s toy, a stuffed animal like a weird looking teddy bear, lying on the ground right in front of the door. The left arm was missing, a clean cut. Upon closer inspection I could see fragments of cotton stuffing in the door hinge.

“Livy, are you seeing this?”

“No, you do not have optics on your current armor.”

“Ok, add that to the list.”

“The list?” Livy asked. For a VR computer she actually sounded quizzical.

“Yes, start a list of things to um… upgrade or get.”

“Done, Captain.”

I finally located the panel and popped it open. It was a little trying to hotwire the door. I would have to explain to Livy what I saw and then she would have to explain what to do. After a few mistakes I got the right connections made. The door opened and sure enough, the stuffed animal arm on the other side of the door fell to the floor. It only took a few seconds to determine the room was empty just like the hangar. But I started to wonder if I should have had my gun out. I mean, there could have been a space pirate or a monster hiding in there. In the back of my mind, I was still wondering what happened to everyone. I would have to be more careful in the future.

I picked up the stuffed animal and made my way over to the computer terminal. I set the brown teddy bear thing on top of the terminal and plugged in the device that Livy gave me. It looked like a WIFI dongle to me.

“Livy, download the floor plans and schematics, pull video files and parts inventory.”

“This will take some time using this method. It has limited bandwidth.”

I was about to reply when I heard a small sound from behind me. I pulled my blaster and spun around in a split second but saw nothing. I was confused. I knew I’d heard something, but my brain couldn’t make any sense of what I thought I heard. I was about to turn around when I saw a piece of a blanket sticking out of a cabinet and then I saw it slide back in real slow.

There was someone or something in the cabinet. It could be a monster or a cat or a person or an alien. Then it hit me, the stuffed animal in the door. It had to be a kid, just had to be. Or so I hoped. I walked over to the cabinet and tapped it twice.

“Hello in there. My name is Dexter Montag. Not sure what’s going on here but there’s nothing out here trying to kill me so I would say it’s safe to come out.” I waited for about a minute, then the cabinet door started to open. I backed up just in case I was wrong, and it was something bad inside. In this world you never knew what could happen. I still had the gun at my side pointed at the floor.

I certainly didn’t expect what opened the door. I was a little surprised when a small blond-haired blue-eyed girl looked up at me. I put my blaster back in my holster and tried to give her my best hero pose. She blinked at me with large blue eyes. She could’ve been about twelve years old, by the looks of her. Whatever had happened here must’ve scared her witless.

“Hi there, my Name is Dexter Montag. You can just call me Montag. I’m here to repair my ship,” I explained as I pointed out the window where the computers were overlooking the hanger. Her only response was more eye blinking. She either didn’t speak basic language or she’d been through too much to talk.

“So, hey I’m going back over to the computer to see if I can find out what happened here and find parts to fix my ship and you know, leave the station.” She perked up a bit on the last part, lifting her little pointy chin and quickly glancing out the hangar window with something like hope in her eyes as she spotted my ship.

“Livy, you got anything?”

“Yes, Captain. Basic parts we need can be found nearby however, the power cells we need to recharge our jump drive are further in the facility.” This asteroid mining camp was a treasure trove of tools and spare parts.

“Ok, sounds easy enough.” Right, just open a door, walk in, grab what we need, and wait… “why is this door shut from the inside?”

“Unfortunately, the power has been cut off to the doors. I am unable to pull footage from there, however what I did find was that there was an accident pertaining to a collapsed tunnel. I am reading that there is air past the door just no power to lights and doors and cameras. It looks as if someone was trying to keep something out.”

“Or in,” I surmised from what Livy told me. The girl suddenly ran over and picked up the stuffed animal. She hugged it tight with abandon. It was clear it meant a lot to her. I let her have her moment. Then I motioned for her to follow me back down the stairs into the hangar. After retrieving her well-worn small pink blanket, she obediently followed me.

After several minutes of running around, I did what I call a fetch quest. It was kind of creepy wandering around gathering what I needed all the while feeling a little nervous about what might have happened here. It took about fifteen minutes to gather all the parts in this area. The last part that we needed was through the locked steel doors.

Since she wasn’t talking and I didn’t get a name, I simply called the girl Kid. When I told her that I was going in the sealed room to get what we needed for the ship she looked scared to death hugging that one-armed teddy bear. But I had no choice. I made the Kid comfortable aboard the Star Hummer, with a stern warning not to touch any buttons and knobs and gave Livy instructions to not let her off the ship. The girl seemed less tense after bringing her aboard, but her nervousness renewed as I started to levee the ship. I made my way back to our mystery room just to the left of the stairs.

“Livy, open the door and once I’m in close it behind me just in case.”

“Yes Captain.”

I took a deep breath and braced myself, gun in hand.

What I saw in the next room was not what I was expecting. The low lighting from the emergency lights did not help much. The red glow only added more shadows in the crevices of the rock walls. Honestly, I thought I’d see a lot of dead bodies but nope, the only sign of a struggle I saw was more random parts and tools laying around but in odd places, like they had been thrown. But the large claw marks on the walls were a bit terrifying; there was definitely a very large something with big sharp claws in here somewhere.

A wave of fear rushed over me, and I swallowed hard. I had to tell myself that I was in an advanced VR game, and I wouldn’t die for real, I would respawn. Wait, where was my respawn point? Was it back on the ship or back on my starter planet? I looked through the HUD and menus for Respawn location but couldn’t find it. Rats! I would have to be careful. I could end up anywhere, and I certainly did not want to start over with Two Fingers.

The room I was in kind of looked like a locker room where gear and tools would be stored before entering the rest of the mine. There were metal lockers along the rock walls. Nothing to do here, so onward I went.

My pistol at the ready, I slowly made my way down the dimly lit corridor until it opened up to a large circular room with branching corridors and a big shaft with an elevator in the middle. But the elevator looked to be down the shaft. Hoping that what I needed wasn’t down there. I pulled up my HUD to see where the marker was on my mini map. I felt a bit better, what I needed was just two doors over to my right.

I did a quick glance around and I didn’t see any enemies in plain sight and nothing on the motion tracker. Although its range wasn’t that far, normally you would see something before it would show up on the motion tracker. It definitely needed an upgrade.

I made my way over to the second door and wouldn’t you know it? The thing was closed and there were a lot of claw marks on it. I was about to start taking the panel off to override it but just then I heard a strange noise coming from the shaft and it grew louder within seconds.

I placed my back against the door as the first monster climbed over the railing and the sight of it gave me the heebie jeebies. It looked like a giant mutant ug cyborg spider; there was just no other way to describe it. No wonder the Kid was terrified and wanted to leave the asteroid. At this point, I wouldn’t have minded being back on my ship where she was. But I needed those power cells.

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I started shooting at the thing with little effect. I needed bigger guns. Three of the awful things were coming right at me now, and more were coming up the shaft, if I didn’t do something I was about to be spider food. They had me cornered; one to the left, one to the right, and one coming straight at me. All three were taking turns spitting some kind of webbing at me that I had to dodge. The funny thing I noticed is that their webs dissolved within seconds after missing their mark. That explained why I didn’t know what had happened here; no web was left behind.

Just then I felt the door slide open behind me. I stumbled backwards as a hand grabbed my shoulder and pulled me the rest of the way in. The door shut and I heard loud scraping noises against the door on the other side. It slowly died down, then faded completely away. I was glad they couldn’t get through the door. Putting my gun away I looked to see who had saved me from that hoard of nasties. A very large and gruff looking man in gray coveralls was standing close to me.

“Uh thanks for that. I guess I should have brought bigger guns and armor.”

“Your welcome mister. I don’t know why you’re here, but you just walked into the worst situation. Food supplies are running low. As you pointed out, no big guns. And the only way out is back the way you came.”

“My name is Dexter Montag. Captain of the Star Hummer. I’m looking for some power cells to fix my ship.”

“Well, we certainly have plenty of them but no way to get safely back to your ship. I’ve been down here for days.”

“Look sir, I don’t know about you, but I refuse to give up. I’ve got a little girl out there waiting for me to get these power cells and get us off this station and I plan to do just that.”

“WAIT! Did you say little girl?” He gripped my arm.

“Uh yeah, I did.”

“Does She have blond hair, blue eyes?” The hope in his voice was unmistakable.

“Yes, she does.”

He released my arm and clasped his hands together. Tears started to run from his eyes.

“My daughter Astra Is alive?”

Astra, so that was the young girl’s name. And this man was her father. “Why is your daughter on a mining station?” That didn’t sound like standard mining practices to me.

The big man sniffled, wiped the tears away with his sleeve and composed himself.

“The name is Slate Augustine. I’ve been working here for months. We recently found something buried deep in the mine. A cargo ship of some kind it was incased in the rock. I have heard this can happen when you try to jump while being too close to something or maybe it was incased in rock because of what was on board.”

“But why did whoever put it there not just blow it up?”

“Who knows? The point is, our scans showed a lot of already processed metals, enough for all of us to retire, and that went to somebody’s head. A ship bringing supplies was scheduled and Astra decided to come with them. You see, I was planning on going back with them, being that I was about to retire. But that’s when it all fell apart. Someone hired a group of, oh I don’t know, mercs. Anyway, they were on the supply ship. Once on the station, they quickly took over with the help of some admin they got everyone moving toward the cargo ship.

“At this point we had already broken into the trapped ship and was sorting the goods but the mercs decided that we should move further in and see if there were any more goods to be had. Scans did not show anything worth our time, so we did not bother, but the mercs were greedy. After we forced the door open to the rest of the ship those nasty spider things came pouring out by the dozens.

“They over ran the mercs within seconds. I made a run for it, but it turns out the admin was already way ahead of me. We both made it to the elevator shaft. I thought there would be a fight between us, but he did not seem to care I was there. After we made it to the supply ship, we realized the mercs had left a few guards with it. I will try make this short, they killed the admin after he tried to convince them to let him board and leave. I wasn’t about to get shot; I didn’t argue with them.

“They made me go back to the elevator. As we were about to go down, the elevator started to go down on its own. Someone had pushed the button from the bottom. The merc with me finally was able to reach his boss. He was down the shaft yelling over the com loud enough that I could hear him. He told him to get the ship ready for takeoff but that’s when our new multi-limbed friends jumped out of the shaft. One merc was dead in seconds. I managed to get into this room.

“Surprisingly, all of them went back down the hole but once it saw the second merc running for the ship. There’s a wall monitor in this room so I could see the man being chased by the spider. That’s when I saw my darling Astra run into the control room. I was helpless, I couldn’t open the door. The other spiders came back up the shaft. I did the only thing I could. I cracked open the panel on the wall over there and short circuited the power and sent a command to close the doors; the only issue was it would close the big doors you came in from and the doors to the control room. I couldn’t see anything after that because everything on this level lost power except O2 that’s on a separate system.”

“Wait, then how did you open the door and let me in?”

“I hooked up a portable power supply from some mining equipment I was planning to use to get out of here. But as soon as I open the door those things come running in seconds and I have no weapon. There is no way I would have enough time to set up at the big door. But with two of us just maybe we can make it.”

“Well, I can get the big door open. All I have to do is ask my ship’s AI to open it when we get close, and hopefully shut it behind us before the spiders come at us.” It was a plan anyway.

“You have an AI? They are outlawed in most sectors of the galaxy, ah never mind I could care less right now. Just want to get my daughter and make it out of this alive. So, there was no ship or spiders in the hanger? I don’t remember seeing any ships outside the station either on the monitor before I lost it.”

“If I had to guess, the thing made it on the ship before takeoff. Serves them right.” With fists on my hips, I surveyed the room. Lots of interesting tools on the shelves and a few lockers and benches.

“We need something to keep them busy. What kind of junk you got in this room. Oh, I almost forgot I need some power cells for my ship too.” I could see several on a shelf. After throwing all but one in my suits pouches I turned to Slate and he smiled, holding some strange gizmo in his hands. It looked like a mix between a boom box and air compressor.

He got ready to open the door as I got in position to start the first part of our plan. What Slate forgot to mention earlier was that he was a mechanical engineer; fixing and creating stuff out of scrap parts was his area of expertise.

As soon as the door opened, I chunked the homemade noise maker down the shaft. We sprinted to the left of the circular room toward the locker room. We made it almost to the hallway before the spiders started coming over the railing. Well, that did not last long.

“Keep going Slate!” I had to yell just so he could hear me over the spiders’ intense noises, the clacking claws. I turned and started shooting the things with my blaster, not that it did a lot of good. My blaster made them pause a second or two but did no damage. As if things could not get worse a pop up blocked most of my view.

Crud muffins! I jumped just in time to dodge a strike from the cyber arachnid. The pop up was an incoming call from Danny, one of my friends that started playing in this crazy new world with me. At the moment I was having a hard time trying to stay alive. I let his call roll to vid mail. The arachnid was not in the least bit affected by my blaster. I resorted to smacking it with the butt of the blaster to convince it to back off but that only lasted a couple of seconds. It was time to jet and by jet, I mean jet boots. The arachnid thought it was about to have dinner one second and the next second, I was flying at a high rate of speed toward a closed blast door.

“Livy, open the doors! OPEN THE DOORS!” I yelled frantically as I came closer to becoming paste on the solid metal door.

Slate had just made it to the door when it opened, he quickly ran through the door as I jetted past him.

Livy had the good sense to close the door immediately behind us. But I was on a path to trying to learn how to breathe in a vacuum. I began to panic. HOW DO YOU SHUT THIS THING OFF?!

As if by magic, no actually it was my helpful Ai, my newly acquired jet boots turned off and I started to lose altitude. Probably should have asked for a user manual. Good news! I would not be learning to breathe in a vacuum after all. Instead, I was hoping that the fall damage from the landing would not kill me.

The sound of stuff being tossed around was echoing off the walls in the big hanger as my poorly armored body crashed into, thankfully, empty cargo containers. I had to shake myself and get up, I was a bit disoriented. Slate came running over. He was out of breath but otherwise he looked fine. I on the other hand, well I was a right mess, hoping I did not have a concussion from that from that crazy experience.

“You ok Dexter? You uh, well if it’s all the same to you, I would like to see my daughter.”

“Yeah. Hey Livy, lower the ramp. Slate would like to see Astra. And I might need to make a quick stop in the med bay.” I smiled at Slate as we headed toward the ramp of my ship.

Slate was busy talking to Astra in the common room. I was sitting in the med bay as the med bot did its thing. I was sitting there rubbing my forehead when I remembered I had vid mail from Danny. I opened the message. A small screen appeared in the top of my HUD.

“Yo, Dexter. Why you not pick up? No way you’re too busy to answer, or did I catch you in a respawn? Ha-ha, did Two Fingers get you again? Hey, so I have made some progress on my starter world. There seems to be something happing. There is a lager military presence, and the planetary government has started recruiting. There not saying much but I have heard rumors of something coming, like invasion or something but nothing concrete. I think I’m going to join up and see where things lead. All righty man, ring me back when your done dying over and over.”

That seemed odd. Danny was on the outskirts of the galaxy according to in-game maps. I was somewhere in the middle. This part of the galaxy was run by the URSC. They were not the friendliest, and slavery was normal in their territory. That’s where Kira found herself as a slave on one of many of the slave colonies. She was my friend, well more than a friend if I was being honest. We all started at random parts of the galaxy, but I was definitely closer to Kira than I was to Danny. We planned to meet up at some point and play this game together and now that I had a ship maybe I could make that happen.

“You ok?” Slate came into the room breaking me from my internal thoughts.

“Yeah, I’m fine, was just thinking. Hey, so you’re an engineer, right? Think you can get the ship back in working condition?”

“Ha, I won’t just get it working, it will be better than ever, provided I have the right tools and parts that is. I will see what I can do.” Slate smiled and started whistling as he walked out of the room.

He was in his element. I had a good feeling about the guy. I hoped he would stay around for a bit although this ship may not be the best place to raise his daughter. Just then I got another message. It was from my smart home; my food would be delivered soon. Oh, I forgot I had ordered pizza. I needed a break anyways. I selected the log out option and the world in front me began to fade. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Astra staring at me in shock.

Huh, I wonder how that looks from the other end. I might have a strange conversation waiting for me when I log back in.

I pulled the VR helmet off and set it on its cradle. My office was, as you guessed, in my basement. The room had large cinder block walls. The north wall had multiple monitors for my main computer. I had several thousands of dollars invested in the set up for the VR.

The east wall had old nostalgic type consoles and the like while the west wall had work out equipment bench press, treadmill, and a few other things that can hurt your body. And no, I’m not three hundred pounds and my mom does not live in or own this house.

I saw myself in a mirror over by the gym equipment not bad looking if I do say so myself. After months of working out I was finally a hundred and eighty-five pounds, five foot ten, with short light brown hair and green eyes, and I’m in a reasonably good shape all things considered.

On the south wall was a small bathroom just to the left of the stairs. I needed to stop in there before getting my not so healthy dinner that would soon be dropped off at the door.

After a bathroom break and some deep-dish pizza, I was ready to jump back in but before I did that, I was going to call Kira and let her know the good news. I called her from my pc; however, she did not pick up. I smacked my forehead. I forgot it was like midnight. She will stay up late if she needs to, but she was more responsible than us guys when it came to staying up too late.

The call rolled over to vid mail.

“Hey Kira, umm sorry I kind of forgot what time it is, but hey wanted to let you know some good news. I finally got my hands on a starship. I can fill you in on all the details later, but we are currently making repairs. I am hoping to make it somewhere in known space soon. Also, Danny mentioned something about joining the military on his starter planet. Something happening out that way, could be big. Meantime, I’m going to try and get the ship crewed and ready for anything. Hope things are going ok for you. Alright, have a good night, ok? Mmm bye.”

The ship began to rematerialize in front of me. I heard Livy talking to Slate. “I’m sorry Slate, I cannot give you control of the ship.”

“Listen ship Ai, Dexter is gone, the station is crawling with nasty spiders. We need to leave.” I detected agitation in his voice. I needed to intervene before he started unplugging stuff.

I walked into the cockpit area. Astra was staring at me in shock. Slate was confused.

“What’s all this about me being gone?” I looked at the confused pair.

Slate stuttered then finally got his words out. “Astra said she saw you vanish in the med bay.”

“Well, I, umm logged out.”

They both blinked at me, not comprehending.

“Oh, of course you logged out, because that’s normal. We do that all the time,” he said with a sarcastic snark. At least he had a sense of humor. But then again. “WHAT THE HECK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?” He raised his voice.

“So, by logged out I mean I, umm, disconnect from this body and revive into a different body in the world I am from.”

More blinking. It was a bit strange having to explain logging out to a VR character. In the old days they never knew you disappeared and returned.

“You know what Dexter, forget I asked. Can we get off this rock? And next time you decide to ‘log out’ can you give me a heads up? My nerves are shot after everything I’ve had to deal with.” I reckoned that was a reasonable request. I nodded.

“Sure, did you fix the ship?” I asked, wanting to change the subject. But Livy chimed in before he got a chance to respond.

“Engineer Slate has fixed the ship. He is quite skilled if I do say so myself.”

“You did say so,” I laughed. “Ok, let’s head to…” as I trailed off, I looked at Slate. “Do you have somewhere that you would like me to take you?”

Slate had a concerned look on his face. “Yes, I have a home on planet ………. But I need to go to Desicronn first to pay off a debt and maybe then me and Astra can live in peace.”

“Ok Livy, set a course for Desicronn.” She got the course plotted and I got the ship out of the hanger without incident then we made the jump into light speed.