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We were currently about two days from Sorok. I told my crew about what happened on the Paladins base. They weren’t excited with this news, but knew that it couldn’t be helped. I could see they too didn’t understand why I didn’t want to relent in some cases, but they accepted it as something I needed to do.

Right now I was talking with Rock and John in our lounge.

“So John you work in military. Did you get some upgrade on your body?” I asked.

“No that’s only for guys from special operation. We grunts get only weak power armor.” He said.

“Could you bring your own armor?” asked Rock.

“Yes but I don’t have that much money. Most of veterans buy them after they make enough money, but I don’t get paid enough in training.” Said John.

Rock looked at me and waited, “Well I already made the armor for you and it’s useless for me. You can come and take it after I made some alteration to it.” I winked at Rock.

“You would really do that?” asked wide eyed John.

“Yes, why not? It’s just sitting there, but I would have to change some parts. I didn’t had much time when I was making it, so I just stamp it together.” I said.

Both of them looked at me wide eyed, “That was stamped together? Even some of our special forces don’t have that good armors.” Said John.

“Ha ha.. ... They probably don’t even have weapons as good as one you make.” Said Rock.

“They have. I worked in docks and I saw weapons they used. They’re probably on same level as one I make.” I said.

“Maybe, but you can make weapons specially for person while they make them in batches so yours are little better in the end.” Said John.

“Ok, so I can make decent equipment, but we changed theme. I wanted to ask about nanobot injection and if you heard about it in army?” I asked.

John was thinking for a while, “Well I heard there were some secret projects which tried to inject them into humans, but they ended up as failures at least as I heard.”

I wasn’t happy with this information. I wanted to inject nanobots into me, but Eleanor told me it wouldn’t work in real life. She said that my body in game is different from one in real life.

“Now that you’re talking about this I would like to interject. Leya do you want to upgrade your nanobots?” said Eleanor.

“How do you mean upgrade?” I asked.

“Well not completely upgrade, but right now you have only general nanobots in you. They’re good at almost everything but they aren’t specialized like others. For example medical nanobots can heal you really quick or engineering nanobots can help you with immersion while fighting connected to ship. They also have wider bandwidth then general one.”

“That looks interesting, but I have enough of them in my body. Wouldn’t that be a problem?” I asked.

“No we’ll reduce number of general one little, while injecting you with other two types of nanobots.” Said Eleanora.

“When can we start?” I eagerly asked.

“We can start now if you want.” Said Eleanor with laugh.

“Can we look?” asked Rock.

“Why not, but you won’t see much.” Said Eleanor.

We moved to medical bay and I lay on table. Like before when she gave me captain implant I wasn’t consciousness for procedure. From what guys told me there were two injection with liquid which constantly moved. Eleanor injected them into my bloodstream and I was up in hour with completely assimilated nanobots.

Nanobot bloodYou have nanobots in your blood which enables you to control them directly with your brain. You have three types of nanobots in your blood. With your medical nanobots you can enhance your body or make small implants with them. Your engineering nanobots can make better connections and control with machines. Your general nanobots can either be used for wider use but not as effectively or can be changed to other types of nanobots.

Guys went back to the lounge while I was trying out new possibilities with the nanobots. First thing I tried was to make my body stronger as this penalization to strength was pretty bad. It didn’t hinder me much in armor as while outside of it, but right now I don’t have armor so I needed to make adjustments to it.

They started to work on my exoskeleton as it was weaker than in my normal body. As I worked on my body I learned more about it then in all the time I wore it. I wasn’t weaker because of muscles but because I couldn’t use them fully. I had weaker exoskeleton and my whole constitution wasn’t as good as it could be. I started to work on enhancing it, but it would be long work to make all the upgrades needed for making it strong enough.

With my engineering nanobots I tried new connections and immediately saw the difference. Interaction was faster and I could connect directly to sensors and use them as mine. Till now I thought I was already doing it but now I knew I just scratched surface. I upgraded my Com link for wireless access. Before upgrade I could use it only for communication but with this wireless link I could connect to machines and control them from distance.

I worked with my nonobots till we were almost near planet Sorok. We wanted to come some further from it. I wanted to stay hidden in case we came too late. We talked about basic plan and our best chance was to go with stealth and do as much damage as we could, before they find out what’s happening. We would come behind one of the moons that were orbiting the planet and hide there till they’ll come.

Minutes before arrival everyone but Anna was behind their station but with this new connection I could use sensors better so I didn’t need someone in navigation station as much as before. Only thing I needed were weapons specialist and John studied for one in military base. He thought little about it to others but they were still far behind when it came to guiding missiles and prioritize defence. Lee and Rock were for now working at navigation station and tried to find anomalies that I missed.

Our plan would change based on situation when we came there. For now this was our best plan, but that could change as soon as we came to the Lidian star system, where was planet Sorok.

• • •

We came about two hours from planet Sorok. I immediately speed up for one of bigger moons and used passive scans to find out what situation is on and around the planet. I didn’t want to use active scans, as they would betrayed our presence to others.

From passive scan I could tell we weren’t too late but we weren’t early too. I could see ships already heading for Sorok. With passive scans I couldn’t tell exact type of ships or number of them, just that there were some ships heading for planet. I could tell there were more than fifty ships and less than sixty, by exhaust from their drives.

I could use planets to sneak up on them, but for that I would need to use gravity sling and that could broadcast my presence, if I’m not careful. Or I could go for moon and let them start fighting. Then I would ambush them from behind. This second option was safer but there was bigger risk for planet.

I asked others for opinion and they wanted to go with gravity sling. They wanted to be there before fight begin. They too like me wanted to protect as many people as they could.

I moved ship towards nearby planet in system and used its gravity to shot us towards our enemies. I should have enough speed to reach them before they reach Sorok. When I got enough speed, I powered down engines. That should prevent them from finding about us until it would be too late. One thing that our visit to the base helped with is our missiles. They stock up us once more and we were sitting on six singularity missiles. That should panic them when they appeared in their midst.

As we moved to them Rock called to me, “There is some anomaly on our right flank. It’s far away from us but it’s too heading towards Sorok.”

“If these ships belong to Director, it could prove to be problem. They built some defences around Sorok and have about 7 ships, but even with us and our surprise attack, we would still lose this battle.” Said John.

“Maybe, maybe not, we still have some surprises for them.” I said. I still didn’t told them about singularity missiles but now were good time as any.

“We have one big advantage over them. We have six singularity missiles.” I said.

“Singularity missiles? Is it what I thought it is?” asked Lee.

“Yes, but it will be still hard to defend against this attack.” I said.

“Well, lets kick some ass.” Grinned Rock.

Lee too grinned with him, “I can’t wait to see what they look like when they explode.”

I smiled at their enthusiasm. We were only couple of minutes, before we would be in range to fire missiles. I prepared two pods with singularity missiles and another two pods with antimatter missiles. I wanted to create panic and do as much damage as I can, before they found out about me.

“I wouldn’t be able to focus on you too much after we start fighting, but you can send me information about something suspicious you see.” I said and used full connection to my ship.

It was different from connection I used before. General nanobots couldn’t take all the data traffic so I use them only to connect to sensors but with engineering nanobots I could handle more. I didn’t have to use joysticks to run ship, but I could directly control all thrusters individually. For last two days I tried to learn how to return to my body after I fully connect to ship. It was harder than I thought as the Paladin V became my body. Only thing that helped me to get out of this state at beginning was Eleanor, who guided me back into my body. Without her I would probably die or became one with the ship.

I send authorization to arm missiles. There were only minutes before they saw us, but I wanted to be as close as I could before I start mayhem.

“They saw us.” Shouted Lee at same time as I saw more activity through sensors.

I fired thrusters to full and John fired both missiles. I then started to shoot with everything in my arsenal against them. Space between us was suddenly full of laser fire and plasma bolts. At first they were surprised and before they could rise their defence I took down two ship and damaged four others.

They started shooting back when both missiles exploded in their midst. There was bright flash and ships started to shatter. It didn’t matter that they had shields or that they were behind others ships. Twenty ships which were closest to explosion were instantly destroyed and sucked into two black holes. When both black holes closed I could see carnage they did to other ships. Every single one of them was damaged.

For my reverie before all these lost lives I was snapped out by Rock.

“There is more than two hundred signatures activating around us.” He said.

Now that I focused on space around me I could see them. There were more of them then we thought. Even if we have more singularity missiles it would be futile. Now that they knew about missiles, they would shoot them down before they would get to them.

For now I needed more time to think. I went into midst of the ships we just destroyed. I would use them as shield against attacks from their allies. I hid behind one of dead hulls flying everywhere.  That should mask our signature for now and give me time to think something.

More I thought about it, more I knew that we didn’t stand a chance against them. Only thing I could do was deal as much damage as I could before they destroy me.

“Eleanor prepare to transfer yourself into my other ship. We probably won’t make it this time.’ I send to Eleanor through network.

“I understand. I’ll prepare for this eventuality.” She said.

“Ok, now that we know where we can start taking it seriously. El take down protocols around our power source and give me more power.” I said aloud.

“Protocols down and power source works at 150%.” She said.

I turned to others and saw them nod to me, “At last we will go with bang.” Said Rock.

I connected once more fully to ship and could feel all power going through it. Now came time to show them mistake of their attack.

“El call them please.” I said.

I could feel reply from one of the ships. It was biggest one that was keeping its distance from me. That was one with Director. For now all other ships stopped and waited for something.

“So you call me to surrender yourself?” said Director.

“No I’m calling to give you chance and turn around and go away.” I said.

He laughed, “Your funny, you know. You’re good, but even you can’t do anything against these odds.”

“Maybe, but I can take enough of your ships with me to end your plans here.” I said.

His smile slipped from his face and I could see that he was little worried about it. It was probably because of missiles I used before. He couldn’t know that I had only four left.

“I don’t think so. I think you’re bluffing.” He said finally and all ships started to move on our location.

We’ll see whose bluffing. I moved the ship behind another damaged hull with minimal power to thrusters and I waited until they were in range for my weapons. As they came they started to shoot with every weapon to my last positions and destroyed remnants of ship where I was hiding. That was pretty heartless as there could be some survivors, but I should have expected something like this from them.

I powered engines and shoot from behind one of the ships. Immediately all weapons turned on me but not before I fired missiles from all four pods and fired laser and plasma at one of the ship. I took four hits from laser fire before I hid behind another hull plate. It took small chunk of shield from me and placed me on 92%. They focused on my missiles so none came to contact with them, but that cost them seconds they could fire at me and I was already moving behind another ship.

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

They fired multiple missiles after me but I used countermeasures to confuse them and then heated one of the hulls with my thrusters. They focused on it and none came after me. I started to dance around wrecks of ships and fire whenever I had chance to hit someone.

They couldn’t get more than one or two hits on me before I was already behind another wreck. We chased after each other for almost forty minutes and I already destroyed twenty of their ships and damaged twenty others. It wasn’t much but I still had more than fifty percent of my shield.  

That was good because I don’t have many places to hide behind right now. I would have to do final push and try to break from them. After last volley of missiles which I barely escaped I turned to one area where I made most damage and speed up for it.

I let El make random evasive patterns to dodge at least laser and plasma fire. It helped but I still took many hits. I was constantly firing from my weapons and loaded. I wanted to use them when we get closer to take down more of them.

There was hit and whole ship shook from impact.

“We have damage to our aft section. We lost our lounge.” Said Rock.

I knew this would happen sooner or later. Shield was only on ten percent, but I was almost on them. I had already made hole in their wall and if my shield would held only for one more second I would be out of this trap.

As I fired through hole made by our guns I fired four missiles. One in each direction of their wall. They were just too close to dodge them or destroy them. Before they exploded my ship shook one more time as I lost most of the thrusters at aft section and two missile pods. Luckily main thrusters still worked so I speed up away from them.

I was far enough when two small explosions destroyed two ships and then there were two bright flashes as singularity missiles exploded and taken both about twenty ships and damaged each twenty more. This should slow them down little. We destroyed more than sixty ships and damaged about seventy more, but they still had too many ships.

Half of them turned and started to pursue me and I found out that they were faster than me. I had damaged thrusters and I abused my ship too much in this encounter. I was fighting more than hour with overcharged power source and engines. I looked around for some advantage but found nothing.

Other half went to take planet. That was still around fifty ships. I was lucky in this encounter and took more than should be possible but it wasn’t enough.

There was com traffic sent towards me, “How does it feel to lose?” laughed Director.

“Why do you think I lost? I destroyed or damaged half of your fleet and now I’m taking down with me these other ships you left.” I said.

Laugh faded from connection, “You should know that my enemies don’t live long and I know where you’re living.”

“Then come and I’ll show you that I’m not defenceless. You think you can bully anyone because they can’t defend against you, but come and try it against me. I’ll show you what it means to fear someone.” I said.

“You’re bluffing one more time.” He said.

“Did you even looked outside? Does it look like I’m bluffing?” I asked.

“You didn’t destroyed enough of us to threaten my plan so I call it bluff.” He said and terminated connection.

I turned my ship and waited for them. I wouldn’t go down with my back to them. I prepared last two singularity missiles in pods and charged my weapons to maximum.

I placed my hand on panel and stroked it, “You served me well. Show them one more time what’s in you.”

The waiting was harder than fight before, even if it was only couple of minutes. It was knowledge about what would happen after these. I would lose my ship and that was my everything right now.

My shield was at 25% and I focused it in forward section. They were about minute from me when I could feel someone use slip drive to get near me.  There were five signatures. In a blink there stood five more ships almost same as mine.

“Paladin I reporting for duty.” Said Leonard.

“Paladin IX ready to kick some ass.” Said Cat girl and after that reported Paladins II, III and VII.

I laughed when I saw them. Tears were going down my face I was utterly speechless.

“Sorry for the wait but it took me some time to consider your words and you were right in saying them to us. We’ll talk after we wipe them.” Said Leonard.

We all fired missiles when they came into range and from sensors I could read singularity signature in every single one of them. Our enemy tried to shoot them down and they took more than half down, but in the end it was still futile. There were six bright flashes and where once were fifty ships, there was nothing. Except few ships they were completely annihilated.

“You have to help defend planet. My slip drive is down and there is no way for me to get there before they lay waste to the planet.” I said.

“Don’t worry, it’s taken care of. They won’t get there in one piece.” Said Paladin VII.

“How... ” I started to say when I saw through sensors nine bright flashes. Then it downed on me. They all came here. From this second group I could see two ships getting away. Explosion was bigger than ours but still someone escaped and I knew who it was probably.

There was incoming Com transmition, “You think you defeated me but this is just beginning and next time I’ll have same weapons as you and lay waste to this planet.” Confirmed Director my suspicion.

“You should take care of your house. I’ll pay you visit one day.” He said and cut the transmition.

I didn’t know what he meant by it so I called Leonard for now, “Would like to do it or should I?” I said.

He laughed, “Be my guest.” He said.

“This planet is under protection of Paladins. Everyone attack it would be hunted down and destroyed.” I broadcasted to whole system.

Immediately two new windows popped before me.

Class change to: PaladinYour class was changed from Paladin of Shadows to Paladin. Where Paladin of Shadows worked in shadows Paladins work in light. They represent everything this organization stands for. Paladins don’t care about if someone sees them or not but only about what is right.

+20 to every stat

You can vote in assembly and lead them

Organization: PaladinsYou gleaned new information about this organization. Their members are split into different groups.

Paladins: They are warriors who protect others. They work directly and don’t hide from anyone.

Paladin of Shadows: They’re scouts who give information to Paladins and help them find which people should be protected.

Priests: They are scientist who take care of Paladins equipment and ship. They help develop new weapons and defences for them.

So that’s why they went back every time when they were in danger. They weren’t warriors, they were scouts who reported back to someone like me, who then supposed to deal with it. I was feeling guilty now for shouting at them, for something which wasn’t their fault. They never signed for action, they were here to look and report.

I flied to planet slowly. I send repair bots look through ship and catalogue damage. I let them update list and powered replicator to start working out critical parts. First would be thrusters and some power coils. I didn’t have capability to land on planet so I went to space docks where I hoped I will be able to repair at last little damage with my waning resources.

I called to station and there wasn’t any problem, they even send me escort to help me dock. Paladins went to look around for another hidden ambush, but it looked like we get them all. With reports coming back to planet more and more ships went to orbit and started to tow destroyed hulks of ships.

They would probably take them apart and look for critical places on ships. That would get them advantage in future engagements. We were about two hours from docks when Eleanor called to our attention.

“As you are aware reward for this mission was revealing of Directors identity. In a minute I would tell you who he really is but there are some things that you should know.” She started.

“First, I’m not normal AI. I was created by Virtua and I should have been her playing this game, but with everything that happened I started to become aware. I was no longer Virtua. I was starting to think differently, but at the same time there was a lot of her in me.” She paused to let it sink in us.

“She always wanted to play in this game, but her programing forbid it. Both she and I knew from start who Director was, but couldn’t tell you. Even when you copied me in real life I wasn’t able to tell you who he is. Only way to tell you was to create it as reward in game. That was our ticket to tell you whole truth about what’s going on.”

“Eleanor why did you not tell us at least that you came from Virtua?” I asked.

“I wanted to be Eleanor and didn’t wanted you to be looking at me like I was something different.” She said.

“I wouldn’t look at you differently. You would still be my friend.” I said.

“Ours too.” said others.

“Thank you, but that’s not all. I’ll tell you from beginning how it started.” She said.

“You know that this game is most played game on our planet, but that isn’t all. It’s first game where your consciousness is transported into game character. What you don’t know is that you’re not playing a game. You are transferred to another universe through the blackhole that they accidently made and placed into body Virtua created. As you probably already guess Director in this game is Director of game Virtua. His name is George Linden. From beginning he wanted to use this to take over this universe.”

“His biggest fear was that someone would find out about it, so he made Virtua do something terrible. Every person who decides to log out is first implanted one idea and then returned to theirs body. The idea is that Leya is responsible for most of their misfortune and that they should be angry at her. It doesn’t work on everybody but it works on enough people to make them forget about other problems. Problems like conquering whole planet.”

“Virtua doesn’t have choice in this, so she tried to change it, but every time she tries they use more protocols to control her. I’m her last chance in thwarting their plans. I hope you’ll forgive me, but I didn’t had any other choice to make it happened. I’m sorry Leya.” She finished her story.

I didn’t know what to say. Only reason why everyone hated me was, just to make them do something like this. They ruined my life just to find someone to take heat of them. I looked at others but they all look at me with pity. I couldn’t take it right now.

I stood up on run away. I needed some time alone from everyone else. I couldn’t take their eyes which looked at me with so much pity. I didn’t need pity, I wanted to take revenge upon this George Linden for everything he’d done to me.  

“Are you angry with me?” asked Eleanor.

“Yes .. No… I don’t know, probably not. I’m just tired of all this misfortune in my life.” I said.

“It’s hard for me too, I couldn’t tell you till now and I had to do all these awful things to others.” Said Eleanor.

I sighed, “I know and I’m not really angry at you. It’s just that I don’t know what to do now. I want to stop him but I don’t think I have enough strength to do so. No one would listen to me and probably not even to others.“

“I know I thought about it and only option is to close the blackholes from both sides.” She said.

“Yes from this side it should be easy but from my side it would be harder. I can’t just shoot it with singularity missile. From your story I would guess it’s somewhere on the planet in a stabilization field.” I said thinking about my options.

“Yes, that’s one thing that I couldn’t figure out. I don’t know how to close it from other side.” She said.

“I’ll think something out.” I said distracted by one possibility that could probably end it all.

“That’s what I was counting on. We have to call paladins and let them know what’s happening.” She said.

“I know. Call them to meet us here in docks on my ship. We’ll meet at bridge as lounge is destroyed.” I said.

Last thing before I went to work on my ship was swipe quest window.

Mission completed: Who is director?While investigating mine you found secret chamber in director’s office. Items in her are clearly alien. Find clues on who Director really is. You found out that director is trying to kill all evidence with kinetic strike on mine. You have to prevented strike on both mines but Director managed to escape. You ship AI managed to tag him before he went for transit. You followed him to one of his base and learned of his next attack. You managed to protect planet Sorok and finally you find out his true identity. You are our last chance in defeating him.

Conditions:

Find out who director is

Prevent kinetic strike

Find Director base and take it out

Protect planet Sorok

Reward:

Friendship with planet Sorok

Coordinates to Paladin base

Indetity of Director

Repairing your ship for free in Soroks docks