Authors Corner: recently been pumped for this moment people. Arc 1 ending next chap after i tighten up some loose ends. So fun so fun!
Enjoy!
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"Already told you, we searched the area for over a month and found nothing around it, we even searched for other items of use and there is only trash." The scraper boss said.
The two men inside this brightly lit white office was none other than Cleaver and the scraper boss that had gone investigate the crash site of the Star Comet crew ship.
"Did anyone try to sell or was seen with a new shuttle?!" Cleave asked desperate.
"No, all purchase and sells of ships can only be done by my organization. Any new ship built in the scraps also has to pay a tax before taking to the air. Anyone with a new shuttle would have gone through us since we would notice the unknown identification. Don't ask again, we didn't find the ship." The scrapper boss said.
"Damn it!" Cleave cursed.
"Why are you so obsessed with a single shuttle? I'm sure your boss gave you much better." The boss asked while getting a cigar and lighting it and sitting back on his chair.
"It's not the ship, the crew was part of a group that attacked one of our outposts. We had valuable tech in that and they got away with that tech coming here." Cleave said.
"Heh, what low class tech would make that big man move a rank 5 fleet to retrieve it?" The scrapper boss asked before sucking on the cigar and puffing out a cloud of smoke.
Cleave frowned and thought a while and sighed.
"A blink Drive." He said.
The boss looked at him, his eyes narrowing. He leaned forward and supported his body on the table.
"A what now?" He asked in a serious tone.
"A work Xetra Blink Drive, we were hiding it in Kelha II's asteroid belt until some idiots fucked up and were able to trace the base. The shuttle that crash landed here used its emergency escape feature to warp here." Cleave said spilling the beans.
He knew that without permission he couldn't search or even remain in this space without paying a price. This scrapper boss is one of a group of scrapper overlords that runs a number of solar systems and is one of the men that guard the frontier to the Dominion.
"I see, yes, that is a perfect reason for attacking the station in charge of mining the Kelha system. Sadly we don't know what to do, the ship was gone by the time we arrived and it's been over two months. We will give your crew the right to search all ships exiting the planet but for all we know it could be gone." The scrapper boss said.
Unlike greedy businessman, he was a realist. If he didn't find the ship within a month then the chance of finding it was almost nonexistent and we would not waste resources in a fruitless search.
"Thank is fine, we can definitely work with that but we need to figure out a way to know which are your ship and which are not." Cleave asked.
The boss simple pointed behind him. When Cleave looked, he saw the large emblem which symbolizes the organization the scrapper boss runs. It was three gears interlocked forming a triangle and with "Black Scraps" written in front.
"You can spot this on the front, sides, top or bottom of the ship. Depends on each crew of scrapper.
Anyone else you can search, be warned, don't go picking trouble for the other organizations though. You're here with my permission but i can revoke that since i care about my hide one hundred times more than yours. Am i clear!" The scrapper boss said.
"Very, sir! I can investigate the emblem of the other large organizations. The rest i will search." Cleave said and the boss nodded.
Cleave leaves soon after leaving the scrapper boss alone.
"A Xetra Blink Drive huh? Those idiots are playing with fire." The boss said to himself.
After a moment he leaned in and pressed a button.
"Mavis, ready all our ships, it seems this planet is no longer safe. Get all our men off planet and ready to travel." He said.
"What is so dangerous sir?" A high pitched female voice came in from the other side of the line.
"I will inform the higher ups when we are in space. Just give the call and tell any cocky ones it's none of their business." The boss said.
"At your orders sir." Mavis said and the line dropped.
"So much work done here but too bad. Let's let those idiots kill themselves." He said and got up and left the room.
Noah PoV
Looking at the massive mansion, me and dad were once again visiting Sophia but this time is different. The main difference was that she wanted the crew to meet. Since we found out that we were all from America she asked Malcolm to pay for the Alex, Havic and Ernest’s air plane tickets. As for Lisa, she was surprisingly close but not in the same city but 3 hours away in another.
They should already be here so when we arrived we were lead to a large room where we found Sophia and Meghan with the four others.
I stopped and blinked when i saw them all. First was Alex, he was the easiest to point out because he had a girls face and figure without a hint of male on him besides his dick which was hidden in his pants.
The next easiest to find was Havic, the reason was because she was firmly hugging and rubbing her face on Alex’s cheeks as if she found it fluffy. She was as sexy as in the game, bountiful breasts spilling out of her shirt, a wide hip, wearing a white button up shirt, which was open on the top two buttons, a dress skirt that goes down to the knee and black stocking. Her hair was black and wavy and it was left hanging naturally behind her.
After her was Lisa and Ernest by default.
Lisa was on her phone talking about medical stuff with an annoyed expression. In real life her age of 30+ showed but she was a mature beauty with average sizes in curves and wore a one piece dress going down near the feet but not covering and an open thin coat to cover her arms.
Ernest was sitting across from Meghan who was talking with him and Sophia about fighting and combat. She would take several peaks and look away.
Ernest wore a sleeveless brownish green shirt and camo pants and large leather boots and had a buzz cut and he was very fit giving us the perfect picture of a military officer.
When they saw us enter, Lisa saw us and froze a moment before she ended her call and walked over with a smile.
We go to the round table which made it feel like some military meeting.
“Well guess everyone is here.” I said and sat down.
“Anyone want to start with the introductions.” Dad asked.
“Sure, well i used my own name in Nebula which is Ernest Murphy. 23 years old, spent 2 years in military and 3 years through several survival games to train my survivalist skills.” Ernest said.
“My real name is Alexander Frederick Grove, 21, 100% a man and I have always played games to try and fly in new skys. Being tamers to get beasts to fly and i am an airplane student pilot. In the mandatory army service i was part of the air force.” Alex says.
“Yo, my name is Luna Patterson, runway model extraordinaire and swimsuit model. Besides that i am the perfect wife material and have trained in every possible thing to take care of my hubby.” She said with a smile.
“In the simplest of terms, the Zastros race was made for her.” Ernest said joking.
“Hmpf, says the chameleon that can’t even get a girl at 23.” Luna rebuked.
“Says the 28 year old.” He replied with a pokerface.
She frowned at his words but couldn’t rebut them and looked away pouting.
“My name in real life is Elisa Rayne, I majored in the medical field at Harvard and have been working as an intern for 2 years and will soon become an official doctor soon hopefully.” She said.
On our part we introduce ourselves as well and then talk about our real lives and past game experiences.
The four that didn’t know us more personally were greatly shocked by learning of dads past as one of Malcolm's closes friend as well as his title in Second Life.
After a while Meghan wanted a rematch with me which i declined but then she suggested for Ernest to spar me.
He wasn’t against it and since it was someone i haven’t challenged i accepted. Getting in safety gear we got on the mats and soon we started.
Unlike the unrefined and wild and very open fighting style Meghan has, Ernest has a lot more skill and it took several rounds for me to get some hits in before i won.
The others had been cheering for the one they wanted to see win, Meghan wanted Ernest to win while Sophia just sat quietly, Luna was cheering for me to beat Ernest to a pulp while Alex was on his phone while Elisa was talking with Dad wondering how the fight was going.
The reactions were mixed but it didn’t matter.
After my fight, Ernest actually challenged dad. It goes without say that my dad is my martial arts master and i never won once. Just like how i treated Meghan the first time, he toyed with Ernest keeping one arm behind his back and fighting at best at 40%.
After the fights dad decided to tutor Ernest a bit and the rest of us left, well Meghan remained eager to get in on the fighting class. The rest of us did our own thing throughout the mansion.
As it started to get dark me and dad said our goodbyes.
Before we did Ernest called us over.
“I will be borrowing one of the capsules in the mansion so i will be on earlier then you guys. I am going to take my old ship to the nearest city to purchase more non perishables and some more seeds for food. I am the only one known in town and i already purchase stuff like this for myself before so it won’t be strange if I appear. I will get news to see if those bandits that were following you are already here or not.” He said.
“Thanks, there is little left to do anyway but we need to get off the planet soon.” Dad said.
“Any plans for the AI?” I asked.
“Yeah, we already uploaded a clone AI of it to be the ship’s AI which helps in keeping the system from being hacked. We already had you build the charger center in an empty room and the utility and security drones that were broken are already in the cargo for when you want to repair it. I already made sure to scavenge parts from those to damaged to save.” Ernest said.
Nodding i smile and said goodbye to the crew as we head home.
Ernest PoV
Getting into the capsule that i was lent i open my eyes into my shitty scrapper ship where i was already on the pilot seat.
“Chuck, start this piece of shit up.” I call my AI.
…
“Chuck?” I call again.
…
“CHUCK!”
“WHAT!” a rough and groggy voice called as the hologram of a fat dirty old man appeared rubbing his eyes.
“Turn this hunk of junk on already.” I said.
He looked around and suddenly the sound of a loud rumbling fart came from his communicator on my arm and the ship turned on.
On his face was a disturbing smile as he vanished.
I sigh.
“Why did i get such a useless lazyass like you.” I complain as i make the ship lift up and turn to the doorway. To keep the ship from being stolen on this god forsaken planet, i built a system with this lazyass so that only he can turn it on but he is to lazy and unmotivated to do anything. If i had to say it, he is the perfect representation of a junkyard keeper. Sadly though his skills in locating useful things in a junkyard is better than my own with him being a machine and all.
After checking many times i know that the scraper probes were already gone almost a month ago. This allowed me to go scavenging around as well as go into town to get parts. Since we have already fixed all the weapons to the ship as well as filled the ship with furniture and all other things we were simply repairing the station at this point. Many different missions like, [Bring all drone stations online] and [Repair all water pumps] were also given and we raised money from the station AI by doing that. This way, we were able to purchase parts from the town with me as a transporter back and forth.
At this point i am just going to get food now, the water from Roktar's ship has already been pumped into the new ship and even further filled with the stations water since the tank is much larger.
The air was pumped from the surrounding air and passed through the filter several times before the filthy smell was removed. It helps that the hydroponic garden has already sprouted several interesting plants gained from the planet. Another interesting thing are those space creatures Lisa is breeding. The common one raised in 0g with only minerals to eat become rather savage but because she tried to feed plants to them they have gotten docile as herbivores. The first generations lived at best only three or four days but the current generation which is the fifth are only entering the adult phase. They are about the length of a human male's palm and elongated with the back elongated. This was due to the gravity that made its body to pull downward forming a flat back.
It had a fish tail and four wing like fins half as long as its body in the places where fish normally have them.
I did check up on these when i was in town before. The original one is common all over and it changes depending on the food it gets. The small rock one is called a [Space shrimp] the current one we have are [Psionic Flying Fish] they have developed a unique ability of breathing both air and psi allowing them to live planetside and in space.
That aside i watch the mountains pass and soon the image of shining white skyscrapers appeared. The cities made by the scrapers are lavished. The area around the skyscrapers was surrounded by tall walls and a dome shield keeping unauthorized ships near. Around the wall was a shanty town all over and many ships came and went.
I move my ship to the edge of the outer tow to a place i normally land.
My ship was a half destroyed mining ship but it had a working engine and power generator when i found it and i gathered parts in the scraps. Eventually it reached the point it could fly but i still had to pay a tax to allow it to fly which wasn't very steep since the ship was trash. If i had used the shuttle its condition being good structurally i may have had to pay more than half its original price as tax to fly it.
I turn the ship off which i can do manually and exit before locking up.
Walking out and into the town, I walk through the largest roads that had far too many people howling about their wares.
Scrap parts rare but damaged equipment, fully operational but repaired goods, operational and new gear.
Everything could be found but the most expensive stuff wasn't the equipment.
I walk around until i reached a massive depot over 8 floors and surround by eight massive silos along the walls.
Food, on this planet with 80% of the landmass covered in trash, food is a precious good. Water even more so since the ocean is mineral rich. It is filled with excessive metal minerals giving the green color water.
To drink it, you need to to filter it greatly before it becomes drinkable which makes water taxes expensive.
Food is even more so since more than 50% of the water, though less filtered since the minerals are used as fertilizer, so food prices are even more expensive.
Walking inside i was met with a familiar face walking over. It was a strong pure black skinned ogre in high class armor and a great axe on his back. The physical axe was a psionic tech weapon and his armor was made from dwarf tech and you could find a single high class psi container on his back.
"Ernest! Been a while!" The ogre said smiling.
"Good to see you Borges." I said and grab the man's hand.
"Need food do you?" He said.
"Getting off this rock, need... 4 tons, 1 of preserved meat and 1 of vegetable and the rest is unperishable." I said.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"Well with the junker you fly it will be a while before reaching anywhere. The price is 70k!" He said.
"Cheap! What the hell! Normally it would have cost 90k!" i thought. "Something going on? A 20k discount isn't something normal." I asked.
"You don't know? Black Scrap's main force has left the planet after a group of bandits arrived searching for a crew. Seems they are after something they shouldn't be and the boss got antsy. We are just selling the remaining goods and leaving as well. Tomorrow is the last day here actually so you got lucky." Borges said.
"Really, what is that crew after and what are they doing at the moment?" I asked.
"Well, what they are after i don't know but those bastards got permission from the boss to search any ship without his emblem. Many who didn't adhere to the orders got shot down and those bastards seem to be stealing with their strength from those without the emblem as well." Borges said.
I frown and thank him before moving to the side and get the packages ready.
Soon workers moved all the goods and eventually loaded into my ship and i handed off the money and took off back to the station.
I was cautious as always of any followers since this was a no man's land but the crappy ship is a good disguise to deter the greedy.
Luckily we had no one following and i soon reached the station.
With caution we open the port hangar with the shuttle. The other wouldn't fit my ship and even the hangar on the frigate doesn't fit.
Landing at the back and watching the gate rapidly close much faster than before thanks the the stations power being totally online.
Jumping out of the ship i connect to the others.
"Guys, I'm back with the food. Bring over a lift." I said.
"On it." said Lisa who was the first to react.
After a few minutes Alex, Havic and Lisa appeared on a floating fork lift and behind it was a trolley.
Disconnecting the trolley Alex pilots the forklift and begins to transports the trolley.
"Any news?" Havic asked serious.
"Yeah." I said with a nod.
I tell them what i heard. They all frown at the news of the planet being barricaded by the bandits.
"We don't have to worry this time. The ship has an FTL so we can jump as soon as we exit the atmosphere." Havic said.
"Let's get things ready, when Noah and Roktar log in we can head out." I said.
"We should unlock the ships dock restraints." Lisa said.
"That is simple enough but the ship needs to be totally online so that it won't fall when it's released." Alex said after putting one of the boxes down.
"Let's move this stuff first." I replied.
Everyone nodded and soon we unloaded everything and transported everything.
Back at the ship Havic goes loading the ship through the lift while Jessica and Hilda moved the boxes.
Alex goes to the bridge and goes through all the startup procedure and turns on the engine.
With a a initial rumble the engine came to life before it reduced the sound to a low hum.
I was in the port command center.
"Alright! The ship is set to remain parallel to the ground! You can unlock it." Alex said.
I nod, since we already have a copy of the AI already installed into the ship, i had no worry press the button for to give a command to the AI.
"Release all ship docking restraints and power cables." I said.
"Releasing Venturi Battle Frigate docking restraints and power cable." it mimicked.
Outside i saw all the energy cables disconnect and be pulled back into the ceiling.
Next we heard the sound of pressurized air pumped into pistones as the large mechanical arms slowly opened releasing the ship.
The ship didn't even move after the restraints let it go.
Slowly the arms retracted close to the walls out of the way.
With the ship finally loose it was completely airborne in its first time in hundreds of years.
"All thats left is Noah and Roktar." I mutter and left the command center.
We spent time just doing random things until the two finally logged in.
"So how are things?" Roktar asked while sitting in the captain's chair.
I report tell the two of them about the bandits.
"Noah, the blink drive is installed right?" He asked.
"I repaired it as best i could but if we use it to escape then we need to use the escape feature directly or else it will blow up if we blink then warp. And yes, it's installed" He said.
"Good, since we don't have anything else we can go, but first..." he said and had his AI connect to the station AI
"AI, from now on, besides for our crew and those we allow, every other life form is considered an enemy. Don't attack those outside the station but if any get in they are marked as enemy." Roktar said.
Noah laughed at the shrewd father condemning the invaders.
"Orders acknowledge." it replied.
"Good, now let's go. Open hangar door, once the ship exits lockdown the station." He said.
"Orders acknowledge. Opening Hangar door." it replied.
It said and soon the door shook as the gears began to move. The slow opening sped up as the oil spread and eventually opened completely.
Alex pushed the ship out and an image appeared of the gate behind us.
"Hangar door closed. Station entering stage 1 lockdown" it said.
The door closed and the station returned to the state of ruin it should be completely isolated.
“Last but not least, vent all the air in the station and leave it completely in a vacuum.” Roktar said.
It surprised us but by doing that it would cause another layer of protection as well as keep the station from further rusting.
With the okay on that we look forward.
“Alright folks, this is gonna get bumpy, we will probably have to fight our way out until we can enter FTL travel if we can’t, we will be forced to warp again.” Roktar said dropping the usual playfulness.
“Let's burn them to the ground!” Alex says and begins to type at a rapid pace.
A moment later from the front an energy shield appeared in the format of hexagons covering the entire ship before vanishing into thin air.
Then the feeling of gravity pulling us increased momentarily before stabilizing at 1G again followed by the shields acting up again. Then a familiar robot voice called all over the ship.
”Energy Shield activated, Gravity Generator activated at 1G, Inertia Dampeners activated. The AI said.
“Now let's go!” Alex said excited and pulled the handle that lifted the ship's nose and pushed the throttle to full speed making us rapidly rise.
***
In space, the entire planet had been covered surrounded by many small ships owned by the Bandit group. Every ship besides those with the Black Scrap emblem were searched and those with anything of value was seized secretly. They had gained a generous sum by doing this leaving a great deal of people very pissed off.
At this moment Cleave was annoyed while reading the reports of all the acquired goods.
Some stuff was good, some crews resisting had some good ships and it was “borrowed” after the crew was disposed of but Cleave had only one objective and he still didn’t get it.
*Beep! Beep! Beep!*
The sudden warning showed a ship that was rapidly ascending off the planet.
“Another one sir, this one seems to be a battleship as the speed is incomparable to common shuttles or scraper ships.” One of the men warned him.
“Get it up on the monitor and check to see if it's a Black Scrap mercenary branch ship.” Cleave said without looking up.
The image appeared soon after and he took a look and his eyes widened.
“Sir! This ship isn’t Black Scrap or any other organization. It seems to be someone else… the model of the ship is a… Venturi Battle Frigate? Weren’t those cut off of production several hundred years ago?” The man said.
“Someone found a working relic? It looks almost new?” Cleave said. “Signal the ship to stop to be searched.”
“Yes sir!” The men shouted.
They sent out the signal and one man started.
“This is Trudence Fleet main ship speaking, we have authorization to search all ships exiting! Stop at once and wait to be boarded!” He said.
The message sent everyone kept looking. They saw the ship veer away from the warship but didn’t stop accelerating.
“Sir! They are starting their FTL Drive!” One man shouted.
“CATCH THEM!” Cleave shouted. “Start up the jammers!” He ordered.
In the frigate, the crew were watching the hologram showing the count down. The AI was counting down.
FTL Drive activated, jump in 10, 9, 8, 7…
“Hope we can jump before they do anything.” Noah muttered.
The next moment everything began to shake and the all the screens began to show static.
“Fuck! They had jammers!” Ernest cursed.
“Shit! How long until we can warp with the blink drive!?” Roktar said.
“The charging will take 10 seconds!” Alex said.
“Get charging!” Roktar said.
Alex fixes the ship that had gone off course even though the jammers since the controls aren’t affected as much.
Back in the war ship the crew had begun to move the ship and it was accelerating after the battle frigate.
“Have the Fighters launched and surround it, take out the guns as well!” Cleave shouted.
“Sir! They are charging again but this time it's something else!” Someone said.
“Its them! The drive is there! Get all the men over here! Also charge the EMP pulse cannon!” Cleave said.
At once the front of the war ship opened and a strong energy surged inside the massive barrel that appeared.
The crew of the Star Comet crew had also noticed this and were feeling despair because the charging was taking longer with the jamming.
Unbeknownst to everyone there was a third paryt. Hidden behind a shroud with cloaking technology, they looked through a hologram screen watching the fight.
“This is our chance, fire it.” A charming woman's voice said.
A man behind her bowed and pressed a single button. Below the hidden ship, single large missile was fired. As it reached 100 meters the ship fly off in FTL travel leaving the solar system.
As for the missile it flew a bit more and as soon as the cannon of the warship fired off it blew up.
The power wasn’t normal but was completely comprised of Psi. It came from the front while the emp blast came from behind.
As the two energies converged, the wormhole finally opened and the ship vanished inside just before the two energies collided and caused a massive shockwave pincering the wormhole.
The energies mixed, one pure energy, the other psi and the last the power opening the wormhole.
The blend caused the wormhole to suck it in but that also caused an explosion and a shock wave that traveled all over the galaxy in an instant. Being a wormhole it was a rip in the fabric of space. This disturbance caused the entire galaxy to experience the disturbance.
As for the result, within the battle frigate that got away it was sudden swept up by the energy and the crew was swallowed by the energy.
“ARAHHHH!” All the people, both organic and inorganic, were affected by it as it invaded their minds and bodies.
One by one they fell unconscious. Not only them, throughout space, any ship that was undergoing a jump at FTL speeds were affected, NPC were left in a dizzy state but all players were put into such a mental burden that every single one fell unconscious.
In the capsule of every single one the AI’s were in despair.
“Shit! What is going!” Lia cursed as she worked feverishly. “What happened! This wave it is even invading the real body! Shit report! Now Eject!” She said as she did what was needed to pull Noah out of the game and release him front the VR capsule.
At the main facility where the supercomputer of The Nebula was, along with the Main AI’s supercomputer, alarms were ringing and all the technicians were running around.
Malcolm storms into the main computer room.
“What the hell is going on!” He shouted.
“Sir! It seems someone was able to get a virus into the game! This is a virtual attack!" One technician said.
"Shit! What happened exactly!" Malcolm said.
"The virus was examined already! It was meant to kill, the target... was your daughter sir! But it underwent changes due to several factors." The man said.
"How is she! What happened to Sophia!" Malcolm said.
"She was ejected by the AI's but that isn't the problem, currently we registered over 100 other cases of people being ejected and it." The man said.
"Quickly, get people moving get all these people to the hospitals. This will bring unprecedented trouble but lets stabilize the game and make it safe again!" E said.
As this was happening something was stirring in the impact zone.
Quickly the wormhole the crew had escaped in was collapsing but suddenly it stabilize at the last second and slowly it began to expand.
"Sir the wormhole! It stabilized and is opening!" One man called out to Cleave.
Sweat was gathering on his forehead as his instincts were telling him to run.
"Quick charge the FTL and get us out of here! Same to the other ships!" He commanded but suddenly the ship systems were jammed just like they did with the Star Comet crew.
Not even the engines worked anymore. They could only watch as the wormhole grows bigger and bigger until it was almost three times bigger than their current ship.
On the other side a large black green ships slowly exits the wormhole.
Everyone was filled with fear as the ship appeared. The reason was because it was one of the independent races no one wants to meet.
Before them was a warship from the Xetra space fleet. Behind the first was another then another.
As the first one exits a message was sent to the ship.
It was a strange half screech voice.
"This is Xetra language. The AI's have translated it." Someone said solemnly.
Our technology! You stole it, so die Vermin!
The message was followed by the first Xetra ship that was facing them open at the front as green bolts of energy gather forming a massive glowing light that shot out like a beam that encased the ship.
The shields didn't hold out for a moment and the ship was blow to ashes before anything else could happen.
The other Xetra ships aimed at the carriers and from long range they also shot destroying all of them.
Inside the Xetra ship, a single order went out.
"Find our technology and kill all vermin who seek it!"
Thus they invaded the scrap planet and killed the scrappers before reinforcements appeared and they all spread through the nearby systems in search of the single Blink drive and any other bits of their technology.