Fire at Will: A Space Opera Adventure With LitRPG Elements

by Christian Kallias

  By the time Kevin turned around, the red glow of a laser pointer filled his eyes, and he felt his mind melt as everything went black for a few seconds. It felt as if Kevin was losing parts of his mind, his memories, and an uncomfortable burning sensation was present for most of it. Then everything around him changed, and he stood in the middle of the street back on Omicronia, where he first arrived in the VR world.

  “Crap!”

  “So, basically,” said Kalliopy after taking a sip of the exquisite white-bean coffee, “you don’t like your father, and you’d like to take his place.”

  Sitting back in her chair, she had to admit that everything she had eaten had been made to perfection, some of it even better than her royal cooks had ever created.

  “I just despise the man and his methods. I mean, I wouldn’t go as far as having him killed, he’s still my father but. . .”

  “And the reason why you’re telling me all of this?”

  “I wanted to reassure you that I don’t mean you any harm. We do need to know how to get past your defenses, that’s true, but it’s not to give my father an advantage over you.”

  “Then what is it for?”

  “I think you know.”

  Kalliopy took the last sip of the coffee.

  “I really don’t, Xonax, please, enlighten me.”

  The Kregan prince rose from his chair and slowly walked toward Kalliopy. This man’s demeanor, grace, and posture was equal to what she had seen in the Arcadian royal court. But he could have set all this up in order to gain her trust.

  And the day Kalliopy of Arcadia trusted a Kregan would never come. No matter how charming he appeared on the outside, she knew all-too-well how cruel, brutal, and deviant his race was.

  “It’s all about the human, you see.”

  “What human? I don’t follow.”

  “Don’t play dumb with me, if anything, I was hoping this meal would deserve some honesty in return.”

  “There, you see, if you expected something in return for what you perceive a good deed, that’s not a good action, that’s a ploy. I’m not very receptive to those. But for what it’s worth, thank you for the meal,” she said as she rubbed her belly. “It certainly was delicious.”

  Xonax chuckled. “I only expected to have a conversation. You want to keep your secrets, that’s your prerogative.”

  “Then I guess I should return to my cell now?”

  “It’s up to you really.”

  “Let me guess, if I please you in other ways, you’ll arrange for a comfortable bed with Arcadian satin sheets next? Do I strike you as an easy girl, Prince?”

  “Don’t call me that, please. The chasm that separates my father and me is mutual. I am no prince, nor is he my emperor.”

  “You’re an interesting Kregan, I’ll grant you that. But I’m not going to tell you anything about how to take advantage of my people, no matter how nice your pretend gifts are.”

  Xonax placed a palm on his chest and bowed playfully. “I’m hurt that you would see this as only a ploy. But if the situation were reversed, I think I would be just as suspicious as you are. Though, you know what? Since I can tell you’re no longer enjoying yourself in my company, I’ll leave you with what I know so far, and why I was hoping for your cooperation.”

  “Let me stop you right there, there will be no cooperation.”

  “Very well, but let me tell you anyway. You see, we managed to dig into your ship’s computer and find enough information to access logs of distant probes around your world. Some of which recorded a very interesting battle, the one we’ve both technically lost. It took some doing, but we detected a neuronal sub-space link with your prototype warship that took out an impossible number of Kregan ships before it exploded.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Kalliopy, smiling.

  “Be that as it may, but let me tell you, you are as bad a liar as you are beautiful, your highness. Nevertheless, it seems an external force helped you defeat my father’s army, which peaked my interest. As a matter of fact, I’ve sent my own spy to this distant world hoping to locate the human that helped you take full advantage of your new ship.”

  Kalliopy visibly swallowed. That was not the kind of news she wanted to hear.

  “And?” she said before biting her lip.

  “I see I finally got your attention. Good. Well, he was no longer there. In his wake, however, my spy found a dead Kregan assassin.”

  Good, Ziron got to Kevin first.

  “I’m not sure what you’re expecting me to say on the matter.”

  “Well, I would imagine you’d want to know why I’d like to get my hands on Kevin.”

  He knows his name. I should have known. He’s trying to play me.

  “Who’s Kevin?”

  Xonax smiled. “I see. I guess we shall continue this conversation the next time you’re hungry.”

  “Oh, I’ve stuffed myself so much, that might take days.”

  “I’m a patient man. As you’ll no doubt learn.”

  Xonax pressed a holo-control on a small bracelet he wore on his left hand. Shortly after, the dining room doors split open, and the same officer that had brought her here stepped in.

  “Want me to throw her back into her hole?” said the Kregan officer.

  The semi-permanent smile on Xonax’s face vanished; in its place was a cold hard frown and a gaze that left nothing to the imagination about what would happen to anyone who crossed this man’s limits.

  Xonax pressed another control on his bracelet and then something unexpected happened.

  The Kregan guard fell to his knees, grabbed his head, and began screaming in agony.

  “That’s no way of treating someone of royal blood.”

  While Kalliopy had not enjoyed the way the rude guard had talked with her, he hadn’t been violent or so insulting as to deserve the level of pain she was witnessing.

  “Please, stop,” she implored.

  Another flick of Xonax’s finger and the screaming stopped. The Kregan guard panted heavily, both his palms gripping the floor.

  “That seemed a little extreme,” complained Kalliopy.

  “I don’t like disrespect. I’ve observed such behavior in this one for a while now.”

  “Nevertheless, the use of extreme force is something you seem to share with your father. For all your talk about his methods, you don’t seem to be using better ones. Thank you for the lovely meal, but if you’ll allow me, I’d like to return to my hole now.”

  “About that, the cell you were kept in isn’t worthy of a guest of your importance, so I took the liberty of having a proper room prepared for you.”

  Kalliopy sighed heavily. “Don’t think because you’re treating me better than your father would have that I will forget your heritage. I thank you for the meal and the better accommodations, but it won’t win you any favors regarding my cooperation.”

  “Who said it had to? It’s been a pleasure, Princess.”

  The Kregan guard took a minute to regain his senses and slowly guided the princess outside, in a much more dignified manner.

  9

  “I told you, didn’t I?” asked Mira.

  “What?” said Kevin.

  “That you’d get killed at this level of difficulty. You should have started at a lower setting.”

  “Ziron thought I could handle it, and truth be told, I enjoy a challenge.”

  “Nevertheless, we may not have time for this. At the very least, now that you’re back to the beginning of the simulation, let me explain what else you can do and use.”

  “I got it, I think of something, it gets done, and I kick ass. I’ll see you in ten minutes, with my mission objective accomplished.”

  “Kevin, may I?”

  “No, Mira, let me do this.”

  There was a slight pause. “Very well.”

  Kevin re-entered the building and changed strategies involving swords and shurikens, but he only lasted an additional sixty-five seconds bef
ore being fragged once more, this time he was cut in half. While the pain setting was only active for a split second after VR death, that one had not been a pleasant experience. Not that having his brain melted by a blaster had been a picnic either.

  Kevin’s face pinched into a tension-filled expression.

  “Can we talk now?”

  “No!”

  “See you soon, then, Kevin. I would say good luck, but, well—”

  Kevin raised a finger. “Not another word.”

  When it became clear that Mira would keep silent, Kevin walked back into the line of fire. And again and again for the better part of two hours. Mira had long since stopped trying to offer advice.

  Eventually, Kevin got lonely, and his repeated failures started to affect his spirit.

  I’m never gonna save Kalliopy. What was I thinking?

  On his umpteenth respawn, Kevin decided to take a break and visit more of the town before heading into more butchery. In the last hour, he’d been sliced, diced, cooked extra crispy, imploded from the inside out, decapitated, flattened into a pancake, and way more gruesome ends he preferred not to remember. And each time he felt the pain, even though it lasted for a brief moment.

  The worst of it was in the attempts where he was badly wounded but not dead. Suffering through the real pain of these situations had almost overloaded his mind and made him lose his marbles. But part of him knew that this was just a simulation, and that’s how he endured it all in the hope it would make him stronger and better at the game, and by association, have him battle ready for the real thing.

  Except it wasn’t a game. The life of Kalliopy depended on his ability to do this, and just like any other time in his life, he could almost hear his father telling him how much of a loser he was. Kevin definitely had a strong case of the blues. And that’s why he decided to take a breather.

  This town ain’t that bad; that is, when people aren’t trying to kill you at every turn.

  He was half expecting someone from the crowd to jump him out of the blue, that maybe the entire city was part of the training, but the more he walked away from the never-ending building, the more he felt safer and relaxed.

  Sure he got some dirty looks and quite a few insults that his suit happily translated for him. After all, he looked like himself in this world, and he was sticking out like a sore thumb. The number of glowing lights, billboards, and holographic commercials were mind-numbing. But since he had never seen or experienced anything like it, he found it almost calming.

  He could spend years in here and not see everything. As far as the eyes could see there was life, light, and perpetual movement. It felt both crazy and magical, in a civilization-gone-mad kind of way that was.

  He probably walked for ten minutes when he decided to look back. The building didn’t look any less impressive from a distance. But looking at it filled his heart with dread.

  I’m never gonna be ready in time.

  “Sure you will,” said Ziron, then immediately added. “Oopsie.”

  Kevin chuckled. “Have you been monitoring my thoughts all this time?”

  “Only since you decided to go on your walkabout.”

  “What’s a walkabout?”

  “That’s just a theory from someone I met a long time ago.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “I don’t really remember much besides the name, something about finding yourself when you feel lost or something along those lines.”

  “Well, sounds appropriate. And it’s not someone you once met, do you take me for a fool?”

  “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

  “It’s from one of my favorite Babylon 5 episodes, so, in fact, you dug out the term from my memories!”

  “Oh—maybe it is. Then why did you ask me?”

  Kevin sighed. “Because I felt like talking, I guess.”

  “She will talk with you if you ask her nicely.”

  “I feel like I disappointed her.”

  “You can never disappoint me,” Mira’s sweet voice interrupted the conversation. “I’m just worried about you. I wish there were something I could do to make you feel better.”

  Kevin smiled. “You just did.”

  “You can do it, Kevin. I know it with every electron of my being. You need to stop being so damn hard on yourself. If you put the bar too high, of course, you’ll fail. Just take it one step at a time.”

  “Kalliopy’s fate is in my hands if I don’t set the bar too high, what chances do I have to rescue her?”

  “Well, more chances than letting you hack at your psyche by expecting the impossible out of yourself.”

  “I always play video games on their hardest level. And I always managed.”

  “Except this is not your human-based video game. What your world defines as AI and what this simulation can provide are two different things; they are so far apart from one another, just like the distance between our worlds. The rules aren’t the same here. You can’t possibly compare this AI to your benchmark, Doom in Ultra Nightmare level, Kevin. Have you stopped for just a second to consider this?”

  Perhaps he was looking at it the wrong way. Mira, on her own, was so advanced and felt so human in her interactions with him. As a matter of fact, he was pretty sure she could pass the Turing test without breaking a digital sweat. What did humans have that even compared to her? Siri? Bixby? These were barely apt at being smart virtual assistants as they were.

  In a world where technology was incredibly advanced, was it really failure to expect himself to win on maximum difficulty? Mira was on to something.

  “Let me ask you this, Mira. Do you think you can program the simulation to act as realistically as possible?”

  “Of course I can.”

  “And how much easier would it make the building simulation?”

  “By my estimate, a good five-hundred and twenty-seven times easier, give or take point one percent.”

  “You’re shitting me? Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”

  “Oh, Kevin…Believe me, I’ve been trying.”

  Kevin smiled. “Right. . .Perhaps I should try it on a realistic level then.”

  “That sounds like the right course of action, Kevin. Level has been adjusted. What about the pain receptors? Should I dampen them to say twenty percent?”

  “Sure, I think I got a taste of what real death would feel like. No need to go overboard.”

  “Shall we try again?”

  Kevin turned back and accelerated his pace. Soon a booth on the left side of the street flashed three times on his HUD overlay.

  “Why not take a shortcut?” asked Mira.

  Kevin stepped into the booth and was teleported back to the beginning.

  “Mind if I give you the couple of pointers I wanted to give you earlier? I’ll also be with you when you’re really on Omicron, so it’s not exactly a cheat.”

  She knows me pretty well.

  “Sure thing, girl, give me your pearls of wisdom.”

  Kevin heard Mira chuckle like when his sister and her friends got together, and he found it as endearing as it was surprising.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You called me girl, that’s the first time.”

  Kevin’s face turned red. “I—I’m sorry, I hope I haven’t offended you.”

  “Relax, Kevin. I’m not easily offended.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. So you wanted to give me a couple of pointers?”

  “Yes. You see you can invoke a fighting pet to accompany you during your mission. Think of an animal you’d like to go into battle with, and it shall appear.”

  “Isn’t that a cheat? Plus, in the real world, I doubt my armor can do that.”

  “That’s correct. But we could equip Boomer with similar armor, you’d just be in command of the shape it takes.”

  “No! There’s no way I’m putting Boomer in danger.”

  “I respect that, but maybe you should reconsider. Right now it’s not impo
rtant, just think of a fighting pet, and it will appear. You can then decide if it’s helpful or not. You know, one step at a time.”

  Kevin knew very well which animal he would want to go into battle with and the thought just made him smile like a little kid that found the key to the candy store and had free reign after hours.

  Kevin glanced one last time at the massive building and took a deep breath.

  Let’s do this.

  Things changed when he entered the atrium. This time around not all the people turned into killing machines, only a few did. The first wave of enemies resembling the human-rhino hybrid and two cybernetic life forms were much easier to dispatch. Which bolstered his confidence.

  For the first time since he attempted the virtual mission, he actually made it to the elevator controls and entered the elevator cage.

  “Floor?” asked a feminine voice.

  “Seven hundredth.”

  “That floor is restricted to citizen category twenty-four and above.”

  “What’s my level?”

  “Five.”

  “And how high will that get me?”

  “Two hundredth floor is your maximum. Should I take you there?”

  We’ll see about that.

  “By all means.”

  The elevator accelerated at an incredible speed, and before Kevin realized it, the elevator dinged, and the doors began slowly splitting open.

  “There’s a high level of violence on this level. Have a nice day,” said the elevator voice as blaster bolts streaks screamed uncomfortably close to Kevin’s ears.

  “Thanks for the head’s up,” he said as he jumped forward and rolled on the floor to avoid more incoming fire. He quickly scanned the area and found cover behind a metallic statue depicting an alien he hadn’t yet encountered in the simulation. One that had huge wings that provided a greater surface cover.

  Apparently he arrived at crossfire between two factions trying to kill each other. He wasn’t exactly a direct target. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Being on the side of the hallway with the elevator, he automatically belonged to the humanoid side that was battling cybernetic enemies.