Fire at Will: A Space Opera Adventure With LitRPG Elements

by Christian Kallias

  “There’s nothing lovely about my condition here. You upgraded me from a cold dark cell to pretty princess quarters, but I’m still your prisoner, and you still want something from me that I can’t give you. I would never betray my people, you hear me? I’d rather die first.”

  Xonax walked three steps away and turned around to face her.

  “I wish you hadn’t said that.”

  “And I wish you were dead.”

  Xonax flinched noticeably and uttered his next words between gritted teeth.

  “Your Highness, I implore you to stop this course of action.”

  Kalliopy shook her head. “Did you really think by charming me and offering me nice dinners and satin sheets I would just give you the Arcadian Confederate on a silver platter? Let me tell you, if that’s what you think, you’re clearly dumber than you look.”

  “Enough!” screamed Xonax.

  The intensity and reverberation of his scream sent a shiver of fear down Kalliopy’s spine. A vein on the Kregan’s right temple doubled in size and pulsed rapidly. She knew she was waking a dragon, but it was better than pretending that everything was fine. Her people either needed her back or they needed to know she had been killed so they could appoint a successor to continue where she left off.

  Strangely enough, the thought that she could be leading this conversation to her own demise didn’t seem to scare her. As a matter of fact, she felt empowered and compelled to see this through.

  “I don’t react well to tantrums,” she said with a smirk.

  For a moment she thought that Xonax’s nasty vein would burst as he tried to contain his anger.

  If only…

  “Very well, you asked for it.”

  Xonax snapped his fingers and everything around them changed. They were no longer in the hydroponics bay. Every sensation she felt with regard to her atmosphere changed. The room she was in was colder, the air felt heavy and dirty with the scent and taste of blood in every breath she took.

  They were painful breaths too, and looking around her she quickly understood why. She was hovering thirty centimeters above the ground, both her hands and feet locked inside holding devices.

  She saw bruises on her exposed skin and could feel more where her ruined royal attire covered her body. A couple of cuts seemed fresh, and drops of her blood fell every few seconds on the ground into small pools of crimson liquid.

  “Now you show your real face,” she spat.

  “I had to try. Our usual interrogation techniques weren’t getting us anywhere.”

  Kalliopy never imagined that the entire charming charade Xonax presented only happened in her mind because it had felt so real. She also wasn’t aware that Kregan possessed an advanced neuronal interface like her people did.

  “What do we do now?” she asked. “Untie me for a dance?”

  “Sarcastic to the end. I must commend your mental strength, but I’m running out of patience. So it’s time to end this now.”

  13

  The first thing that Kevin noticed once in the elevator was that the numbers, grouped by sliding controls every hundred floors, stopped at six hundred and ninety-nine. He didn’t mind walking to the last level by foot; it was better than continually climbing the levels one by one as he had up until now. He was just glad he could bypass nearly four hundred of them with a single press of a touch control.

  Thankfully, his advanced armor had been doing most of the work. Kevin remembered once visiting one of his friends that lived on the twentieth floor on a day the elevator was out of service. That had not been a fun climb, and it had taken him nearly five minutes just to catch his breath.

  But here he was, three hundred levels later, after having faced a horde of enemies and he could breathe just fine. Sure, he felt some fatigue, but there was no way he could have done a tenth of what he did without Ziron’s amazing suit of nano-armor.

  “What are we waiting for?” asked Mira.

  “Right.”

  Kevin entered the last level as their destination, and the elevator smoothly ascended with no perceptible G-forces and no other perceptible clue other than a slight humming. It was updating every ten floors and it didn’t take long to reach the top.

  The elevator doors slid open to an ominous three-note chime. Dum-dum-duuummm.

  “That’s not reassuring at all,” said Mira.

  “You can say that again,” answered Kevin as he timidly exited the elevator cage into a large room with a super high ceiling. There were only two sources of light, one was artificial and the other a far-off window revealing a dark purple sky.

  It made him wonder how high they were. Could the skyscraper be at the top of this planet’s atmosphere, or even beyond?

  Kevin didn’t want to think as to why this room was so big, though his video gaming instincts were titillating just like when he was about to face some sort of boss character. Hopefully, the room served another purpose.

  A voice boomed, the sound surrounding and echoing against the room’s walls.

  “You’re not welcome here,” said a deep female voice. “You have exactly twenty seconds to turn back or be destroyed.”

  A holographic timer appeared in the middle of the room and started its countdown.

  “That’s unfortunate,” said Mira. “What do we do?”

  Kevin briefly looked at Mira with a dumbfounded expression before returning his gaze back to the timer.

  “We wait and face what’s coming. We haven’t come all this way to abandon the mission now.”

  “While I’m happy standing by your side, my hologram can’t do much.”

  “I know.”

  Kevin was well aware of that as the timer counted down below ten seconds, but perhaps she could distract some of the enemies. And, if not, well, he would fight alone. He had been all day already.

  When the counter reached zero and blinked red three times, the lighting in the room died out. With very few stars outside, what Kevin’s eyes could see was negligible beyond the little light radiating from Mira’s hologram.

  The voice boomed again: “You’ve made your choice, now you die.”

  A little over-the-top cliché, isn’t it?

  Kevin took a deep breath, nonetheless.

  Metallic noises and clangs resounded in front of him, first a couple at a time, then more at increasing frequencies. When fear started settling in his mind, threatening to overcome him, Kevin pushed it off and thought:

  Predator visual modes.

  His armor grew a helmet that covered his face and immediately started cycling views to infrared, energy dissipation, and more. In most of the modes, he saw an army of droids, drones, and mechs. Some modes highlighted the enemies more than others.

  Hybrid mode, thought Kevin, consciously asking his smart armor to use the best of each mode. He received a more detailed picture of the dozens of enemies all pointing weapons at him the moment they opened fire. To say he could see them as well as he had during daylight battle was not true, but he saw enough to target and drill them down. The sheer number of enemies confirmed why this room was so large; it was meant to be a battle arena.

  With the clarity of a dark level on an 8-bit console game, the enemies popped out enough for him to maneuver between them, shoot them, and send them to the recycling bin to which they belonged, even if they didn’t yet know it themselves.

  Adrenaline filled his body as his survival instincts took over. He raised his shields and started fighting back. In midair, a jetpack materialized on his back and he flew over the enemies.

  He didn’t know if it was his earlier reference to the Predator movie or if he just felt like it but in both his hands two large Gatling guns materialized and started spewing six thousand rounds a minute of armor-piercing bullets. Instinctively, he would change some of the ammo on the fly for the bigger targets, making the rounds explosive as well.

  The explosive armor-piercing bullets worked much better on larger mechs. Even though he got more than half of the incoming force withi
n the first two minutes of the chaotic engagement, his power levels were dropping insanely fast and proportionately to the amount of ammo he was delivering.

  But Kevin didn’t see any other usable tactic. This was a boss-battle, a crazed one, like going for Diablo and his minions alone, with some weak-ass loot armor that could break at any moment.

  But where was Diablo? In this case, the bigger opponent that the mob of robots belonged to. Deep in his mind, Kevin knew that this encounter was just the tip of the iceberg, and if he continued expending energy at this rate, he would not survive to see what Omicronia could throw at him next.

  That’s when it hit him. He was using video game metaphors and these could actually be used to save his hide since the armor would create a physical representation of any idea he pushed with his mind.

  In some RPG games, you had shields that would absorb energy hits and convert kinetic energy from inbound projectiles into a charge that could re-power the player. So once that thought entered his mind, the hits on his armor helped recharge his portable power cell. Not enough to bring him back to full energy, but at the very least enough to stop hemorrhaging energy like a sieve.

  As he continued mowing down the rest of the enemy forces, he got hit with stronger weapons. Some of the robot droids had switched to explosive plasma ammunition, and when hit by those, Kevin was thrown into the air and spun wildly until he could recover. That gave the enemy too many opportunities to redeploy and acquire better firing solutions on him.

  He invoked two auto-targeting plasma cannons on each shoulder. He might as well use all of the Predator’s weapons he could think of. The auto-targeting part was trickier since he needed the weapon to locate enemies he might not even be aware of. So he found a way to use Mira.

  Mira, interface with my shoulder plasma cannons and help them target and destroy the enemies that are throwing explosive charges.

  Understood, interfacing now. By the way, impressive thinking on your feet for the energy-absorbing shields.

  Thanks.

  Perhaps he was made for this mission after all. His pop culture obsession and long sleepless nights of video game marathons were not in vain. Without them, he would probably not have climbed past the twentieth floor of this deathtrap building, nor would he have lasted more than ten seconds in this battle arena.

  Robot heads melted, metallic chest cages exploded, and synthetic limbs tumbled about at the rate of a heavy rain. And while his armor’s structural integrity came close to a failing point, there was only one big mech to deal with, one that seemed impervious to both explosive rounds and plasma turret fire.

  No, this particular foe was triple the armor and had one hell of a shield generator. Even with everything aimed at him, it would not budge. But since it was the last enemy standing, its own rate of fire toward Kevin was not enough to recover nearly a tenth of the energy Kevin was spending trying to bring it down.

  Time to change tactics.

  Kevin used his jetpack to drop down onto the ground. His Gatling guns morphed into nothingness as multiple laser targeting red dots danced an intricate pattern on his chest. Kevin smiled as he had his next thought and darted toward the massive mech that opened fire the moment he moved.

  Bullets, laser streaks, and plasma projectiles all screamed past his ears as he slalomed and dodged most of what the enemy was throwing at him as it attempted to crush this little bug that had eluded it until now.

  Kevin used super-speed to finish his course, taking the mech by surprise so that it couldn’t reacquire him as a target, and with a smile on his face, he threw himself to the ground legs first, skidding at crazy high speeds toward the center of the large mech’s metallic legs.

  As he slid, Kevin left a large trail of sparks behind him. Time to use his ace in the hole.

  BFG9000!

  Doom’s iconic Big Fucking Gun 9000 was a plasma fireball-killing machine of a gun. He pushed its power even further by thinking of overclocking the internal gun’s charging circuitry, letting his inner geek come up with a holier-than-thou gun of ultimate destructive power. In his mind, he even added an explosive charge in the middle of the firing circle for kicks.

  As Kevin approached the mech’s gap between its legs, time seemed to slow down to a crawl. Timing would be everything, and it seemed his armor knew that and helped Kevin reduce the perception of his speed so he would not miss his one shot at bringing the super-mech down.

  The weapon’s feature and destructive powers now clear in his mind, the armor started building it in real-time. A holographic shape drew out of thin air in Kevin’s right arm. Meanwhile, a veritable multi-colored and slowed-down light show streak happened atop Kevin as the mech tried to correct for its initial targeting algorithm when Kevin entered both super-speed and bullet-time out of the blue. It was like watching a super-slow motion version of a fireworks finale on TV.

  The mech did not know what hit him. The heavy weapon was fully formed in Kevin’s right arm, and he quickly used his left arm to provide additional stability and strength to align it upward in time.

  To say that the moment the weapon was ready, aimed, and fired within a nanosecond was not an exaggeration. There was nothing Kevin couldn’t do as long as his smart armor would obey his every thought.

  The moment he was under the mech, Kevin vertically aligned the souped-up BFG9000 perfectly and depressed the trigger. Because his smart armor sensed that he wanted to enjoy the result of his tactic, it kept Kevin’s perception of time in slow motion. And as Kevin streaked past the mech’s legs, a yellow-tinted plasma fireball shot up, and Kevin turned his head to watch the show.

  The plasma fireball entered the crotch of the mech and shot upward, melting metal, wiring, and collapsing its shields. Kevin was exhilarated at seeing every nook and cranny while the once indestructible mech crumbled like an apple pie whose crust was too dry. The fireball burned through the upper half of the mech’s torso when its explosive secondary firing mode triggered.

  Watching the mech explode in slow motion was a thing of beauty as flames engulfed the molten metal like a hundred fiery snakes expanding outward. Kevin ended his slide with a quick firing of his jetpack to regain an upward posture.

  Time resumed at its normal pace as metallic scraps and liquified parts rained down around Kevin. His helmet vanished into nothingness and Kevin threw his hair to the side with a victorious head throw.

  He smiled from ear to ear.

  “Ballseye!”

  14

  Xonax circled around Kalliopy without saying another word for several minutes. Eventually, he opened his foul mouth.

  “I think you’re going to regret not complying earlier. But, it’s too late now,” he said.

  “That’s how much time it took you to come up with this?” Kalliopy antagonized. “Spit it out already; tell me how you’re going to kill me and let’s be done with it. I don’t know what I hate more, being immobilized or having to listen to you blabber on. Unless your idea of torture is me listening to your ego-driven evil ways, in which case…good job.”

  Xonax growled as he stopped in front of Kalliopy and snapped his fingers.

  A holo-screen came to life behind him. It was massive. At first it contained static but was soon replaced with the view of a girl with light brown-hair that Kalliopy knew all too well. Her heart started beating faster than it ever did before.

  “What is this?” she said, her voice trembling.

  “That would be Urania, your dear sister?”

  Son of a bitch, I’m going to kill you!

  Urania’s body had some bruises and a thin line of blood ran from her tiny nose to her upper lip.

  “As you have already gathered, I’m sure, this is a live broadcast.”

  “You’re dead!” screamed Kalliopy.

  Xonax laughed. “Yeah, I can see that happening. Sure, keep dreaming, Princess.”

  “Don’t you dare touch a hair on her.”

  Xonax smirked and turned toward the holo-screen. “Take out as many as
you can in one rip.”

  The camera zoomed out and a Kregan warrior grabbed a large chunk of Urania’s hair and pulled. Urania screamed in pain as her hair was torn from her scalp.

  “Stop! Don’t do this,” screamed Kalliopy, tears filling her eyes.

  Perhaps her spies informing her that the Kregan were moving to get at her sister had not just been a decoy but a real part of their plans. Anger and hatred filled the princess’s heart. Unfortunately, there was no getting free from her shackles. The hovering cuffs could keep in place the strongest and most muscular races in the universe, so with her svelte and frail body, she didn’t stand a chance to even make them move a millimeter out of alignment.

  “It’s up to you to make it stop,” said Xonax as he returned his gaze to Kalliopy. “We can do this all day, break every little brittle bone in her body while you watch it happen.”

  Kalliopy had never hated someone the way she now hated Xonax. How dare he torture her little sister. Urania was such a sweet Arcadian, one that didn’t care about the politics of the Confederate and that had preferred taking a step back from the war, unlike their other siblings.

  But even though she hoped that one day she would get the opportunity to strike back at Xonax and rip his heart from his chest, she was not stupid and she knew that today was not that day. Today she was not in a position to act on this impulse. All she could do is look at her sister and hope she could find a way to make sure she wasn’t hurt or worse, killed.

  So with disgust filling her soul, she stared back at Xonax and said the words she would have rather swallowed all the way to her grave if that had been an option.

  “What do you want?”

  “Unconditional surrender.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Then you can watch your sister die, slowly.”

  “No! You don’t understand! I can’t give you what you want. I’m not refusing to, I just can’t. Now that I’ve been away from the throne for so long, by now one of my sisters is in charge. That’s how our constitution works.”