I’d never seen Imran in such a state before. My Dagestani friend had spent a whole ummi sitting in his bunk, holding tight to his deadly blades and staring at the wall, switching the electrified edge of the finely serrated weapons on and off. The only thing Imran said in all that time was directed at me:
“Too bad there won’t be any close combat and we’ll just be shooting from orbit. Gnat, burn them all to hell!!!”
And Imran wasn’t the only one upset. I was also very disturbed. Irina Chusovkina was a woman who looked glamorous for all her years. Her and I had talked just today, but she never came back around and died in the intensive care unit just half an hour after we brought her to the medical building. The speed with which the unknown disease progressed from initial symptoms to death was striking. So as soon as we familiarized ourselves with the list of priority targets brought by Gerd Tarasov, I ordered Imran to get quickly into the game because we had been in close contact with the recently deceased and probably were already infected with the deadly disease. What was more, my head really was starting to hurt — probably somewhat in anxiety and somewhat from the infection. I wasn’t going to stick around and find out.
When Imran said “them all” he meant the Dark Faction, our main enemy beyond all doubt was behind that inhuman attack. Especially after I told Minn-O about the characteristic symptoms of the quickly spreading disease. She mentioned two horrible epidemics that swept her world seven hundred and one hundred eighty years ago. In both cases the disease was caused by single celled algae capable of quickly multiplying inside the human body. Their waste products caused a severe allergic reaction leading to death in a majority of cases. We immediately sent that information under the Dome.
By then I already knew that, in view of the crisis, Dome leadership had taken an emergency decision to fill all virt pods reserved for new players with infected nonplayers in the most severe condition. Unfortunately that left us with only eight survivors. They made one exception for the intelligence director, a valuable specialist who possessed a huge amount of secret information, who needed to be saved regardless. But Alexander Antipov said it went against his honor as an officer and he felt a share of guilt for what happened, so he refused. An hour later, his condition had deteriorated so much the doctors put him into an artificial coma.
A group of military specialists had been brought under the Dome and, wearing special hermetically sealed chemical suits, were collecting samples everywhere. In some thick grass in the park they discovered an empty thin-walled vial with spore traces inside. There were clear fingerprints on the glass as well, and they were quickly identified. They belonged to, as was not hard to guess, Anya from First Medical. With every conceivable precautionary measure, the dangerous sample was brought into a mobile laboratory set up right there under the Dome.
All members of the Human-3 Faction had been advised to spend as long as possible in their virt pods, returning to the real world only if their character in the game that bends reality died. The disease hadn’t been detected in any players yet, but it was assumed that was because the game was healing them. And the planners of this deadly attack had to have known that. But that meant the attack wasn’t intended to kill our players. But then what? To sew panic in our ranks and crush our fighting spirit? If that’s what they were hoping to achieve, they guessed wrong. The soldiers of the H3 faction had more determination than ever before!
Or was their goal something totally different, on a much grander scale? For example, maybe they were hoping to turn real world governments against one another. After all, if I hadn’t uncovered the agent of the magocratic world by complete coincidence, the main suspect in the biological attack against Russia would have been Canadian intelligence. The potential consequences of that were not hard to predict. The Russian state had a clear defensive doctrine, and possessed plenty of thermonuclear warheads and intercontinental ballistic missiles...
The screen lit up before me showing the furry face of a Geckho dispatcher:
“All documents in order! Free Captain Gerd Gnat, you frigate is permitted to visit the star system and land in the local space port.”
Fame increased to 71.
Authority increased to 50!
Right after that, a Sindirovu fighter-interceptor stopped spinning around my frigate and descended into the atmosphere, having appeared near my starship as soon as we left hyperjump. We observed all formalities, and the Geckho wouldn’t be bothering us any further. I took in some more air and, trying to look like the picture of determination for my crew, commanded:
“Dmitry, get in attack position one hundred ten miles above the central node of the Dark Faction, its coordinates are 55:476.”
The frigate went into motion, gradually making a left turn and starting down to laser cannon distance. That part of the planet was already dark which was obviously not what we were hoping for. It would have been much more effective to attack in the daytime, when all targets were much easier to see. However, at night we had a decent chance of catching all enemy Sio-Mi-Dori at their base, and the Dark Faction assault antigravs were our priority target.
According to Gerd Tarasov, the fourteen heavy assault-landing antigravs, capable of unexpectedly showing up anywhere and landing four hundred troops then supporting them with heavy cannon fire, broke our whole defense system. So we were to deprive the Dark Faction of this mobile strike force then start destroying enemy infrastructure — power stations, factories, oil wells, weapon and ammunition caches, bridges and comms towers, repair shops and vehicle parking. I was told not to get distracted with reinforcements and manpower, and concentrate on destroying production facilities and reducing the mobility of enemy troops. After all, no matter how many troops the Dark Faction had, if they couldn’t repair tech or make more ammunition, without heavy weaponry and the ability to quickly move around the planet, they would be easy prey for our players.
We got lucky with the weather. There was slight cloud cover, but it did nothing to stop us from seeing the surface. The sea was dark, the coastline serpentine. I was interested in a bright spot below, and mentally compared the image on the monitor with my own map. The Geckho spaceport? Yes, exactly! So many lights!
Cartography skill increased to level fifty-nine!
But then there was a peninsula jutting way out into the sea, the hilly overgrown lands to the south of the spaceport. One of the nodes there was the one the German Human-6 Faction had chosen as its new home. And that island was the former German capital node, now under Dark Faction occupation. I took a closer look from above at the enemy-occupied island. No fires or buildings were visible from one hundred miles up. Although... what was that? I could clearly see five dots starting off from the island and drifting over the sea.
Cartography skill increased to level sixty!
Eagle Eye skill increased to level seventy-three!
Despite the Eagle Eye message, I couldn’t identify the flying objects. They were just too far away. So I started up the ship’s lidar and scanned that part of the water’s surface with other systems. I wasn’t particularly surprised at what I found. It was exactly what I was expecting in fact:
Sio-Mi-Dori. Dark Faction shock-landing antigrav.
Five such flying machines were taking a course to the east from the island the Dark Faction now controlled. I couldn’t say if they were going to wipe the H6 faction off their last nodes on the eastern shore or if they had other plans. No matter. They had just made themselves my priority targets.
“Dmitry! Even out the starship and head for the enemy antigravs! Denni Marko! Light them up!!! Shoot at will!!! They must not escape!!!”
Valeri’s associate threw away an unfinished sandwich and, wiping the crumbs off his hands right onto his spacesuit, ran full speed to the gunner seat. Half a minute later a power surge informed me of a simultaneous shot from all three turrets at once. The first enemy Sio-Mi-Dori fell to pieces in the air, splashing down into the dark sea in a scattering of flaming debris.
Targetin
g skill increased to level twenty-five!
You have reached level seventy-seven!
You have received three skill points.
“Great work, Denni! Let ‘em have it before they figure out what’s happening!”
Targeting skill increased to level twenty-six!
Targeting skill increased to level twenty-seven!
You have reached level seventy-eight!
You have received three skill points (total points accumulated: six).
“Kap-ee-tahn! All five kill is do. But one fly-ying match-een throuuwing water resc-cue raft!” Denni’s alarmed and bewildered voice in my headphones spoke to a seriously flustered state.
I looked for myself. There was a big bright orange inflatable raft capable of holding fifteen people in the midst of the stormy sea. Zooming in showed that people were swimming towards it from all sides, many of whom had taken off their heavy armor as not to be weighed down. I didn’t feel hate for these people, and especially was not going to give an order to destroy their only means of salvation. My interest was more detached, like how an entomologist looks at a rare butterfly. Were Dark Faction commandos required to have the Swimming skill? After all, without it they would have all drowned instantly. Those were the rules of the game!
But that wasn’t my biggest question here. To save their own skins, the soldiers had ditched heavy armor suits, which were probably expensive and hard to produce. And this was all just a game where the worst consequence of death was a fifteen-minute pause! Was their sense of self-preservation really that strong? Or had Dark Faction production capabilities allowed them to create armor suits in large quantity, and the soldiers figured they were already too ruined to be worth saving? Or was the reason something totally different, for example, a mentality we weren’t accustomed to? Like for example, maybe while a warrior has even the slightest chance of completing an order, they are obliged to do so by their honor?
“Are we really gonna let them go?” the pilot’s unhappy voice shook me out of my thinking. “Captain, they are enemies! They must be destroyed while we have the chance!”
“No Dmitry. Only fascists and terrorists attack downed pilots or the crews of sinking ships. We are not like them. What’s more, it’ll be more than an hour before they get anywhere, and that means fifteen enemy soldiers will be out of the picture all that time. Set a course for the island! Let’s get back to our main mission!”
Authority reduced to 49!
Authority increased to 50!
Strange. My sharp response was heard by many and crewmembers were of two different minds about the decision. I suspected Dmitry Zheltov was among those who didn’t approve of my spinelessness. Nevertheless, the pilot did not dare disobey an order and steered the frigate toward the dark craggy island.
I then called up the results of a recent scan. I wanted to see the map markers for the antigravs flying over the sea. Ah, there were their characteristic signatures. Perhaps not all the antigravs on the island were taking part in tonight’s operation? Search for similar objects on the island! There we go! Completely identical signatures, although somehow shielded, the signal was weaker. Ah, now I could see. This Sio-Mi-Dori was inside a large covered hangar. It must have been damaged during recent battles and was in for repair. I studied the mesh-covered camouflage structures with my ship’s powerful optics and scanning systems. Some warehouses and workshops. Hey, there were the two heavy tanks the Dark Faction brought back to the island for repair! What luck!
Cartography skill increased to level sixty-one!
Electronics skill increased to level seventy-two!
Scanning skill increased to level forty-two!
“Denni, new targets!” I set markers on the grounded antigrav and neighboring structures, as well as the two Sio-Ku-Tati tanks. “Fire!!!”
And it went up like a Roman candle! The bright flash was seen by everyone on the bridge without any optics at all. It was seemingly an ammunition storehouse. I ordered Denni to shoot the flaming tech and proper rows of military freight vehicles, now well visible in the firelight, once again.
Targeting skill increased to level twenty-eight!
Targeting skill increased to level twenty-nine!
“Okay, that’s enough! Let’s get back to the main mission. Set a course for the Dark Faction’s main node! Actually... wait!” My attention was drawn by a large number of lights on “our” shore. It looked like there was a pitched battle underway! And we had just destroyed the reinforcements the enemy was rushing into battle! “Set a course for the Tropics node! Coordinates 60:470. Let’s go help our guys!”
Ugh, I wished I could tell what was happening... One hundred miles beneath us in the swampy night, the tropical forest was host to a rampaging battle. At some sections it had even come to hand-to-hand combat. But all I could see was a barrage of flickering lights. For a minute I tried to figure out where my side was, and where to find the enemy, but I had to admit defeat.
“Dmitry, give me our faction’s common channel! Twenty-five, the one for emergency messages!”
“Gnat, they changed it from twenty-five a long time ago, it’s seventeen now...” the Starship Pilot started teaching me a poorly timed lesson but, seeing my gloomy gaze, sharply cut himself off. “Captain, all ready. I switched to the channel and turned on encryption.”
I nodded, donned my headphones and immediately winced from an ear-piercing shout:
“...econd Legion requesting backup! We’re surrounded near Putrid Ford! We’ve only got one Peresvet left. All our trucks have been destroyed, we cannot evacuate the cannons! We’re out of ammo, and nearly out of grenades. There are less than forty of us left! Soldiers down! We need help!!!”
I recognized the voice. It belonged to Roman Pavlovich, the right hand of Gerd Tamara, leader of the Second Legion. I also knew the place the high-level Grenadier mentioned. In fact, it was me who suggested the name Putrid Ford when I first headed south to meet our potential allies from the German faction. It was a nasty place, where you had to wade up to your waist in swamp muck. Perhaps the Centaurs had built something like a road there since, but no matter what there was no way around this place. There were viscous swamps for many miles all around. An ideal place for an ambush...
“This is Filippov, over. We cannot send out reinforcements. The Dark Faction has attacked from Karelia, all our reserves are over there. Blow up your vehicle and make for the Rainforest node to get artillery support.”
The Second Legion was fully surrounded, which meant the overall situation on the southern front wasn’t nearly as rosy as the directors had told me a few hours earlier. Gerd Tamara’s squadron was the main force holding back the enemy from the south. If they were taken out, the consequences for the whole south could be catastrophic. Plus HQ had no way to help the dying soldiers, which was an even worse sign. That meant there were no reserves in this area. What was more, the Second Legion leaving Karelia had weakened defense on the Northern front, which the darksiders quickly took advantage of.
No answer followed from the Second Legion. And what was there to really say here? I had no doubt that Major Filippov himself understood how absolutely impossible and senseless his order was. The Dark Faction hadn’t gone to all the trouble of luring our elite soldiers into a trap just to let them leave afterward. I spun in my seat and turned toward the Starship Pilot, who was also listening to the negotiations:
“Dmitry, can you land this frigate in an unprepared location?”
My friend thought for three seconds, then answered with a tight head-shake:
“It’ll be hard in such a big starship. This is after all not a shuttle or some light interceptor. But even if we can set down in the swamp without busting the fuselage, we won’t be able to take off again from the thick muck. Plus there’s a battle down there, which means the Dark Faction might destroy or even capture our starship.”
“So without all that verbal husk, you’re basically saying yes?” I demanded a clear answer from the pilot.
�
�Yes captain. We will be able to land. But in order to be able to take back off again, we need a hard and preferably more or less even landing zone.”
“I’ve got one,” I brought up the node map on the monitor and pointed to spot on the screen. “In the middle of Putrid Ford there’s a hill overgrown with bushes, the only more or less dry place. There it is. From what I can tell, our soldiers have occupied that exact high point and are defending it. Prepare to land there!”
“But captain...” it was clear the Starship Pilot was unsure it was worth breaking the rules of the game and arguing with a high-profile player, but nevertheless he was decisive: “Gnat, can I be perfectly honest? Why take such a risk? We might lose our starship. It’s our only trump card in the war against the Dark Faction. And for what? Those forty players die and respawn somewhere safe, as the other Second Legion soldiers have probably already done. The vehicle? Is our last Peresvet and a few cannons worth that risk?”
I took a heavy sigh and started digesting a seemingly obvious fact:
“Good thing you wanted honesty. Did you think about why our soldiers have dug in so hard on that hill and are not retreating? Maybe they just couldn’t say it on air so they wouldn’t inform the enemy of their weakness, given they could easily have figured out our encryption and have been listening. Look at the map again. There are dozens of miles of swamp in every direction. And if a soldier dies with their respawn point far to the north in a safe area, they would have to spend the next day or maybe two wading through waist-deep muck to catch up to their comrades who are pursuing a retreating enemy. And the only dry land that can serve as a fulcrum point to push south...”
“The Second Legion set their respawn points there!!!” the Starship Pilot interrupted me, his eyes wide in horror. “They cannot leave!!!”
“Precisely! And that is why we will help despite the high risk. Prepare for landing!”
Dmitry Zheltov, his face bewildered, returned to his pilot’s seat, closed his eyes, sat back then started stretching his fingers and whispering silently. Maybe he was repeating the steps for landing, maybe he was praying. I then turned on the microphone and went to channel seventeen:
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