by Tao Wong
My jaw drops. We might have the same number of ships orbiting the station right now, but they’re mostly pirate ships—equipped with a few guns and missile tubes, but not exactly war machines. They don’t have the multiple redundancies or armor a real warship would have, instead sacrificing a lot of that for cargo space. Even if the entire game of insurance payouts is rigged, it doesn’t mean that the pirates can send ships without space to pick up the cargo. But, if the fleet is still gathering, the sheer numbers they’re sending at us is staggering.
“It’s not the level of the dragon in the fight but the level of the fight in the dragon,” Bolo says.
I twitch, eyes narrowing as I wonder if he’s mocking me. Or if certain concepts just translate weirdly. Probably the second. “Are you saying we have more people with higher Classes?”
“A few. They’re mostly worried about the Inner Crew,” Oi says, pointing downward. It takes me a moment to realize he’s talking about Station Prime.
“Nine high-level Master Classers, two Heroics, and one, rumored, Legendary Class.” Harry flicks me the data with a swipe of his hand. In the column is a list of the names and their Classes, along with an opposition column right next to them. “Right now, we’ve got public announcements of a half dozen high-Level Master Classes in the fleet, a score more on the lower end of the scale. And at least one Heroic—the Grand Admiral that’s running the fleet.”
There’s an intake of breath at that one, more than a few people wincing. Captains, Admirals, they come in two flavors for the most part. The jack-of-all trades, like Dornalor, who can do everything and whose Skills let him do it all, just not as well. Or—and I’m guessing this is the case with the Grand Admiral—the support Class. They don’t do anything but stand around looking pretty and providing general Skill boosts to everyone under them. Given enough time—and a Grand Admiral has had that time—they’ll increase in Levels and Skill Points until their powers can cover everyone in their fleet, boosting their performance by a significant margin. Especially since many of their Skills won’t conflict with other passive boosts.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but if they’ve got enough power to pull everyone together—and I’d really like to know why now—why the hell aren’t they punching through our Dimensional Lock and dropping people in?” I say.
“It’s been tried before. The third and eighth attempts to be exact,” Oi says. “I was around for the eighth as a child. The emergency jump made me throw up for a day—even the System couldn’t help with the shock. But it meant that they lost every single one of their invaders since the Inner Crew had caught wind of the attempt and sabotaged their Smoothers beforehand. Which leads me to my point. We need to take those out.”
“And you’re volunteering us,” I say flatly. “Not exactly sure I feel the desire to kill the poor sons of a bitches doing their jobs on those ships. I really doubt there’s a convenient key to pull to stop it from working.”
“You understand they intend to kill us, if you refuse,” Oi says.
I point at the way, even now, some of the ships are headed out. “We can run.”
“Even if they intend to kill or enslave everyone on this station? Even the children?” Oi watches as I flinch at the last, the damn Galactic radiating smugness when he continues. “Everyone, including you, is considered guilty by association. The children will be let off easy—only twenty- or thirty-year sentences. Everyone else, well…”
“Not a kind and wonderful bunch, are they?” I mutter sarcastically.
“It’s the Galactic System,” I Shao almost spits. “Why do you think we fight the fat, corrupt, easy-Leveled Goblin eaters?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say, waving. It’s not as if the pirates and rebels are that much better. And whining about the Galactic System ignores the various cultures that have managed to work around the System. Though some of them do suffer for the lack of efficiency that their ways of doing things have created. But… “It still doesn’t mean I want to kill people working their jobs. Especially if they’re just doing what they need to do.”
“Then perhaps you should consider the makeup of the groups,” Bolo says.
A projection of names flips up in front of me, some of them quite familiar. The Thirteen Moon Sect. The Kingdom of Pewsin. The Zarrie. There are more names, many that I know are the bottom-feeders of Galactic Society. Those voted most likely to exploit. But multiple years at this has shown me to not take things at face value. Especially information that is this convenient.
“Harry?”
“Data’s real.”
“I think someone really needs to explain why there’s a fleet attacking us right when we’re visiting. And why so many of those involved are people we have beef with.” I turn to look at Bolo, Ali, and Oi in turn, my face losing all traces of amusement.
Truth is, the moment I saw the encirclement, I knew that we could get out if we really wanted to. Dornalor’s ship has the stealth modules to get us close to the exit, then it’s just a matter of running—no matter how many mines they’re in the process of planting. There’s more going on than just a coincidental attack, and I’d like an answer before I make a move.
“It is, as you have assumed, not entirely a coincidence that this happened.” Oi holds up one hand. “Your presence here has contributed to the arrival of many of your enemies.” Another hand goes up. “But rumors of an attack have been circulating for years. The timing of the attack coincides with our auction as well, offering them the highest return.”
“Har! Look at that face. You owe me ten Roma crystals,” Ali crows, floating over to Bolo while holding out a hand. “Told you he’d look like that.”
“How can a man, even a Master Class, be that conceited?” Bolo mutters, not at all softly, while pulling the Roma crystals from his storage.
“I am not!”
“You really are,” Harry says, looking up. “Though in this case, the fact that you annoyed the Thirteen Moon Sect was particularly important. They had the sixth Dimensional Smoother that was needed. This entire operation has been boiling for years, but they’ve never managed to get more than five Smoothers committed at any one time.”
“Then we came along. And they decided to take a swing at us.”
“Well, there’s also the population of the station and the influx of materials,” Ali drawls. “But hey, it’s more John’s head that’s important. The big, swelled head of his.”
“As much as this is amusing,” I Shao speaks up, cutting through our bickering, “we are in need of an answer. Soon.”
“Fine. I get the Thirteen Moons.” Never liked that group, and if they are coming for me, I figure it’s time to remind them why they should back off. This isn’t the first time they’ve sent people against me, but it’s mostly been small scale attacks. Nothing like this.
One thing I’ve learnt in my time in the Galaxy is that you can’t back down, not ever. If someone takes a swing at you, you swing back and you put them down harder than ever. Otherwise, you’re just asking to be targeted again. I’ll admit, people like Roxley have a more subtle manner of doing things, but there’s a nice simplicity to taking your sword and cutting down every single opponent. It also means that the few times you are subtle, they’re more likely to be surprised.
“Obviously,” Oi confirms my request.
I let out a deep breath, resigning myself to doing what I do best. Which, in this case, is blasting a bunch of idiots into space.
***
Once I agreed, the rest of the preparations proceeded at lightning speed. It seemed that while I was being briefed, the professionals were making minor adjustments to the contingency battle plans then disseminating the plans. I could whine and bitch about being relegated to playing foot soldier, what with being a Master Class and all, but really, I’m not a tactician. I’m an ex-programmer turned Galactic hitman. While I’ve occasionally taken part in large scale battles, it’s never been on a tactical level.
I was amused when I found out that the Gala
ctic version of “minimal amount of data” was actually the opposite—a flood of data that allowed each ship to target any of the six Dimensional Smoothers or their backup ships. Each plan, each course, each target was given a different designation and individually specified for each of our ships so that there were literally tens of thousands of plans being disseminated. Once contact is made, the strategists and tacticians will activate the appropriate plans, ensuring our fleet can act as one while keeping the other team guessing.
It’s a brutal and inelegant manner of dealing with the System’s ability to leak information, but considering we know there are a ton of spies involved and—as has been shown by the surprise appearance of the Dimensional Smoothers—the enemy spies are better than ours, it works. As for myself, I’m seated next to Dornalor, waiting.
“You know, I expect to get paid for this,” Dornalor says.
“Talk to Io.”
“She’s not seated with me.”
“But she commandeered your ship. Or, well, Oi did. But Io negotiates payouts.” I run through the stats of the ship via my Neural Link, assessing the remaining damage and the state of our repairs. “Nicely done, by the way. I see you had the armor upgraded.”
“Only where it was needed.” Dornalor shrugs, but I’ve known him long enough to sense the satisfaction that lies beneath that shrug. “Your friends cutting up the Leviathan gave me a good deal.”
“I’d hope so. We’re partners now more than customers.” I make sure to stress the we portion of the sentence, what with Dornalor having a share of the entire Leviathan.
“The auction still going on?” Dornalor asks, absently dragging a hand along the shell along his forehead.
“Eventually. It’s delayed for a few days, but it’ll be completed. The plan is, if things go really bad, to have a quick impromptu one so that the buyers can take part via the System. Just means that the variety of goods will be lower—or set at a higher price.” I shrug. “Um figures it’ll be good for us. Get us a higher price on the sale. And since they’ve got clansmen outside of the boundaries, it won’t cost us a dime more to transport the goods.”
“Nice.” Dornalor rubs the arm of his chair lovingly. “There are some upgrades I’ve been eying for a while. If we make enough, I’ll rip out the support struts around the engine and cockpit and replace them. Add in lines for two more gauss cannons.”
“Gauss?” I raise an eyebrow. “Kind of old school, isn’t it? Short range too.”
“Everything has its place,” Dornalor says. “Unless you’re telling me we won’t be conducting any more ship raids.”
I snort before considering his words. Since I’ve been told not to play Galactic assassin anymore, does that mean I won’t?
While I’m thinking, Dornalor continues. “We’ve been lacking a hard counter to those energy shields. This seems as good a time to get one as any.”
I push aside my musings. Not as if Dornalor couldn’t find a use for the guns after all. Like with anything in the Galaxy, there’s a very big game of rock-paper-scissors with offense and defense. Force fields are mostly energy based, so those are countered—to some extent—by mass drivers. Mass drivers are beaten back by layered and hard armor, which are easily countered by high energy weaponry. Of course, Skills and ship-wide resistances add their own layers to that. Bomb-pumped nuclear missiles might be the norm, but there’s no reason you couldn’t power the entire thing with the heart of a fire elemental. Or pack it full of mega porcupine quills. The thing about wars, and space battles in particular, is how wasteful they are. Which is why sending a single Master Class via a stealth ship into the opponent’s ship is just as viable a tactic. Kind of like now…
“Ship upgrades rather than new Skills?” I say, just to fill in the silence as we wait.
“Mana.” Dornalor shrugs. “Right now, I can run everything at full bore for nine minutes. Nearly infinitely at seventy percent settings.” He cocks his head, giving me a half smile. “Can’t really add any other Skills without impacting my optimal run time.”
I nod rather than call out his lie about his actual run time. Or utilization percentage. Or the fact that he’s not mentioning he has a few backup Skills. Underplaying your hand is a common tactic, but we’ve been flying together long enough that I can do the math myself.
“Until I hit my next Skill threshold, better to keep my Skills as they stand,” Dornalor says.
“Not going for a Skill evolution?” I query.
Dornalor is one of those who regularly consults with Class Actuaries, individuals who—for a fee—will study and assess the best “build” for an individual dependent on their Class, attributes, and situations. In his case, Dornalor visits the Actuaries, but there are a whole host of others who approximate the very same occupation.
Obviously, there are Class guides that anyone with any sense purchases. But Class Actuaries can provide more detailed reviews, taking into account specific attributes, locations, current builds, and other Skills. The very best can even give you a probability assessment of a Skill evolution.
Becoming a Class Actuary is interesting, since it’s a prestige Class with a number of—mostly—hidden requirements. Most large organizations have a few on hand though, since their help can be invaluable. Those who work freelance often have waiting lists in the years.
Dornalor doesn’t answer my question and I wince internally, realizing I made another faux pas. Sometimes I forget that talking about Skills and Classes isn’t done. The world feels so much like a game sometimes that I forget that for the Galactics, it’s no game, it’s just life. And theory-crafting your build with friends is one thing, but it’s another to discuss it with relative strangers—even if that stranger is your employer.
“All ships. All ships. Plan Aquarius-Twenty-Eight-Chaos-Mana. Repeat. Aquarius-Twenty-Eight-Chaos-Mana.”
I tilt my head as the voice and screen notifications appear. I don’t tense, because this is the fourth one since we radioed in our readiness. Each time, a thousand ships run through the plans, figuring out their final locations, their necessary jump details. But the next words make me tense.
“Apricot. I repeat, apricot.”
Force shields around the station go down without warning. Dimensional locks disappear. Chaos and more mundane space mines, primed for sudden changes in the environment, are turned off. Ship AIs, waiting for the command, trigger already hot engines, sending their ships through the now lowered station force shields. All around us, thrusters flare and mini-suns give birth as ships dart forward. We hover, waiting for a little before we follow, our ship in the third wave of the fleet.
Nestled deep within the sensor net of my own ship, I watch my first true fleet battle. I’ve read details about a few of them, but never taken part. Leading the charge to each of the six Dimensional Smoothers are our siege breakers—the largest, toughest ships we have. In most cases, they’re just mining ships. But considering the nature of certain types of planetary mining, the front shielding of these ore ships are as strong, if not stronger, than most heavy cruisers. Of course, they’re also a lot slower and have zero offensive armaments. Unless an enemy ship captain is dumb enough to sit still long enough for the close-range borers to fire. Dumb enough, or unlucky enough, to be in a Dimensional Smoother that has to stay still—relatively speaking—to ensure full coverage of Spaks.
Knowing that, the invading armada are focusing fire on the mining ships and our two battlecruisers. I watch as nearby enemy battleships scramble to aid the Dimensional Smoothers targeted by the pair of battlecruisers. While the battlecruisers might be a little out of date, each battlecruiser still outweighs the competing battleships by four times. Sure, the battleships might be able to swarm and destroy the battlecruisers eventually—but not before the battlecruisers can close in on the Dimensional Smoothers and hammer them. Add in the presence of the various pirate ships—many of them in the destroyer-sized range—and we’ve got a real scrum. If we could have gotten most of the pirates to help, this entire f
ight would be a non-issue; but even with threats and promises of rewards, pirates and rebels are anarchists at heart. No one really wanted to risk their livelihood and lives when someone else could do it.
When Oi revealed the presence of the pair of battlecruisers, it had been quite a surprise. Most everyone knew of the first battlecruiser—it’d been a badly held secret for years, according to Bolo—but the second one had been a real surprise. Unlike the Prime Station’s battlecruiser, the second battlecruiser had been commandeered by a Rebel captain in the Dorado star cluster after a failed military coup. He’d taken the battlecruiser and its crew and ran, and only recently stopped at Spaks for repairs and refueling. A series of powerful invisibility tech, spells, and Skills had kept its presence unknown to most.
“Big, beautiful, and oh so attention grabbing,” Ali says, floating up through the floor as he indicates the battlecruisers. Dornalor shoots Ali a glare but relents on not bitching out the Spirit again. It might have something to do with the amount of g-forces we’re experiencing, even through the inertial compensators. “Looks like the Wererats are following their babies.”
I frown, not understanding the point. “What?”
“Wererats. Babies. Nom, nom, nom.” When I look horrified, Ali shakes his head. “What? Your human rats do the same too. Admittedly, Wererats consider other wererat children delicacies, so they are more prone to doing it. You meat-people are all strange anyway.”
“Just… ugh.” I make a face.
Dornalor shakes his head before he turns his attention back to flying us through the scrum. Even if we’re flying relatively far apart in absolute physical terms, we’re all moving so fast that the ships are doing the equivalent of flying in close formation. Except in our case, we’re playing dodge-em as the battleships ahead of us open up, filling the void with missiles, stealthed mines, particle beam fire, gravitic locuses, and other less recognizable attacks.
“Stealth modules are holding. We should be on location in five,” Dornalor says as he jerks us out of the way of a newly emergent shrapnel field, one created by opening a gap into the elemental realm of diamond.