by Tao Wong
“What the hell is happening?”
“Sentient Payback,” the Rebel Captain who answered me says. “We are not defenseless.”
“It’s a Heroic Level Skill. Station Lord’s. Damage done to the shield is returned at a certain percentage back to attackers.” Ali helpfully fills me in, making my eyes widen in surprise. Payback Skills like that aren’t unknown, but to be able to use it across the entire station is something else entirely. “Of course, what they’re missing is—”
Another brute snarls, pounding the edge of the hologram with one of his four feet. “Too optimistic. You’re forgetting the Admiral’s Skill—One for All. Scenario IV – D, results only.”
A ripple and the hologram disappears, refreezing as the fifth to third ring external shields disappear, the stations they protected shattered wrecks. Only the Prime Station shield and portions of the second ring stand, but the enemy fleet is in horrible shape. Eighty percent of the ships are destroyed or damaged, unable to continue their bombardment. Even someone as green as me can tell that there’s no way he can punch through the remaining shield defenses with so few ships left.
“It doesn’t matter. No Admiral is willing to risk losing that many,” the first Rebel Captain says. I take a much closer look at him, eyeing the frills, the way he looks, and decide to name him Hornblower. His frills are sort of like horns. And being a Captain. Look, the classics have a place, you know.
“And you’re all estimating this based off what we now know. You know the Inner Crew believes that there’s much that has been hidden,” Oi says, shaking his head. “It’s why they fear the Admiral.”
“Yeah. He could punch through the first shield with only eleven percent losses with his Skill,” Nessos, the four-footed, maned Rebel Captain, replies. “Much lower than anything we had planned for.”
“Fighting the Ironwall was never part of our plans,” Oi says. “It doesn’t matter what we want to happen. We just have to follow the Crew’s general plan and do our part.”
“Which is?” I cock my head, curious if they have any idea.
“This is the most likely scenario.” Oi waves and the hologram ripples.
The entire scenario is a replay of the first scenario, except this time around, the glow around the attackers happens to all the ships at the same time. It seems the Admiral’s Skill spreads the damage, meaning that everyone takes an equal portion of the damage being returned, rather than each ship taking the damage they did. Of course, the negative is that there’s no way to stop the smallest and weakest ships from going up first.
They keep firing, until our first shield—the fifth ring’s external shield—goes down. As expected, they lose just over ten percent of their ships, mostly the smaller ones. Each ship that gets destroyed transfers more damage to the rest of the group, meaning that the biggest and toughest will survive, with the amount of damage increasing as the fight goes on. What surprises me is that fire slackens the moment they take the shield down, the fleet turning their attention to the pirate fleet to duke it out with them. In the meantime, transports appear around the Galactic fleet and head for the fifth ring stations.
“Why are they bothering taking the fifth ring stations?”
“Rising Crescendo,” Ali sends back to me. The Spirit’s been reading the battle plans while I’ve been talking, bulking on the System data that’s been transmitted and held in this room.
In place of a longer explanation, Ali sends me a notification.
Rising Crescendo (Evolved)
All stories must have appropriate buildup. Rising Crescendo ensures that the correct storytelling convention is provided to any story, forcing participants in the tale to follow the tale to its conclusion in an orderly, well-paced fashion. Poet may not designate himself as a plot point.
Effect: Poet may designate a story point that must be completed before the story may progress. Inappropriately difficult, wide-ranging, and thematically wrong plot points may be rejected or cost the Poet additional Mana.
Minimum Cost: Each designated plot point will cost Poet one eighth to one tenth of his total Mana pool per day while active. Poet may not move while using this Skill and must record the story in Poet’s designated medium.
Cost: (Variable)
“Isn’t that a little broken?” Even at a glance, I can tell that this looks like something anyone with half a brain could abuse. Of course, some Master Class Skills are like that, especially when they’ve been Evolved. It does tell me a few things though, including the fact that there’s a ‘Poet’ in play.
“Sort of? It’s an Evolved Skill, so it’s a bit more wide ranging than most,” Ali says. “But while the Poet can designate the plot points, he can’t do anything else. A good Assassin could take him down while he has the Skill active. Also, note that the Skill is a little vague on when it can reject a plot point.”
Still seems broken to me. The Skill notification disappears to be replaced by the specific epic that is in play—in this case, the need for the invasion force to go through each station the same way that we did. Which explains the ships that are incoming, ready to dock and drop off their people.
When the ships dock, the hologram stops and Oi walks through it, looking around at the gathered group. “We do not expect to hold the fifth ring. In fact, station masters on the fifth ring are currently readying retreat options and coordinating with those of us on the fourth ring.”
“We blowing the station after they leave?” Hornblower says, appropriately.
“No. The Poet’s ability forces us to leave them untouched. And don’t even think about pushing through the plot blocks. I know some of you”—Oi’s gaze fixes on me—“can do so. But the feedback would set us back further. We need to bleed them as they come in.”
“How many rings are we going to lose?” Nessos asks, stamping his foot in impatience.
Clustered around him, just like the people around Hornblower and Oi, are other rebels who aren’t powerful or confident enough to speak up. Or, perhaps, just willing to let the big mouths ask the questions we’re all thinking.
“Unknown.” Oi holds up a hand, stalling Nessos from speaking so that he can continue without interruption. “Best-case scenario, based off current, known forces—we beat them in the third ring.”
“And worst case?”
“We lose,” Bolo says with a snort. “That’s the worst case, isn’t it?”
“How about a survivable worst case?”
“Then, probably, we’ll be fighting on Station Prime.” Oi shakes his head. “Details like that are held by the Inner Crew. It is unlikely the Mistress will take any further hand in things, but with her in play, there’s no guarantee that any of our plans or secrets are still hidden. We can only hope that they have underestimated our strength.
“Now, if those are all the questions, we have a lot of work to do. Even if they know what we intend to do, we still need you to know your places.”
There’s a lot of muted grumbling, but the rebels and pirates settle down. Over the next couple of hours, Oi goes over the myriad battle plans and contingencies, making sure everyone knows their places and what they need to do at each position. There’s not a lot of subtlety here, not when the route in and out is railroaded through. Still, I have to admit, the use of the Poet’s Skill means that we don’t have the navy standing away and bombarding us to death, or for that matter, burning through the shields and dropping into the inner stations. Now we just need to stop them, one ring at a time.
Chapter 16
With two hours left on the Admiral’s timeline, I find myself with little else to do. Dornalor has the ship in dock for repair by the remaining Mechanics and Shipwrights who haven’t abandoned the station. Many have taken the navy’s offer, showing how effective the little pronouncement was. Amusingly enough, some of the ship captains have even started a small side business of ferrying civilians to the navy, dumping them into the waiting hands of the Galactic fleet before turning around to pick up the next load. All for a fee,
of course. Lucky for Dornalor, the majority of the Gremlin tribe we’re working with has stayed, unperturbed by the idea of being caught. I have a feeling they’ve got their own way of hiding out if things go to hell.
Ever since our failed attack, there’s been a relaxation on the restrictions for movement within the rings. In fact, the vast majority of the non-combat personnel have taken one of two routes—they’ve either chosen to give themselves up to the fleet or they’re moving deeper into the stations. No one expects the fifth ring to hold, so most people are moving in as deep as possible. Luckily, it seems that there’s enough space for the refugees to hunker down in the fourth ring, at least temporarily.
“Taking bets, taking bets. Five thousand to one, fourth ring survival. Thirty-two to one, third ring. Twelve to one, second ring.” The Bookie’s voice cuts through my contemplation as I wander the hallways aimlessly, unsure of what I’ll do.
Ever since the emergency, they’ve relaxed the restrictions on Portals too, which means I can port into my position at any time, even across the shielding rings. It’s where most of the others are, but I couldn’t handle staying still. Which has brought me here, walking aimlessly from station to station.
“No odds on the fifth ring?” a bettor asks, and I slow down to listen, much like many others.
“No bets.”
“And what about if we lose? I got five hundred Credits on that,” a rough-looking humanoid with a horn that juts out from its forehead like a unicorn asks, the blue horn a jarring contrast to the creature’s salmon-pink skin. There are a few hisses at his words, but Salmon Unicorn doesn’t back down.
“We’ve got… one to eighteen on that. Payout via the System, if you win.” The Bookie answers the question that comes after, assuring the winner he’ll get his earnings no matter.
The reply garners more than a few hisses and catcalls, before there’s a huge clamor as the crowd lays bets. It amuses me a little that the Galactics are willing to lay bets on their own destruction. On the other hand…
“Can you place a bet?’” I send the question to Ali, not wanting to push through the group.
He’s a little slow in answering, eyes glazed as he reviews data. “No problem. What are you thinking?”
“No point betting on our losses. We won’t be alive to take the dough. Widespread bet that we’ll make it through. Third to fifth ring and overall survival.”
“Done. Though I’m thinking we should be considering escape plans. I’m not a big fan of going down with the ship.”
“Love to. Got any ideas? We need a ship, and ours is broken. Even when it does get fixed, there’s no way we can break through, not right now. One problem with Rising Crescendo is it means the majority of the fleet will be around.”
One of the negatives of the Skill is that we can’t stop them from rushing through the stations. Once they land, we have to let them keep coming—otherwise, Rising Crescendo fails. It’s one of the drawbacks of the Skill, but it does at least mean we don’t have to worry as much about the idea of them punching through our Dimensional Locks and teleporting the entire fleet into the inner station.
It amuses me, in a way, how the interactions of Skills, technology, and Classes intersect. For every Skill, every ability in play, there’s another one that checks it. Dimensional Rifts force open Dimensional Locks, which are then checkmated by Rising Crescendo. Suspect Navigation on the navy’s part has made a number of very expensive portals and rifts that have been torn open through the Galactic fleet’s Locks sent off-course, driving people into the waiting hands of other parties. Even the rats who ran from the sinking ship early on have reported in that they’ve been ambushed, smaller destroyer squadrons sent to hunt them down.
“No escape now, but not to say there won’t be a chance later,” Ali retorts. “We should be ready if it crops up.”
I grunt, rubbing my temples before pushing through the crowd. “Yeah, yeah. Think we should make a call?”
“To who?”
“Whom. And our Erethran friends.”
Ali falls silent. If there’s a group that has the ability to punch through the Dimensional Locks on both sides, it’d be them. My Portal Skill isn’t Evolved, something I occasionally regret. Except, of course, there’s no guarantee on what kind of Evolution I would have gotten. Reading about the Erethran Guard, I learned the Honor Guard specialists in Portal Evolution have a wide range of abilities, from Extra Long Range Portals, Instantaneous Teleportation, Group Portal Shift, Semi-Permanent Portals, and of import, Lock Break. Using the Erethran General’s Skill to combine Skills, they should be able to punch through. The question, of course, is whether they’re willing to do so for me.
“Now?” he asks.
I consider the question and shake my head. Any contact we make now is likely to be intercepted, potentially even blocked or altered. Better to wait until things start up and this Mistress gets busy. If she’s even paying attention. I admit, the introduction of a Legendary Level character to this entire thing is a bit concerning. I have no idea what she’s after, but it sucks. It’s been a while since I’ve felt like a bug in the Galactic world and I’m not liking the feeling.
“Figured. I’ll set something up, just in case then. I have a few other ideas.”
I raise an eyebrow and Ali flashes me a grin. There’s one other possibility, before things go to hell, and it might make sense to look into it. It’s not something that can be hidden, but perhaps having a few other options might make sense. Having decided on what I need to do, I shift direction, heading for the nearest Shop sphere while Ali goes to set up potential escape routes too.
***
“Your request is possible. Even in the timeframe you’ve requested,” Foxy says, staring at the QSM he holds. “Adding a Tier I Mana Battery and adjusting the limiters is a simple fix. Tuning the QSM to work with your Portal Skill is difficult, but not impossible. But…”
“But?”
“This is a one-use option. Your Quantum State Manipulator was never built to handle being overloaded like this,” Foxy says. “In addition, you should understand, the cost of the QSM has gone up significantly since our last discussion. The addition of your Earth has brought about a shift in the Galactic sphere whose ripples have only just begun to reach the edges of our domain.”
“Meaning?”
“A lot of grudges are being settled.”
I snort, then tap the QSM in Foxy’s hands. “And people are picking up anti-personnel toys?”
“Yes. Purchases of Dimensional Locking Skills have increased, along with Skills that allow others to damage those partially shifted and the like. You humans have been quite creative with your mixture of Classes, Skills, and the way you’ve used your Skills. We’re seeing a shift in the standard Skill purchases, especially among our clientele.”
That’s an interesting nugget of information. The meta build constantly shifts among the Galactics, with some Skills and abilities being more in vogue at one time compared to another. It’s sort of like a giant game of Magic the Gathering—where all the Skills that can be the “deck winning” combination are always in play, just perhaps unknown or ignored. For a time, Dimensional Shifting was important, until Dimensional Locks were common. High Constitution, high resistance builds were powerful until poison and resistance-turning Skills came along to counter those. And so on, so forth. Add in Evolution Skills, and there’s no such thing as a perfect build. It’s why I like having a generic build. It means I’m not the best, but unless I’m fighting other Master Classes, I’m more than strong enough to win.
“Interesting. Have data for that?”
Foxy shakes his head. “It would be unethical to sell such information ourselves.” When I smile, Foxy continues. “I would not look into purchasing our data either—we have taken precautions against that. In any case, while we are of significant import, we have always catered to a smaller clientele base than our other competitors.”
“Thank you.” I get the point. Instead of buying indi
vidual information, pick up the overall data trends from the System. In fact, I bet someone out there is already doing that and selling his analysis of the raw data. “But all that said, do it.”
“You will not require this during the battle?”
“Nah, the next dance should be easy-peasy.”
Foxy raises a single eyebrow, which, on a fox, is a weird thing to see. I chuckle at his suspicious look but ignore it.
“Anything else then, sir?”
Instead of answering him, I pop open my Status Screen. After our battle, even though we hadn’t managed to complete our mission, we did get rather involved in the fight, especially toward the end when I had fun with our ship weaponry. The additional experience—mostly from the Leviathan kill earlier—has given me a new Level. Ever since I hit Level 30, my Leveling speed has slowed down significantly. Of course, compared to actual Master Classers, I’m still blazing fast, but compared to the improvements I’d seen as an Advanced Class before, this is achingly slow. Still, I have a few decisions that need making, including what to do with my new Skill points.
Thus far, I dumped the last Skill point into Penetration, and this new one was going that same way. It should put me close to my Skill evolution—theoretically. Before I decided on this, I’d actually seen a Skill Actuary. The man took in the details of my publicly available Skill use and history, pulling down my entire status screen and inputting that against the variables he and his company had created to measure against the known variations of evolutions. Theoretically, using all the information available, the Actuary can then provide a best guess estimate of what you’re likely to get as a Skill evolution and how many Skill points you need. Unlike Class Actuaries, Skill Actuaries are more common since they’re the Basic Class version of the same progression tree.
There are, of course, other fellows who do much the same thing—among the choices I’d seen were Witch Doctors, Rune Readers, Cosmic Data Sensors, and the like. A few hardcore groups espoused the advantages of each group over the other, but one thing I’d learned from all my reading is this—no one really knows. See, the System doesn’t do time fuckery. It might provide forecasts, but those are often drawn from data sets developed by AIs, Actuaries, or other Classes using their abilities. The System itself doesn’t make estimates. In many ways, that piece of information puts quite a bit of weight behind the idea that the System isn’t alive per se, but a machine. Or just really alien, like the Koo’ara who can only live in one of three states—the past, the future, and the present. Yes, they’re very, very weird.