Game Changer (Reality Benders Book #3) LitRPG Series

by Michael Atamanov

  An instant later, his communicator gave a peep, and another few seconds later, my wallet vibrated. Right on the nose. It was two hundred eighty-six thousand crypto, equivalent to two million Geckho crystals. My total balance now was four hundred twenty-nine thousand one hundred eleven crypto.

  ATTENTION!!! Captain Rikki Pan-Miis’s danger rating has fallen to zero.

  Captain Rikki Pan-Miis is no longer a wanted pirate!

  “You happy now, Gnat?” the Miyelonian asked me, exhausted and resigned.

  “Yes, everything has been made right. Give him back the captain’s key,” I ordered Dmitry, and he placed the blue crystal in one of the pirate’s pockets. “We got what we wanted, and now we’re leaving.”

  We didn’t unbolt him from the wall, though. First off, Rikki had made me mad with his pompous and audacious talk, so he hadn’t earned any courtesy. Second, the starship was supposed to take off in a few minutes, so his crew would be arriving soon. I wanted them to free their captain from this sticky situation.

  Funnily, we met two of them on our way to the elevator. It was the captain’s girlfriend and that same nasty Supercargo, who spent so long hemming and hawing over my bag overage. They stared my group down, clearly having recognized me Tini and Ayni, but they didn’t say anything. We didn’t want to talk to them either, so we just went straight to the elevators. The long-haired tomcat in the blue and orange jumpsuit was walking with us and, seemingly, our new Engineer was very glad at the change in his fate.

  We were standing next to a full-wall panoramic window, waiting for the elevator when a portion of system messages jumped in:

  ATTENTION!!! The Pride of the Bushy Shadow has declared you a personal enemy and set a bounty of three thousand crypto for the destruction of your starship.

  ATTENTION!!! Captain Gerd Gnat is now a wanted space pirate!!! Danger rating: 1.

  Fame increased to 63.

  Chapter Twenty-Six. Progress Vector

  MY CREW MEMBERS all sharply stopped and looked at me in surprise. They also must have gotten the system message about my change in status. After a prolonged pause, Princess Minn-O La-Fin spoke up:

  “My husband, we are pirates now, yes? Did it go that poorly?”

  Authority reduced to 50!

  Authority reduced to 49!

  Authority reduced to 48!

  I could hear plain disappointment in my travelling wife’s voice. And that was the least of it! For her, a Princess of an ancient ruling house, falling to the status of a criminal on a pirate ship was probably very unpleasant. Based on the drop in my reputation as a captain, the other crew members were also upset by the change. I had no way to object. I didn’t even know what this meant for the near-term and especially distant future. Would traders talk to me outside of pirate stations now? What about prominent players like Kung Waid Shishish or Leng Amiru U-Mayaoo? Was I an outcast and a criminal?

  Uline was more knowledgeable here, so she commented, not hiding her dismay:

  “Not good... Now everyone will see the status of our captain and his starship. Our frigate might not be allowed to some stations and planets now. But that isn’t our main concern. We need to figure out where to go from here, because it is too dangerous to stay on Medu-Ro IV! I already saw what happens to an enemy of a pride. Uraz Tukhsh found himself in a similar kerfuffle once and nothing good came of that!”

  “Wait, wait! Drop the panic!” I ordered my business partner, who tended to overdramatize. At the same time, I tried to raise the spirits of my now downtrodden crew. “Based on the tiny bounty, this was purely Captain Rikki’s doing. As far as I remember, he would have had around three thousand crypto after paying his docking fees. Seemingly, he spent all that money to cause problems for us. From what I could tell, the Pride of the Bushy Shadow’s main forces are now on a big hunt very far from this station.”

  “How far?” Uline Tar immediately clarified, and I was forced to admit I did not know.

  “I was not able to read a precise time of return in Rikki’s thoughts, but he was not expecting them back any time soon. I think we must have at least two days in local reckoning. I suggest we spend that time intelligently, get the money we came here for, purchase everything we need, do a quick repair and slip off Medu-Ro IV before the Pride of the Bushy Shadow gets back home.”

  “A day and a half and not half an ummi more! Then we fly as far away as possible!” my business partner made a counteroffer.

  I didn’t argue about such minor issues and agreed. I set a timer right away, so I could always see how long I had left. Now I needed to think through what to do next, given the severe time-crunch. After all, a day and a half was a miniscule amount of time. We had to get money, make purchases, then complete a full repair, and even modernization of our frigate, and that was just not going to happen. We would have to sacrifice something and put it off for later. Now, we would only have time for the bare minimum.

  The elevator had arrived, but I didn’t go inside. I asked Imran to hold the door

  Maybe I was not the most righteous man, but it was not in my nature to present the left cheek after being struck on the right. To be more honest, it was not in my nature to even begin trading blows. I always tried to get the jump on an opponent, hit first and do as much damage as possible. I would even throw sucker punches to make sure they would never want to tangle with me again. And I felt the same now. I was in no mood to forgive the Pride of the Bushy Shadow for their aggression or pretend that nothing happened.

  “Minn-O, you’re a Cartographer by class. You have the largest draw distance on your mini-map. Can you see how many pirates there are in the hangar? Given their pride is now hostile to us, maybe we should pay them another courtesy call to explain their mistake. If we can steal their interceptor, let’s take it. If not, let’s blow it to smithereens!”

  The suggestion was accepted with great enthusiasm by the team. I could see Vasha and Basha bearing their teeth in satisfaction, while Imran and Tini exchanged glances and drew their blades. Minn-O froze for a few seconds just staring into nothingness, seemingly moving her mini-map around and adjusting the scale, trying to find the right area. Then she said we were too late:

  “They already left. The pirate interceptor just left the docking bay.”

  Everyone sighed in disappointment. Too bad... Although maybe it was for the best. Breaking in and starting a fire-fight with a heavily armed pirate crew would be “trading blows,” and that was exactly what I wanted to avoid. There would be losses on both sides, and it was nowhere near guaranteed that my team would come out on top. I needed to try something else, not so crude and straightforward. I dwelt on it for a moment, and my soldiers had already restored their self-confidence and were now waiting patiently for their commander’s decision.

  “Alright, let’s split up!” I started telling them my new plan, trying to be as clear and confident as possible. “Ayni and Uline, go to the registration desk and finish drawing up documents for our crew. Imran go with them as a guard. Ayni, I want you to do two other things as well. One: figure out if there are other starships belonging to the Pride of the Bushy Shadow at the station. Two: change our docking bay in the database. Instead of hangar 16-4, put in something else, maybe an empty one. Wait... I just got a great idea!!! There are probably starships of rich space merchants at the station or even army ships with serious protection. So pick one in the database, rename its owner to Gnat and change the ship to a Tolili-Ukh X-class frigate. Now that’ll be a surprise for the Pride of the Bushy Shadow if they decide to try and break into our hangar!”

  Seemingly, the fluffy orange lady cat wanted to object but, in the end, Ayni said she would do as I ordered. Now, it was Uline’s turn. I was reminded that the Trader once said I could send money to my home planet. And seemingly, the time had come to perform the miracle my faction had asked for. If a million crystals suddenly fell from space unexpected and undreamt of, that would count as a miracle. Well maybe a bit less than that because of transfer fees but, in any cas
e, it would be a colossal and very timely cash injection!

  Sure, I understood that we could buy much more at Medu-Ro IV than my allies could in the space port on the wild outskirts of the known galaxy, where all prices for imports were jacked up at least three times. But first of all, as in the Russian saying, a spoon is dear when lunchtime is near. What was the use of a deadly arsenal if my frigate was late to the war with the Dark Faction? After all, that was what everything was leading to. We would never make it to the beginning of the conflict and risked arriving to smoking ruins if the battle went unfavorably. Second, they didn’t only need money to buy weapons. They had to pay hundreds of NPC Centaurs and Minotaurs, and they could trade with the H6 Faction for goods and services or just rent the Geckho ferry... all that took money, and quite a bit of it. And well, third, I was going to send only one of the two million. I would be using the second to buy things here where prices were far lower, and much more was available.

  I explained the mission to Uline and asked her to work out all the details of the transfer — specific timeframes, transfer fees and all the rest. The Trader immediately turned serious and asked me where I wanted all this money to go. The trade terminal in the Geckho space port? It was possible the terminal wouldn’t have enough crystals, but it was the easiest and most confidential option. Or did they need to be handed off to someone in particular? In that case of course, it would end up costing more.

  Here I considered it. As far as I knew, we hadn’t figured out how our secret information was leaking to the Dark Faction yet. And so, it would be very annoying if we had a repeat of last time, and the crystals from the spaceport vending machine got stolen by one of them. It was of course a shame to pay extra but, in this situation, reliability and fast delivery were the most important factors. The Human-3 Faction needed to receive the money, which would still be a lot, and it needed to be as fast as possible. And most importantly, it had to be before the end of the ceasefire with the Dark Faction so they could use it to buy weaponry and defensive reinforcements.

  So I chose the person-to-person option. I even suggested my companion try and make the transfer through the official Geckho diplomat Kosta Dykhsh. Of course, the furball would not refuse a little side hustle. Sure, some of the million might get lost to his sticky fingers, but it was the most reliable method I could think up. Uline promised to find that information for me and tell me when I could make the transfer.

  “Great! All three of you wait for me right next to the registration desk. I’ll show the Engineer to the starship, ask his professional opinion about upgrading the ship, draw up a purchase list and come see you.”

  * * *

  I COULD HEAR frustration and even offense in Eduard Boyko’s voice:

  “How could you go fight pirates without me?! I’m practically the only combat character in the whole crew, and you left me on the back line. I didn’t even get to shoot! That just isn’t right!”

  I fully understood Eduard’s disappointment. He’d missed out on something interesting. But I was not going to explain myself to an underling, and I was especially not going to justify myself. I acted the way I thought was most expedient given our time limit. And entertaining my crew was my very lowest priority. Now I also had more important business than reassuring a frustrated soldier. I needed to determine what I wanted to do with my modular frigate as soon as possible so the Engineer could calculate its dimensions and mass. From there he could determine how big a power unit we would need, and parameters for all thrusters. He could only provide a full purchase list after that.

  “We also need a spacious cargo hold, big enough to fit an automated mineral extraction plant and at least one automatic loader, better two. Beyond that, the starship must be able to land not only on asteroids with practically zero gravity but also on fairly massive planets with dense atmosphere. And naturally, it must be able to take off from such planets as well...”

  Orun Va-Mart stopped jotting in his palmtop and clarified the mass of the planets I had in mind and how dense I was expecting the atmosphere to be.

  “1 G gravitation, and a surface air pressure of approximately one hundred thousand Pascals, air density of twenty-nine on the hydrogen scale,” I said, giving the parameters of my native Earth, hoping very much that the game would translate all the units into something the Miyelonian could understand.

  And the Engineer didn’t have any questions. He next asked what I had in mind in terms of configuration and purpose.

  “The frigate must have some kind of weaponry, so we can scare off the odd pirate interceptor. Beyond that, it would be desirable to be able to fire from orbit at terrestrial targets on planets like I just described.”

  The Engineer took that down, gave a doubtful frown, made some calculations and asked if I needed to be able to jam electronics and thrusters on other starships.

  “For what?” I didn’t understand, and Orun Va-Mart patiently explained that I was describing a typical pirate frigate-raider, made for attacking colonies of mineral miners on asteroids and poorly defended settlements of outworlders on inhabitable planets. All that remained was an expanded hold for a boarding-landing team, a turret homing system, and a unit for jamming electronics and thrusters.

  “All common pirate configurations of the Tolili-Ukh X modular frigate are well established,” the Engineer continued to harangue me, showing me his tablet screen. “Here’s the ‘Pack Hunter’ configuration for working in a team. Here’s the ‘Lone Raider’ with increased armor and reinforced weaponry. Here’s the ‘Cloaked Pirate,’ which stays hidden with an invisibility shield.”

  As he said that, Orun Va-Mart had no doubt what his captain was intending to use the frigate for. I was even somewhat embarrassed, because I didn’t have anything criminal in mind. But without serious mind control, I would seemingly not be able to convince my new crew member otherwise. I didn’t try and prove anything, just familiarized myself with the options. After closely studying the most balanced configurations, I decided to take the “Lone Raider” as a basis, but make a few changes:

  “I really need good scanning equipment, because my plan is to search for valuable minerals. As for an electronic jamming system and improved weaponry, I’m not sure... but let’s keep it. I’m not planning to hunt trading ships, but we might have dangerous encounters with enemies in space. In that case, we need to be able to hold our own then stop any wounded birds from getting away. But as for the expanded boarding party module, I don’t see any need. Better to increase the volume of the cargo hold and put on extra weaponry.”

  “Understood, Gerd Captain,” said the Engineer very quickly and professionally, clearly having great experience with such matters. He made the adjustments to the design and started a program to calculate whether it was all compatible. “Buh... Gerd Captain, we can assemble such a ship, but it will all hinge on a good power unit. At the very least we need it to be able to generate two thousand one hundred units, and better two and a half thousand. And now,” here the Miyelonian winced and bared his tiny little teeth, showing disapproval of the low-quality crap on my frigate, “we’ve got just seven hundred and eleven units. I don’t even know what scrapheap you managed to find this old shit on.”

  “First of all, we need a good power unit,” I noted to myself, and the Engineer readily confirmed:

  “Exactly! That is the very first step. Without that we can’t change the thrusters or install energy-hungry combat turrets or even stabilizer cowling for atmospheric flight. Gerd Captain, two thousand one hundred units is the bare minimum. Without that, the frigate simply will not turn on. And it would be nice to take a bit more power so we have some room to play with more weight. I’d like two and a half or even three thousand units, but then the price starts growing exponentially... Overall, Gerd Captain, look over the financial data yourself.”

  I told him I understood. At the same time I asked the Miyelonian Engineer what could be ordered right now and installed relatively quickly, because we would need to leave the station in
a day and a half.

  “Buh... We can order everything on my list right now. We can get it delivered to a more peaceable station. But as for what we can do fast... turrets will be the quickest. But before that, we need stabilizers... maybe the hyper?”

  I immediately suggested the Engineer look up a new hyperdrive, because the one we had now was utter trash. The repairmen on the Geckho base never tired of telling me so.

  “That is true,” the fuzzy Engineer confirmed, spitting in disgust. “I was just too embarrassed to tell you, Gerd Captain. But zero point eight three hyperjump distance is basically nothing. Basically no one has used ones lower than one point five for a hundred tongs. The stations are arranged based on that as the base hyperjump distance. If you order a new hyperdrive, better look for one of Meleyephatian assembly so we don’t have to waste time with converters and transformers. But that isn’t such a big deal. Overall, order a new power unit and hyper, I’ll take these ones off and get all the inputs ready. When they give me the new equipment, I’ll need half an ummi to install them, then we can finally get off this station. I’m so sick of it!”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven. Enemy of an Enemy

  “NEXT WE’LL WALK into a huge hall of statues, fountains with pink water and other fantastic sights. This is the pickpockets’ favorite place. They love to prey on gaping tourists,” I said, pointing to Tini and my ward confirmed with a satisfied toothy smirk. “So don’t go flapping your jaws in there. Watch your bags and make sure you don’t fall behind! We’ll walk straight through without stopping, turn right down a hallway and, without wasting time, go straight into the casino.”

  “The casino?!” Eduard couldn’t hold back a surprised exclamation. “But Gnat, I thought we were here on business...”