by Alex Knight
He screamed the last words so loud it left Kaiden’s ears ringing.
“That sound alright to you all?”
“Yes, sir,” Kaiden joined Zelda and Titus in saying, feeling his cheeks flush as he realized the rest of the room was staring at them.
“Well, thank you. That’s very kind,” Dawson said, then stomped back to the front of the room.
“We’ll talk more later,” Zelda whispered.
“As I was saying,” Sergeant Dawson continued. “Normally, you’d get a more in-depth overview of all this, but right about now, there’s really not time. So you get the quick and dirty.” He clapped his hands together and drew in a deep breath.
“If you read your in-game lore guide, you would know voidspawn originally came through tears in space called ‘rifts.’ These rifts were left over after humanity’s earliest attempts at using jump drives.”
“Is this guy for real?” Titus asked, leaning over to whisper to Kaiden. “He takes the game too seriously.”
“It’s called role-playing,” Kaiden said, pretty sure Titus had never heard of the concept. “Some people enjoy a game so much they pretend it’s real while they’re playing.”
Sergeant Dawson’s eyes flicked over and Kaiden straightened in his seat as quick as he could.
“Talk later,” he muttered.
“Ahem.” Sergeant Dawson let a long pause hang in the air before continuing. “Our modern drives don’t create rifts when used anymore, but these rifts from the old days remain open, and voidspawn have started coming in greater numbers and with increasing frequency. Which is a roundabout way of explaining why there’s a starship-sized mass of organic matter swarming with voidspawn hurtling toward Nassau.”
Dawson ran his hand over his close-cropped scalp.
“Now, I know Nassau isn’t exactly a shining beacon of civilization, but it’s a planet in the Greater Spiral Arm, and that means it’s under our protection. Like it or not, we’re the ones who get to deal with this ‘Leviathan,’ as Command is calling it. But this fight’s too hot for ensigns. I’m not letting you all walk in there and get an easy week’s vacation.”
Kaiden shuddered at the thought. Dying in-game meant he’d be locked out of his character for seven days. That’d be seven long days to spend in prison with the general population. Seven days looking over his shoulder, waiting for Manson to make good on his threats.
“No, you're all sitting this one out. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have a job to do. Whenever something big like this goes down, the local pirates have a field day. If you don’t think they’re going to capitalize on us being distracted, you’re wrong. Those scum never pass up an opportunity to prey on new players.” He cracked his knuckles and shook out his shoulders.
“That’s where you all come in. Command wants you on standby as a quick reaction force. When any piratical scum show their faces, well, I think you know what to do. That sound good?”
“Yes, sir!” A few of the more zealous recruits looked disappointed at the news, while others seemed relieved not to be heading into the fight with the Leviathan. Personally, Kaiden wasn’t sure which option was better. If they were in the main battle, they’d have the support of virtually every other warden in the system.
Chasing down pirates, they’d likely have little support, if any at all. But they could expect lower level opponents, as well. Or so he hoped. He was still only level two. Focusing on the others, he could see some of them had reached that level too, but for the most part, they were all level ones. Not a fearsome force by any means.
“I mentioned before you would be divided into squads and assigned a handler. Normally, this would be an official process, but again, there’s no time.” As he spoke he looked to the still-flashing orange lights on the walls. As if on cue, the ship-wide intercom clicked on.
“Leviathan task force to hangar two. Leviathan task force to hangar two. Shuttle scramble in T-minus five minutes.”
“Ensigns!” Sergeant Dawson shouted, drawing their attention as he moved to the door. “Divvy up into groups of three and report to hangar bay one. There, you’ll be assigned a handler and a shuttle. From now on, you report directly to your handler.” He moved to leave the room, then paused. “Fight well, ensigns”
And then he was gone, sprinting down the hallway as the orange emergency lights flashed around him.
In his absence, there was silence. Everyone lingered, looking back and forth between one another. On Kaiden’s display, the suggestion to assign their party into a warden squad flashed across his vision.
Kaiden turned to Titus.
“Might as well make the team official, huh?”
He shrugged as if to say, "Why not?"
Kaiden looked to Zelda.
“What do you say? Should we squad up and go make the Warden Corps proud?”
She laughed.
“Yeah, something like that.”
Achievement Unlocked!
Better Together - 25 EXP gained!
You’ve joined a warden squad. At least now you won’t die alone, eh?
Chapter Twelve
Down in hangar bay one, a sergeant pointed to the first ensign squad ahead of Kaiden, Zelda and Titus.
“The Tempel with Lieutenant Pleasant.” The squad was sent off with a gesture. As they hurried past, Kaiden peered into the hangar bay, then focused on one of the four waiting shuttles.
WCSS Halley
Class: Light Transport (Shuttle)
Faction Alignment: Warden Corps
It was a long, streamlined ship made of a non-reflective metal and a basic design. It didn’t have much more than a round-edged rectangle for a body with a cockpit upfront, a front-side door, a few porthole windows along the hull, and a loading ramp at the rear. Wings jutted from the hull at the front and rear, but they weren’t so much wings as they were engine support struts.
All in all, it was much the same as the shuttle they’d used on their mission to the Dalcinae, except scaled down. From the looks of it, there was only space inside for a small crew of five or six.
“The Halley with Lieutenant Turjic.” The final squad in front of their own was sent off, and Kaiden stepped up to the sergeant.
“Fairly obvious, ain’t it?” The sergeant nodded to the last available ship. “It’s the Borrelly with Lieutenant Ellenton for you three.”
Zelda led the way over to their new shuttle. ‘WCSS Borrelly’ was clearly laser-painted on the side of the hull.
The other squads had met their handlers outside their shuttles, but as the three of them arrived beside their shuttle they found their lieutenant was decidedly absent.
The loading ramp was down, leaving the rear of the Borrelly open.
“Permission to come aboard granted, if that’s what you’re waiting for,” a woman’s tired voice called from within.
“Lieutenant Ellenton?” Kaiden called back, caught off guard by her lax tone.
“Yup.”
Kaiden felt himself frown.
“Uh, Ensigns Kaiden, Zelda, and Titus reporting for duty, ma’am.”
“If you must.”
Kaiden felt himself frown deeper.
“Ensign reserves load up and prepare to scramble as necessary,” the Anakoni’s intercom echoed through the hangar.
“You heard the intercom lady,” Ellenton called from somewhere in the ship. “Get up in here and grab a seat. Pray we’re not needed today and maybe we can all catch a nap or something, ya know?”
Still adjusting to the apparent radical attitude shift between Sergeant Dawson and their new commanding officer, Kaiden waved the others over, then hesitantly started up the ramp.
The inside of the Borrelly was the same dark matte metal as the exterior. It was punctuated here and there with storage lockers, supply crates, and seats strapped into the wall.
As Kaiden moved further in, an equipment locker on the left gave way to a rack of bunk beds set into the wall, stacked four high. When he reached the cockpit he found the pilot
and co-pilot seats were empty.
Where was their lieutenant?
He turned back to Zelda and Titus and shrugged.
“Excuse me for asking, Lieutenant,” Kaiden said, still trying to figure out where her voice had come from. “But where are you?”
“Ah, right.” A ceiling panel popped down an inch, then slid to the side on a near-hidden trackway to reveal a cargo net holding some sort of bundle of equipment. The net lowered out of the ceiling and Kaiden realized it wasn’t holding equipment at all.
Lieutenant Ellenton gave them a lazy salute.
Ellenton
Warden Lieutenant
Class: Blast Warden
Faction: Warden Corps
Level: 15
“Closest thing I can get to a captain’s quarters on this space-faring shoebox. Makes for a mighty fine hammock, though.”
“Uh, right,” Kaiden said for lack of any better reply. He wasn’t exactly sure what he’d been expecting their lieutenant to look like, but whatever it was, Ellenton wasn’t it. Her uniform was ruffled and baggy – an impressive feat considering clothing in-game seemed resilient to wrinkles – and she wore a short-billed military cap on her head, tilted back such that the bill was almost straight up in the air.
Her avatar placed her somewhere in her thirties with shoulder length blond hair that was buzz-cut short above her right ear. Her eyes were hidden behind a thick-rimmed pair of reflective sunglasses. Kaiden wasn’t sure what made the glasses more unnecessary: the fact that she was in space, or that she’d just been apparently napping in the Borrelly’s hold.
Reaching a hand to her face, she tipped her sunglasses down a touch and gave Kaiden and the others a quick once-over.
“You three are far too tense. Grab a bunk, take a load off.” She flicked a hand at the impossibly cramped bunk beds across the ship, then replaced her sunglasses in front of her eyes.
Kaiden looked at Titus.
The big man shrugged.
“Oh,” Ellenton said, as if just remembering. “I’m supposed to brief you on…” She dug around in the cargo net, searching for something.
“On…” She continued searching. “One minute. I just had it.” Considerably longer than a minute passed as she dug around in her cargo net-hammock.
“Aw. Oh well. I’m sure it wasn’t important.”
Zelda frowned at that.
“Actually, are you sure you don’t have it somewhere? We might need—“
A blaring alarm went off in the hangar outside and the orange flashing lights on the walls changed to blue.
“Shoot,” Lieutenant Ellenton said, then cursed as she rolled out of her hammock. She dropped to the floor with a thunk, then ambled up to the cockpit and flopped into the pilot’s chair.
“Best strap in,” she called back to them. “Looks like someone in the system is misbehaving.”
“That alarm is for us?” Kaiden asked, looking to the blue lights, then back to the lieutenant. “We’re heading out?”
Her only response was to fire up the Borrelly’s engine, then launch the ship into the air. Kaiden stumbled to one side and slammed his shoulder against a bulkhead.
“Into the cold, lifeless vacuum of space,” Ellenton called from the front. Through the cockpit’s transparent screen, Kaiden could see the energy barrier at the end of the hangar approaching quickly.
“Best you all hold on. This might get bumpy,” she said, then launched them into space.
In the minutes that followed, Kaiden learned the lieutenant’s definition of ‘bumpy’ was decidedly more terrifying than his own.
“Right. Uh, attention to the cockpit, or whatever,” Lieutenant Ellenton called from the front of the shuttle as she removed her headset and half-turned to face them. “See that speck we’re headed toward?” She pointed to a series of flickering lights through the windshield. “That’s the Mochinki Station.”
Kaiden followed her finger and could just make out the shape of a distant starship. Their trajectory had them aimed right at it and closing at a startling speed.
“It’s damaged,” he said, squinting toward the Mochinki as it rapidly grew larger. “Badly.” He stared a moment longer and the game gave him some more details.
Mochinki Station **Crippled**
Class: Mobile Space Station
Faction Alignment: Neutral
A hole had been blown through one side of the hull and a field of debris was radiating out from it, spinning away into space.
“Yeah, so that’s why we’re here,” Lieutenant Ellenton said, then launched into an explanation, waving her hand as if the whole thing was tiresome.
“The Mochinki is a prime location for some easy side quests, which means it’s often loaded with noobs collecting computer chips or whatever other useless task they’re assigning these days. The long and short of it is, with most of the wardens in the system busy with that whole Leviathan mess,” she rolled her eyes at that, “the local pirates are having a party. And, oh joy, it’s our job to do something about it. Or yours, actually.”
Without looking where they were going she nudged a joystick on her control panel and the Borrelly altered course, hurtling just a bit more precisely toward the center of the floundering transport freighter.
“We’re coming in kind of fast, aren’t we?” Zelda asked, knuckles white as she held on to a handrail.
“Some first-time players were on the Mochinki when the pirates put a nice big hole in its side," continued Ellenton, ignoring Zelda's words completely. "Now they’re trapped there, whining for help and interrupting what was otherwise going to be a pretty sweet nap for me.
“Command wants you and the other reserve ensigns to board the Mochinki. A couple veteran squads are already dealing with the pirates, so all you have to do is find the noobs and get them out safe.”
Quest: Rescue trapped players on the Mochinki Station
Part 1: Reach the players
Expected difficulty: Novice
Reward: +400 EXP, +2 faction prestige
“Now, I know what you’re thinking. ‘But Ellenton, why do we have to go babysit the noobs?’ Well, it’s simple, really. One, you lot are noobs yourselves. Two, and more importantly, if you keep the players happy, you keep them playing, which means trading, which means more taxable income for the Party. Thirdly, helping players is one of the conditions of the deal the creators of Nova Online made with the Party when the Warden program was first agreed…lucky us.” She paused, as if realizing she’d gone off on a tangent, then shook her head.
“Anyway, I’ll keep the engines running here,” Lieutenant Ellenton said. “You get in, find the new players, then we skedaddle. Cool?” She still hadn’t turned back to the controls.
Kaiden dismissed the quest prompt and found the massive hull of the Mochinki looming before them, far too close.
“Lieutenant!” he shouted, pointing forward.
“Hmm?” She turned to face the front. “Oh, right.”
She thumbed her flight control joystick hard and the Borrelly swerved sharply to the right. The Mochinki’s hull was the only thing visible in front of the shuttle as the lieutenant held the turn.
Just as it looked as if they were going to crash into the freighter like a bug, they cleared the edge of it and spilled back out into open space.
“Whew. That was close,” the lieutenant said as she guided the Borrelly into position behind another warden shuttle. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
Before Kaiden could answer, a distinctly torpedo-shaped blur zipped past their cockpit and slammed into the shuttle in front of them. The explosion rocked their ship and a barrage of metal clacked and clattered against their hull in a shower of debris.
A warden corpse floated by the window, the face behind the smashed visor frozen in surprise.
“Pirates don’t normally shoot at warden ships.” The lieutenant frowned. “Must have a feisty group here today.” She clicked a button on her console and a laser fired from their ship, explodi
ng an incoming torpedo Kaiden hadn’t even noticed.
“I really wasn’t planning on trying too hard during this mission,” Lieutenant Ellenton growled. “Stop making me do my job!”
She clicked another button and the Borrelly shook back and forth as a salvo of missiles launched from under its nose, swarming toward a target Kaiden still couldn’t even see.
“That’ll buy us a moment,” the lieutenant said, pulling the shuttle around toward the Mochinki. “Looks like the hangar’s open. I’ll drop you in there.” She leaned against the cockpit glass, muttering at their unseen attackers. “And then I’m coming back to turn you into scrap!”
The shuttle hurtled toward the Mochinki, ducked under its belly, then banked hard. Their momentum carried them right through a glowing energy barrier and into the freighter’s hangar.
“This is your stop,” the lieutenant said, then hovered the shuttle in place above the ground and lowered the loading ramp at the rear. “Go rescue some noobs.”
Chapter Thirteen
Location discovered: Mochinki Station
Class: Mobile Space Station
Faction Alignment: Neutral
The message flashed across Kaiden’s screen as he jumped down from the loading ramp to the metal floor of the hangar. Zelda and Titus followed, clanking down one after the other. The space looked very much like the hangar on the Anakoni, except only about a sixth as large. There was enough room to fit one other shuttle aside from the Borrelly, and that was it.
Achievement Unlocked!
Nosy Novice - 25 EXP gained!
Congratulations, you’ve explored 3 medium or large class ships. Don’t stop now!
“Here are the trapped players’ names and statuses,” Lieutenant Ellenton’s voice came through their comms. “Last we heard, they were holed up in the Mochinki’s galley. Don’t let them die, huh?” As she spoke, ten health bars faded into view on the right side of Kaiden’s vision.