GalaxSec: A Sci-Fi LitRPG (Skeleton in Space Book 2)

by Andries Louws

  “You still want to go and play cop?”

  “Cop?”

  “Apply for an entry level GalaxSec position?”

  “Yes!”

  “It’s your life. And it’s likely the only place where we will have a chance of getting off-planet.”

  It’s silent for a bit longer, the only sound audible the oddly organic noises made by dragging naked flesh along stone, the shuffling steps of bone feet giving a mechanical counterpoint. This is capped off by the crackling of settling stone behind the unlikely duo.

  “How do you get your spell shapes to be so clear and still? I just can’t control my mana like that.”

  “Carefully guide the right amount.”

  “You guide it? I just let the power soak the spell shape.”

  “Make one rune good.”

  “Make one rune… Please use more words.”

  “Carefully apply sufficient mana to one rune until perfection, waste not a single iota of power. Only after that has been mastered can you increase your workload.” A small bit of pride swells in Douglas’s chest as he spins an answer that contains a lot of words from thin air. The woman he is hauling after himself by her horn is silent for a long while. Douglas is completely content with working in silence, continuously casting and walking forwards. The steady layers of stone that condense on his skeletal frame are unable to hinder him. The weight he is carrying slowly increases, but his magically operated joints bear the growing load with ease.

  Then the ceiling falls in, covering both skeleton and silent woman in loose ground. Unfazed by the sudden burial, Douglas just keeps casting his newly learned Sublimate spell while Evot has a minor panic attack at the sudden lack of freedom. Douglas idly takes note of the shimmering spell shape forming in front of Evot. He slowly reaches out his other hand, sending a stream of mana through his arm, guiding the flow through his bones. Letting the power burst forth in a near-instinctual gesture, the skeleton watches the clumsy spell shape disappear before anything can blow up again.

  [ New skill learned; Spell Disruption lvl 1 ]

  [ Mana Control III lvl 28 ]

  [ Spell Shaping III lvl 29 ]

  Keeping up the steady stream of mana towards his Sublimate spell, the area around both figures is quickly cleared of rock, a dust cloud of condensing stone forming above them. Douglas starts walking the moment the ground flattens enough for him to step out of the crater. He is briefly blinded by the sun glaring up above as the ground filling his eye sockets evaporates, the pale and watery light casting a sickly green cast over the red surroundings. Douglas feels like taking a deep breath for some reason. Ignoring the stupid urge, he tightens his grip on Evot’s stumpy horn and resumes walking.

  Half an hour later, Douglas stops walking. He only just now noticed that the area ahead of him is sloping downwards. He can barely see the top of a rather bristling mountainous pile of organic barrels to his left. Douglas thus concludes, after a mere five minutes of trying to encourage his lacking spatial awareness, that he has indeed managed to tunnel to the other side of the gulch. Holding up Evot, who is still making a wide array of semi-interesting noises, he turns her around and aims her at the towering ruins behind him. “Capital?”

  Evot then spits out a large chunk of mud, stone shards, and large wads of mucus before answering, “yes.”

  “Good.”

  “Are we not going to talk about what happened just now?”

  “What happened just now?”

  “You broke my spell! My forehead really hurts. It’s bearable now, but when you slapped at my spell, it felt like…”

  “Like?” Now intrigued by this line of conversation, Douglas shakes her up and down a bit.

  “…like all the knives in the world stabbed me at once.”

  Douglas tries understanding the answer but comes up with nothing. Pain is a concept that he barely understands, if only in a theoretical sense. Evot falls silent, seemingly content with being dragged along the ground behind Douglas’s slowly walking form. The unlikely duo continues moving forwards for a few hours, neither saying a single word. They traverse across cracked dirt as Douglas marches out of the sloping lake bed. The terrain turns to dusty hard-baked earth once the ground levels out, the faraway ruins of the capital now clearly visible on the horizon.

  The sun is setting when Evot raises a single arm to her side. Douglas holds up her horn, bringing her face to face. “There’s a military base over there. Also, I refuse to be carried for much longer. My mana backlash is gone now, so let's wait there until I can walk again.”

  Unwilling to wait for the woman to regenerate fully, Douglas ignores her suggestion and keeps going straight. He tunes out the whining complaints of the legless woman, keeping on his slow yet steady march towards the horizon. The sun sets at a steady pace, painting the green sky in vivid colours of purple, pink, and blue. Douglas spends a single thought with wondering what is up with the colours before his mind again devolves into fantasies about bones. Evot makes noises now and then, but they all have this quality that the skeleton has come to associate with talking that contains no information he is interested in, so he ignores her.

  Then the entire world starts shaking, making Douglas miss a step. The fact that he was dragging Evot along when he stumbles caused him to flip over, landing under the partially regenerated woman. This means that his vision is pointed backwards and that he now has a nice view of the horror that is causing the world to shake. A massive silhouette of white sharp things and oozing red is visible on the horizon. Douglas quickly finds out that this thing is causing the shaking, as its ponderous footsteps are in sync with each minor earthquake. “Evot, what is that?”

  “What is what? Just another earthquake. Wait, let me turn around…”

  The duo stare at the slowly approaching horror in silence. As the figure grows bigger, more details are revealed. The same chaotic and random collection of limbs that the orbital lift Histaff Gargantuan was using to clumsily attack them come into view. Then the entire thing seems to hang still for a moment, suspended on top of the world. It keels over after a very long few seconds, rolling to the side and quickly disappearing beneath the sloping banks of the dry lake.

  “And there you see reason number twelve million why nobody ever bothers with retaking a Histaff-infected planet. The dormant Histaff Gargantuans will wake from hibernation when disturbed, mobilizing and going after any and all foreign matter, being, ship. Basically anything that isn’t Histaff.”

  “Where did it go?”

  “It rolled down the hill, maybe?”

  “Grounds is still shaking.”

  “Oh really, Douglas? I did not notice that the entire ground I am lying upon is still shaking like mad. Thank you for-”

  “Let’s move.” Instead of listening to more of her complaining, Douglas stands up, grabs Evot by her horn, throws her over his bony shoulders and starts legging it. He is completely unsure what tipped him off, but the fact that he sees the mountainous ball of eldritch spikes slowly rising behind him when he takes a look is not surprising to him at all. It merely feels like a confirmation of a bad thing he was heavily suspecting. Activating the Magical Animations in his legs with a small amount of mana, he speeds up.

  “WHY ARE WE RUNNING? WHY ARE YOU RUNNING?”

  Unwilling to spare the concentration to answer vocally, Douglas twists his arm in a rather impossible manner, pointing her head backwards.

  “WHY ARE YOU RUNNING THAT WAY? JUST RUN TO THE SIDE! YOU STINKING ONE DIMENSIONAL THINKER!”

  Seeing the logic in not directly running away from such a massive thing, Douglas makes a sharp turn.

  “IT IS FOLLOWING! THE OTHER WAY, THE MILITARY BASE MUST STILL HAVE BUNKERS!”

  Turning once again, Douglas sees that the monstrous Histaff Gargantuan is indeed correcting its course. With some relief, he sees that the thing is not going directly towards him. Instead, it seems to be aiming at a spot in front of his desperate sprint. Then it hits Douglas that his current sprint wi
ll take him there when the giant monster will catch up to him. Wanting to cry, but being unable to do so, Douglas starts running faster.

  “SLOW DOWN A BIT! WE SHOULD LET IT PASS US WHILE WE’REINSIDE THE BASE!”

  Now fully lost, unable to understand what she means, Douglas decides to listen to her anyway. He slows down a bit and corrects his course towards the few mangled watchtowers that are still standing. Leaving the large collection of ruins to the side, Douglas still sprints like his life depends on it, but with a bit more control, and less uncontrolled, explosive speed. Eating up the ground with large strides, the skeleton jumps over rocks, ducks under fallen structures, and vaults over rotting vehicles. Then he speeds past the ravaged walls of the base, and suddenly the ground is no longer there, and Douglas is in freefall. He has barely enough time to realize that there is a deep pit underneath him before he tumbles into the gaping abyss and smashes into a thick layer of sand.

  The next moments go by very fast and very slow for the skeleton. A shard of bone slams down next to him, causing jets of sand to shoot upwards. Then a large blob of red goop smashes the forming cloud back down before another chunk of bone smashes on top of Douglas. Instead of the sharp piece that landed earlier, this plate of beautiful white material turns out to be convex, covering both Douglas and Evot in a protective shell by pure coincidence. The roaring noise that comes from an entire mountain rolling overhead while losing bits and pieces shakes each of Douglas's joints. Then the earth-shattering sound fades just as quickly as it came. The tremors keep sending small waterfalls of sand downwards, but at least Douglas can hear himself think again.

  He hears a coughing noise, and moving around a bit, he finds Evot clinging to his ribs. All of a sudden, the skeleton realizes she is partially inside of himself. Douglas then decides not to wonder about the odd emotions and feelings that come into his mind with the idea that she is inside his ribcage. Looking around, he sees that he is covered by a large chunk of irregularly shaped bone, which must have fallen from the Histaff chasing them. The curved ceiling forms a low tunnel, and he sees a light at one end. Dragging Evot along with him, as he figures he might as well keep holding on to her horn now that he has been clutching it for this long, Douglas tigers his way through the sand.

  Crawling out from under the massive piece of bone allows Douglas a clear look of his surroundings. Straight dull grey walls box in the sickly sky above, red sand covering the ground around him. Scattered throughout the sands are bone pieces of all shapes and sizes. Ground down fragments are sprinkled throughout the entire scene, while larger pieces, like the one he just freed himself from under, are placed haphazardly. A tugging on his arm wakes him from his every devolving fantasies. Endless quantities of bone is all he sees. Douglas’s skull had nearly overheated when he found a ship covered in the stuff. Now he has come face to face with a literal mountain covered in it, and the amount it seems to be shedding when merely moving around is already dwarfing the ship in sheer quantity.

  Suddenly woken from the overwhelming scene, the skeleton sees that Evot is dragging him to a shadowed overhang inside the featureless wall. “I flipping knew it! That entire deal was shady as can be. Come, Douglas. I am not willing to be carried again. We are not moving from this spot until I am well and whole.”

  Looking between the large chunks of bone and his sole companion, Douglas concludes that the bone is going nowhere. Following Evot deeper into the recession, he crawls across the sloped sand floor. “Knew what?”

  “That the ceiling wouldn’t last. It’s entirely gone. The single most important piece of an emergency shelter is the roof, right? I knew that I'd found something good. But no, my manager said. I should not bother with contracts over two hundred years old. I should work on his financial files instead! As if I didn’t know he was keeping three different financial files.”

  Douglas, as usual, doesn't know what to do in this situation. He has even less of a clue as to what she is talking about. He just sits there and listens, waiting for his mana to recharge. He did spend quite a bit in the mad dash to this place, after all.

  “This place was supposed to house thousands, it was supposed to keep up safe! Now it’s a sand-pit! And what does the council decide? They didn’t even give the construction job to the lowest bidder. And then my boss threatened to re-assign me when I dug up proof about conflicting interests. Like they could hide the fact that the council held a lot of stocks in the winning bidder’s sister company. Why bother giving me access to those files if he didn’t want me to find obvious stuff like that.”

  Douglas has zoned out completely at his point. The only thing he is waiting for is the tell-tale questioning tone that comes after sentences that require some kind of response from him.

  “And did you see all those artillery pieces inside the walls?”

  Knowing when some form of input is needed by instinct at this point, Douglas just shoves a random thought into his speech centre. “No.”

  “Because they were all nearly gone and rusted, you know. Of course that Histaff Gargantuan has developed into that form and design. It’s almost as if the defensive forces didn’t know that that horrible stuff will adapt to anything you throw at it. Even copy it, turns out. Even I didn't know that, so I shouldn’t be too hard on the guys. They probably just pelted it with long-range ordinance, not knowing they were creating a long-range bombardment biological horror instead.”

  “Right.”

  “But yeah, as I said, I told my manager of the discrepancies I'd found in the files. The bunkers are both legally required and the most important place for the civilian population in emergency situations, like for example, a Histaff infection.” Douglas peers over at the woman. She is hugging her knees while rocking back and forth slowly, a slightly vacant look in her eyes. “So I informed him of the ties I had found between his predecessor and the construction company. Instead of calling them tenuous, which they honestly were, or reporting it to the local GalaxSec station, he just demoted me down another level.”

  “Hmmh.”

  “Corrupt bunch of stagnant fops.” The bitterness dripping from her voice even recognizable to Douglas, he watches her take a deep breath. “But I did not expect the entire thing to disintegrate, though. All that’s left are the…” Evot suddenly jolts upright, startling Douglas slightly. “No way… There is just sand here.” Furiously digging at the sand with both hands, the battered woman starts throwing loads of the rough dust into Douglas’s face. “Just sand. Nothing here. Lemme see.”

  Now crawling to the edge of the shallow tunnel, Evot claws her way to the entrance with frantic eyes. “It’s all gone. Perfectly gone. The only reason why the ceiling shield would be gone would be… THEY MADE THE CEILING FROM HISTAFF FOOD?” Evot clenches her trembling fists. “That’s why the lab reports were looking so odd. They must have been faked… No way, is this where that massive dump full of toxic compound went? Instead of paying the fees to get rid of that horrid sludge, they put it inside civilian and military shelter shielding?”

  Douglas nods along with the rant, just happy that he finally gets to learn some new words.

  “THOSE FLOPPING SAUSAGES! They dared endanger civilian rights for a few bucks? For a few more zeros in their credit account? THEY’D DUMP TOXIC WASTE IN EMERGENCY SHELTERS?”

  Douglas briefly wonders what dangling edible meat products or drooping reproductive organs have to do with anything. The way the information seems to come along with the words that Evot is spouting is often as clear as day, but the occasional word or phrase she shouts seems to be designed to be ambiguous. Evot continues to shout her little head off for a little while longer, apparently really pissed off for some reason or another. Then the ground starts shaking again, and Douglas instinctively crawls deeper into the sand-filled tunnel of reinforced concrete.

  “Douglas! I want to ask you something.” Evot increases her volume as she crawls back to Douglas, trying to be heard above the increasing noise of the Histaff Gargantuan that seems to be getting
closer again. “Why do you really want to join the GalaxSec Corp?”

  “Because,” replies the skeleton. Honestly, he doesn't really know himself. He only knows that those little movies he saw on the many screens back in the station resonated with him on a very deep level.

  “Alright. Then I hereby inform you that this planet is breaking a lot of laws.”

  Douglas perks up. He knows that those people in blue uniforms need to make sure that others follow laws. And they shield little creatures from weapons and stuff. The image of what a GalaxSec enforcer actually does is rather vague in his mind, admittedly, but Douglas is pretty sure he can figure that kind of stuff out down the road.

  “All planets are required, by galactic law, to hold in storage a hundred years of emergency provisions for its median inhabitants. If their connection with the rest of the galaxy is lost, this way, its inhabitants are guaranteed not to starve until a rescue fleet can be sent. You with me so far?”

  Douglas nods along, this time meaning the gesture.

  “So all the Histaff on the planet have eaten all the food, and I am technically an organic inhabitant that requires food. So the governing body of this planet needs to secure a hundred years of food for me. They have obviously not done this.”

  Douglas’s jaw falls open. The reason why there is no food on this planet is because of those bony scoundrels? Those naughty, red slime-filled bone abusers have taken all the tasty things?

  “And I’m pretty sure that the GalaxSec certified governing body of this planet is guilty of bribery, unlawful dumping of toxic waste and hazardous material, assignment of contracts under bribery and possible duress and a failure to uphold building codes for civilian and military construction.”

  Douglas’s empty skull spinning under the slew of new jargon, his attention is fixated upon the stern and serious face of Evot. Her beautiful face, so similar and yet distinct from Katare’s nearly boring perfection, is filled with uncharacteristic seriousness. She starts shouting to be heard over the ever-increasing rumble of the approaching mountain of Histaff Gargantuan.