Shepherd's Crook: Omegaverse: Volume 2

by G. R. Cooper

  He began writing up a budget, along with his best guess at income from the game, based on activities and returns. Even considering that his numbers were conservative, he thought he could afford to hire someone to help him - to augment his farming activities.

  He worked through several scenarios, from adding one hire to farm generic mining missions, such as he’d done for the first several months in game, to buying a dedicated mining ship and directing the resource gathering himself until his employee learned the lessons of the trade, of the game, that Phani had sweat through.

  He leaned back in his chair again, lit another smoke, and thought. He looked around his small, one room flat. One thing was sure, he knew; he had to get out of this place before he did anything.

  In the weeks since he’d begun his partnership with Taipan, Phani had been able to replace his personal expenditures as they’d come in; he hadn’t had to touch the remainder of the one million credits that he’d received as first month’s payment on the terraforming kit.

  It was almost time for the second payment to be made, and Phani’s income was increasing; the pet store, when it was opened, seemed to offer the possibility of an income that would allow him to improve his lot in life to a more drastic measure than simply the ‘security’ he’d recently discovered.

  Now that his account had a constant influx of Rupees, he’d budgeted Rs 10,000 a month for rent; a vast increase on his current Rs 300 a month rent. For that, he’d move from this less than nineteen square meter room, to a two bedroom, eighty-three square meters flat. It wasn’t in an appreciably better part of town, but it was bigger. It would allow him both a bedroom and an office. An office to share with his first employee.

  Chapter 16

  Duncan approached the bottom of the stairway, looked up. He couldn’t see anything. The sounds of the larger battle around him had begun to fade, and he thought, he couldn’t say why, that it indicated that the human wave hadn’t been as successful as they’d all hoped. He feared that hundreds of other humans lay, as his friends did, in heaps in front of the Arn infested village. He felt vulnerable. Behind enemy lines. Alone.

  “Gray Eagle,” he whispered, “are you there?”

  Silence.

  “What the hell just happened?” asked Shannon.

  “We just got wiped out,” said Duncan, taking the first step upward as quietly as he could. He crouch walked, his plasma rifle pointed upward; toward the opening at the top of the stairs.

  “Yeah,” said Shannon, “I can see that. You’re the only one left. The other three were there one second, gone the next.” She paused, “Do you think you’ll be able to take out the guns?”

  “Not sure,” whispered Duncan quickly as he got high enough on the stairs to peek into the room. He couldn’t see any Arn, but they’d likely be around and to the left. Behind him. Standing at the windows. “Give me a second,” he said, once again opening his backpack. He pulled out a grenade, pulled the pin, released the spoon, and counted to two.

  He tossed it over the railing above him, into the room, and immediately began moving to the top of the steps. He’d timed it perfectly, the explosion rocked the room just before he entered it. He began firing at targets, from the right to the left. The stunned, wounded and confused Arn began to turn on him as he fired.

  In his initial glance at the room, it looked like there had been five Arn. Three had been killed outright by his grenade, one, near the far corner, was wounded - by the grenade or his frantic shooting, he didn’t know. The last dove to the floor, trying to bring its laser to bear on the attacking human.

  Duncan ran forward, firing from the hip as he did. Two plasma blasts ripped through the closest Arn, its initial return shot firing high, into the ceiling, as it died. Turning on the wounded Arn, he felt a sudden rush of pity, of guilt. He shook it off, reminding himself that however pathetic the now enfeebled enemy looked, it wasn’t real. It was part of the computer program.

  Besides, Duncan thought as he finished it off, it killed my friends.

  After ensuring that the remaining Arn were dead, Duncan moved slowly to the row of windows at the back of the house. Another blast, this time very close, shook the house as the anti-ship batteries fired again. Duncan peeked over a window sill and slowly raised until he could look down to the ground.

  Behind the house was a large, public square surrounded by buildings much like the one in which he crouched. Inside the square, looking like modified World War Two German eighty-eight millimeter cannons, were the four lasers, spread into a diamond shaped pattern. A crew of four or five Arn operated each.

  He looked around the rest of the square, but didn’t see anything besides the crews serving the guns.

  However, they were all armed; laser rifles hung off the back of most of them. Duncan, even perched above them, only fifty meters away, wouldn’t last long once he opened fire with his single weapon.

  Then he had an idea.

  He backed quickly away from the windows, then turned and ran down the stairs. At the bottom, he continued his sprint through the first floor Arn corpses and to the window he’d used to enter the building. He jumped through and resumed sprinting until he reached the first house. The house from which he and his friends had begun their doomed charge. The house in which Gray Eagle and, presumably, his awesome gatling gun lay.

  He climbed through the window, landing on the floor next to the crumpled body of Gray Eagle.

  “Sorry, buddy,” he said as he stooped, lifting the gun from his dead comrade’s hands, “I’ll be sure to put this to good use and get it back to you as soon as possible.”

  He turned, climbed back through the window and sprinted back to the house overlooking the square.

  “Shannon,” Duncan said as he once again climbed the stairs, taking two at a time, “can you run a conduit on this gun I’ve just picked up?”

  “Yeah, maybe, just a sec,” she said, sounding harried, then, “Crap. That thing draws a lot of power.”

  The house shook as the batteries fired again.

  “See if you can get another controller named Jordi to split the load,” Duncan responded. “Tell him it’s Gray Eagle’s gun.”

  “Jordi and Gray Eagle, roger,” she said.

  As Duncan approached the rear windows of the house, he saw the gatling gun’s power indicator, laid over his forward view, spring to life, rapidly raising to full.

  “Thanks,” he muttered, moving into place at the middle window. He raised the gun onto the window sill and moved it until the barrels were pointed at the first, rightmost gun.

  Duncan considered opening his attack by throwing a grenade at one of the guns, but discounted it. Fifty meters was probably at the limit he could throw, through a window, and hope to hit anything. And that was without being encumbered by the gatling gun.

  No, he thought, he would just open up on the guns and begin sweeping back and forth, hoping to take out enough of the crew to disable at least enough of the guns to allow the command ships to take back control of the fight - before he died, overwhelmed by fire from the dozen or so Arn that would likely be left throughout the square.

  “C’est la guerre,” Duncan muttered as he took a deep breath, preparing to fire.

  Then he let the breath out, and froze. He’d seen, just as his thumb was beginning to press the fire button, a group of three humans crawling from another house near the gun on the right. The gun he’d targeted. The attackers each had a grenade in their right hand and were nearing the range that Duncan thought they’d be able to attack from.

  Duncan quickly shifted the gun, moving it to now cover the gun furthest to the left. Once the attack on the rightmost gun began, he’d begin spraying laser fire from the left to the guns in the middle. He smiled as he waited for the fight to begin.

  After they’d crawled a few more meters, Duncan saw the attackers stop and each pull the pin on a grenade. They’d reached a low, stone wall that encircled the central square and the guns within. They’d be hidden from the view
of the Arn preparing their next salvo.

  Duncan saw the three grenades arc into the air and land around the first gun. As the explosions ripped through the crew, he pressed the button on the gatling gun, startling himself as it whined, spun, and began throwing laser bolts into the shocked crew of the fourth gun. He moved the gun a little to the left, then right, rapidly turning the gun and its crew into smoking wrecks. Then he shifted the aim to the two central guns, lined up in his view; one closer at about fifty meters, the second twenty meters beyond it.

  This time instead of spraying left and right, he pressed down on the handle, moving the barrels up, then released pressure allowing the gun to drop again, spraying the further then closer of the two guns. The rain of fire he showered on the Arn scattered them; the laser bolts thumped into the ground, tearing through and exploding the meter square red clay tiles that covered the floor of the square.

  The heavy bolts did worse to the Arn, each hit tore off limbs or exploded torsos as the terrified aliens futilely tried to run or seek cover. He barely noticed a system notification, flitting across the top of his view, telling him that he’d gained a level; “Heavy Weapons I”. He smiled, grimly, and chuckled through the rush of adrenaline. This, he thought, was a lot more fun than sniping.

  Duncan glanced to the first gun, saw that the humans had cleared it. One looked to him, waved, and Duncan returned to firing at the leftmost gun. He centered on it and glanced back to the other attackers, who were now throwing more grenades as they ran to the center of the square. Duncan released the thumb trigger and the smoking barrells of the gatling gun slowed then stopped, a deafening silence replacing the howling whir of the spinning gun.

  He looked back to the center of the square. The three humans, probably sure they were also on a suicide mission a minute ago, waved to him. He returned the salute.

  “Shannon,” he said breathlessly, “I think you’re going to be ok now. It looks like this thing is all wrapped up.”

  “Thank god!” sighed Shannon, “I really, really, need to pee.”

  meta 4

  he showed empathy,

  for an arn.

  he killed it, though.

  regardless. he’s becoming connected.

  send him the unit.

  he’s ready.

  Chapter 17

  Duncan walked back into Kepler station’s mission control. His friends, including the Bigweek guys, turned in his direction and began clapping. Duncan took a bow, then straightened back up and waved his hands dismissively.

  “No need to clap, guys,” he said, “I just got lucky.”

  “Yeah, we know, dweeb,” laughed Blesk, “we weren’t clapping for you.”

  Duncan turned and saw Shannon approaching from behind him. She smiled as she joined the group, and curtseyed.

  “Thank you, my peons,” she said in mock haughtiness, “Your worship is warranted.”

  “Did you have a good pee?” asked Tex.

  “Oh gawd,” cried Shannon, “did I say that on a public channel?”

  “The main public channel,” laughed Clancey. “After we got whacked, we were watching the end of the fight on the big screen in the arena with about a thousand or so other dead guys and spectators.”

  “You got a huge laugh,” said Vince. “Huge!”

  “Oh gawd,” repeated Shannon.

  “Look on the bright side,” laughed Duncan.

  Shannon looked at him, raised one eyebrow.

  “At least,” he continued, “you didn’t have to poop.”

  Everyone laughed while Duncan began walking toward the door, beckoning his friends.

  “Anyone want to hang out in my new place while we go over the fight and go through our loot goody-bags?” he asked. He thought, then looked through his inventory, “Hey, Gray Eagle, did you get Big Bertha back?”

  “Yeah, dude. Good job with her, by the way,” he answered, following along with the rest of the group.

  “Thanks, it was fun.”

  “Destination?”

  “My apartment,” said Duncan, checking to make sure he was still grouped with the Bigweek guys, allowing them to follow into his flat.

  They all entered the room and spread around, taking in the decor. Most were drawn to the live action ocean diorama on the inside wall. Duncan joined them, just in time to see a foot-long sperm whale dive on and eat a giant squid.

  “Amazing,” said Shannon. “Beautiful.”

  Duncan nodded, “I love it. I could watch it for hours.”

  They all moved to the far, windowed wall and spread out on the large horseshoe shaped couch. Duncan lit the fire-pit. The other nine sat around the huge couch, with room to spare.

  Duncan looked around at his friends, old and new. He wondered that even the old friends he hadn’t known for much more than a year. He was never close, never comfortable with others. Even here, in his own place, surrounded by people he knew liked him, he felt apart from the group. It was that he didn’t like them, or didn’t trust them; Duncan’s world-view just split humanity into two very distinct groups that did not overlap - himself and everyone else.

  “Hey,” said Clancey, “just got an alert. Shannon’s on the news!”

  Duncan brought up the window controls, changed the view from one outside the station to the game’s news channel.

  The story began with the background of the event; how the Arn had infiltrated a human colony, threatening to disrupt the human foothold on the world. The humans of Kepler station had answered the call, only to have their attack threatened with annihilation as they were taken in ambush by an Arn battery that almost destroyed the entire human command and control infrastructure. If successful, that attack would have left the human forces on the ground nearly helpless, outnumbered and unable to regenerate their shields or rearm their conduit powered weaponry.

  The picture switched to a view within the cockpit of one of those C and C ships, Shannon in the control seat. She began to coordinate throughout the fleet, her voice calm and in control, adding enough power from ships not under attack to the ones that were, such that the attacked ships were able to maintain at least an equilibrium with the power being thrown at them from the planet below.

  The Arn had switched their tactics at that point, focusing all of their firepower on a single ship at a time, which was enough to take out the shields in a single blow. If Shannon hadn’t adjusted her response as well - turning the entire fleet into a shield regeneration force for the single beleaguered ship, allowing it regenerate in between the attacks that came every thirty seconds - the fleet would have been decimated in only a few minutes. As it was, Shannon had saved the fleet, the attack, and, thus, the colony.

  All of that, Duncan marveled, and she’d still had enough brain bandwidth to be able to shunt off enough power from her and Jordi’s ships to give him the power needed to fire the gatling gun. He wondered if missions like this would be generated on player run colonies - if, someday, players would flock to defend Shepherd’s Cross from alien attack.

  He looked at Shannon, laughing and smiling with everyone else and he had a thought. He sent off a quick email to Phani.

  After the newscast ended, Duncan opened his inventory to go through the loot he’d gathered as sole survivor on the planet. He began handing out, one to each of his friends, the heavy laser guns that the Arn had used in the ambush. The massive, power hungry, heavy hitting weapons weren’t good for much of anything except, of course, the kind of ambush Duncan and his friends had triggered.

  Once he’d given the guns out to everyone else on the mission, including Shannon and Jordi, he still had five left over. He gave two more to the Bigweek guys and kept three for his group. They’d make a nice beginning to his station’s arsenal he thought, amused.

  “Well,” said Clancey, “this explains how they could take us out so quickly. These things are monsters.”

  “Yeah,” said Third, “it also explains how Taipan could take out the whole house by himself. They’re not much good for c
lose quarters combat.”

  “The grenades did most of the work,” laughed Duncan.

  “Let’s see,” said Matt. He changed away from the news channel, bringing up a replay of the battle. They watched the view from inside the Arn attack house from just before the ambush was triggered.

  Duncan saw himself and his friends, through a window on the lower floor, dashing across the open ground as the eight Arn on the ground level hefted their large weapons then simultaneously fired at the charging humans. The powerful laser fire from both floors ripped through the armor and bodies of his six friends as each was targeted by at least two of the Arn. He didn’t see any bolts that weren’t aimed true. It was devastating.

  Then they watched as Gray Eagle’s fire ripped through the building. All of the Arn dropped for a moment, presumably to allow their weapons to recharge, before standing in twos and threes to begin returning fire on the gatling gun. As the heavy bolts swept through the building, the Arn in the targeted location would drop to the floor, only to rise again to fire after Gray Eagle moved his fire to another part of the building.

  Then they saw the three grenades, in turn, come through each of the ground floor windows. The explosions, rapidly following each other, ripped through the room. Duncan mused that one or two grenades would probably have been enough. He wasn’t sure that any of the Arn were alive in the room after the first explosion, and the third had definitely been overkill.

  “Think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?” laughed Tex. Duncan smiled.

  They watched the rest of the fight; laughing, cheering and congratulating each other. Duncan received a response from Phani, sent a thank you, then opened the package. Looking through it in his inventory, he smiled. This was perfect.

  “Shannon,” he interrupted the small talk, “I’ve got a present for you!”

  He placed a basket on the floor in front of her, a standard wicker picnic basket covered with a red and white checkered blanket. The blanket moved.