Null Protocol: A LitRPG Space Marine Adventure (Omicron Sector Book 2)

by A. M. Reynolds

  A blast of green lasers slammed into the cockpit and temporarily blinded me.

  -635 hp. (-1,337 dam. 47.5% armor) HP: 10,534 / 50,000.

  "Schmidt," I yelled. "Take out that ship!"

  "I'm trying, Captain!"

  A red light started flashing over the ship's Energy stat my lower right.

  "Less than 10% power. We've gotta shut this down."

  I dodged another cannon round and pulled the ship around to make another pass at them.

  "Captain! The fighter's on our tail. I can't get a good bead on it."

  My cheeks tightened, and I felt myself grinning ear to ear. I had a plan. It was dumb and would probably get us killed, but I was getting real tired of playing it safe. I kicked the engines up another notch, and, rather than coming alongside the freighter, I set a ramming vector straight for the bridge.

  "J.T., cut the power to life support."

  "But Captain..." she protested.

  "Just do it."

  "Our energy reserves shot up another ten percent, Captain," J.T. told me.

  "Put it all in the engines. Be ready to shift it on my command."

  We were nearing our max speed at that point. The stupid Dosch player took the bait. He couldn't resist an open target. Just like a pirate.

  I pulled up at the last second, dodging the blast. Fortunately, the fighter pilot didn't see the plasma ball until it was entirely too late. His ship melted away into nothing but fire.

  Congratulations! +1 rank to Piloting skill.

  "Shift all available power from shields and engines into weapons," I commanded. "Give em hell, fellas!"

  I activated the front cannon again, and the lasers cut into the Dosch ship over and over.

  -9,991 hp. Armor reduced 10% (100% local reduction).

  -2200 hp. -2200 hp. -2200 hp. -2200 hp. -2200 hp.

  The comms window sprang to life again. Surresh looked worried, as much as a lizard-person could look worried. Other Dosch ran around his bridge putting out fires.

  "Ah. Surresh, isn't it?" I asked.

  "Please stop. We'll give you whatever you want. We have cu's. We have drugs and weapons. Whatever you want, take it. Just call off your attack," the Dosch pirate shouted.

  "I don't know. Have you ever called off an attack once you had won? I'll call off my boys, but if you double cross me...."

  "I'll give you whatever you want. Just don't destroy my ship."

  "Ceasefire, boys. We've won this one," I said to Schmidt and Norax.

  I turned my attention back to Surresh. He did have a few things I wouldn't mind taking. Perhaps, I was starting to think too much like a merc. It had only been a few hours, but the Corps felt so far away.

  "Prepare to be boarded."

  The comms screen disappeared, and I eased my mind out of the ship's controls. Cheers crowded out the alarms.

  “Alright people. Settle down. We’ve got a ton of work to do and very little time to do it. Norax, you’re with me. Everyone else, get to repairing the ship. We’ve got some farmers to save.”

  The Dosch were exceptionally welcoming when they accepted us onto their ship.

  “Captain,” Surresh said. “Welcome aboard my ship. I have to admit, that last stunt you pulled was quite reckless.”

  “It worked didn’t it?” I said.

  Norax growled at a nearby Dosch, and it scurried away.

  “If your timing wass only sslightly off, you would have taken my plassma cannon to the face.” Surresh ignored my question. “But alassss, to the victor go the sssspoilsss. What can I help you with, Captain?”

  “We won’t take much. Half your energy cells and a quarter of your personal c.u.’s.”

  “Half?” Surresh sounded like he was going to protest. “That will leave us with barely enough….”

  “IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT IT LEAVES YOU WITH!” I yelled and slammed my fist against the closest wall for effect.

  The remaining lizard people scurried away in fear.

  “You would have left us for dead or worse if the tables were turned. Half your cells and a fourth of your credits.”

  “Oh! And a couple Dosch targeting sensors,” Norax added eagerly.

  Surresh rolled his eyes. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Access to your crafting schematics.”

  “Ssschematicss? Why would you want thosssse? You aren’t a trading sship. I can tell that. You have military written all over you.”

  “Those are the terms.”

  “Very well. You sssshall have it.”

  After a short wait, Norax started transferring the energy cells over to our ship, and I accepted the credit transfer. I wasn’t actually interested in how many credits he transferred to me. I was more interested in making him leave that particular space lane. I was interested to see what schematics he and his crew had.

  There weren’t very many schematics. As I suspected, he and his crew spent more time taking than making. We did manage to snag the schematics for Dosch Targeting Sensor. The Dosch Targeting sensor was supposed to be the best targeting scope you could find. The irony of that wasn’t lost on me on that fact. I downloaded the schematics that we could use and left the rest.

  “If we meet again, Surresh,” I warned. “I will leave nothing of your ship but a blip in our combat log. Got it?”

  “Yesss, Captain,” Surresh said with a low bow.

  Quest: Dogfight! Success. +500 XP.

  A familiar yellow aura washed over me and Norax.

  LEVEL UP! Congratulations on reaching Rank 7!

  I pulled up my status screen right there on Surresh’s ship and allocated my Specialization points. The five unspent points caught me off guard. I remembered leveling up again at the labs, but I must have gotten too carried away with everything else to remember to level up. I picked up the first few ranks in the Piloting tree, One with the Ship, Enhanced Evasive Maneuvers, and Dogfighter. Thinking back to the fight at Rand’s, I also upgraded my Nova Punch. I took one last look at my status screen and nodded to Surresh before leaving his ship.

  05

  We hadn’t come away from the space battle with as much loot as the crew had liked, but we came away from it. Our mission wasn’t to slap some space pirates around, anyway. We had a planet to get to.

  Schmidt and Norax had done well during the fight, and I have to assume that if it weren’t for J.T.’s systems management and Meiying putting out the fires and repairing things, we wouldn’t have made it.

  Binus Prime loomed below us. The small rock was barely a planet. About a third of the planet was covered in blue-green ocean; while the rest was of relatively consistent mud brown earth. A few wisps of clouds floated in patches. It was amazing that anyone could make anything grow in this planet.

  “I thought Rand said this was a farming planet,” Meiying said tapping on the Ops console in front of her.

  “He did,” I replied. “J.T., you see where our drop point is?”

  “Oui, Captain. I cannot get a very close drop zone. We will have to assault from about three kilometers out. It’s all too rocky.”

  It just didn’t make any sense. Why were farmers holed up in a bank in a rocky town? It didn’t matter, really. We were sent on a mission and we would see it through.

  We made it to the planet’s surface after another half hour or so of relatively fast flight. Luckily, Meiying and J.T. worked together pretty well. While they were fixing the ship’s internal damages and installing the energy cells, I put Schmidt and Norax to the task of preparing our armor and weapons. Meiying had a few suggestions for future upgrades as well. I was already glad we decided to keep her around, even though I was sure to catch some flack from at least Norax.

  It's not like she was going to be on the ground mission team. She was much more valuable on the ship.

  When the rest of the crew indicated we were ready to drop to the surface, I suited up and checked my ammo and armor stats.I was pleased to see my damage and armor stats had improved.

  EV-7 Pla
sma Rifle

  Damage: 153 - 168 (Dex +6, Targeting Augmentation +42.) Automatic. Ammo: 100%/100%

  Tier 4 Assault Armor

  Damage Reduction: 70% (50% Base). Weight: 20 kg. Special: Comms and Scan enhancer. Vacuum support enabled. Personal Shield array lvl 4 (+20% DR).

  "Alright, does everyone have mission objectives?"

  "Aye," Norax grunted.

  "Oui, mon Capitaine," J.T. said.

  Schmidt nodded and added, "I got it. We drop to the safe zone outside the town. Work our way to the bank. Rescue the citizens, and then come back to the ship. Right?"

  "Yeah. You make it sound so easy," I said.

  "Oh! In that case, I'm pretty sure we're all going to die. If we don't die before we get to the bank, we're walking into a concentrated group of the hiders and the crawlies. There's no way we're getting out alive."

  "Way to be a pessimist about it," Norax laughed.

  Schmidt replied, "Well, you can't have it both ways. Either, it's easy peasy or we're all going to die."

  "Now, that's patently false," I said. "You just caught us on an odd mission. Usually, we're in and out."

  "Right, so either happy easy job or oh god, we already died. That's what I said," he added.

  He really did have a decent grasp of the situation, but I refused to let that flavor my experience.

  "Alright. we only a have short time to complete this mission. I know some of you are wanting to get home and out to the real world. Just remember, many civilians would kill for the ability to get out from under these aliens. It's our job, Marines, to see they do." With that statement, I opened the cargo door.

  "Meiying, the ship is all yours. Bring her back in one piece."

  "I will, Captain Taylor. I will," she said.

  The space freighter spun around and slowed to barely a crawl. Hot blasts of dry air curled around the lowered ramp.

  "Move. Move. Move!" Norax shouted unnecessarily.

  J.T. hopped down into the rocky surroundings first. With Colin on the injured list, she would act as our Sniper and Scout.

  I dropped right behind her. The brown earth crunched under my weight as I landed. I heard two thumps behind me, and then the ship pulled up and out. Meiying had the ship in orbit before I could give my first order.

  “Ok. Let’s see the layout map,” I said.

  J.T. flipped a few switches typed something into her wrist console. I 3D topographical map popped into view above her outstretched palm. It slowly rotated and had four flashing blue dots.

  “We’re here,” she said. “This. This is our target.” She pointed to a red square in the center of the gulch.

  Schmidt asked, “So, we have to get through all that rocky terrain to this little point to rescue a bunch of farmers?”

  “We call that little point, the kill box, rookie,” Norax said.

  “We could just blow the whole thing up from back here,” Schmidt said pointing to an overlooking cliff. “We’ve got enough ordinance on the ship, and I think the bank vault would hold. We’d just need to dig it out after. Seems less dangerous and more surefire.”

  Norax’s eyes lit up at that plan. His grin practically sparkled when he smiled. “You know? You’re alright, kid. I like him. Captain, can we keep him?”

  I rolled my eyes. “J.T.? Does that work?”

  She typed in some additional information on her wrist and a schematic of the bank popped into view. The bank proper consisted of a few offices, a lobby, and an elevator down into the vault. The vault was protected on that level by a single guard station.

  “How did you get that?”

  “Harmashk uploaded all the information to our ship’s computers. I thought he told you.”

  That was right. “Oh, yeah. Heh. He did. I wasn’t sure what he was doing really.”

  “And you let him modify our ship?” Schmidt asked.

  “Well, yeah. I couldn’t really say no. He sort of pushed past me.”

  Schmidt looked at Norax and said, “I think our Captain’s broken.”

  Norax goosed the rookie on the back of the head. “Captain’s our captain. Show some respect.”

  J.T. had information, and Norax had a chain of command. Two things you could always count on. Schmidt would need to figure that out sooner rather than later.

  Norax said, “Anyway. Captain, we could blow up the surrounding structures. The vault was made to withstand a yield much higher than we can produce in a single blast. The real problem will be digging the vault out once we are there.”

  “I think the ship can help us with that. Did we have any cabling?”

  “There were some tow cables in a winch system in the cargo hold.”

  “Excellent. J.T. can you show me the situation with the hostiles?”

  “No. We are too far out. I can perhaps when we get within one-half kilometer.”

  “Fine, then let’s move. Be on the lookout for crawlies and hiders.”

  The team sprang into action. Our power suits enhanced our mobility and balance quite a bit but definitely didn’t do all the work for us. Getting to within one-half kilometer was still going to take us the better part of nine minutes.

  We sprinted for a solid three minutes over rocky terrain in relative silence. A few times, I even had to jump and climb up some smaller ledges.

  “When we get back to the ship, remind me to mod my armor to include jump packs,” I complained.

  “You and me both, Captain,” Norax said.

  “Great. I barely had enough for the basic model. It’s why my armor is so low,” said Schmidt.

  “Hey, your armor’s better than mine.”

  “Yeah, but you’ve got massive damage output. I’m low on damage and resistance.”

  “You’ll get there. Give it time. Besides, the Captain is the only one of us with really good armor,” J.T. added. “Since the Captain has negotiated a better rate for us, perhaps we can afford a few of life’s little luxuries.”

  “This game is my job. I think you should invest in yourself when your paycheck comes down to living and dying.”

  Something told me J.T. had been missing the luxuries from when she ran outside the strict confines of the Omicron Sector Marine Corps. She seemed to be right at home in the mercenary role.

  “Captain, you know you’ll need to sacrifice some of that protection for jump boosters, right?” J.T. said. “You can’t fit too much on the frame with the added shield generator. It will draw too much energy.”

  “Yeah. Yeah. Shut up and keep climbing.”

  We shifted our goal away from the bank to a small outcropping that overlooked the bank. From there, Norax would get a better shot. J.T. and Schmidt could help pick off any surviving aliens with sniper attachments.

  “How much further?” Schmidt asked panting. One of his ears twitched hard. “Did you hear that?”

  I hadn’t heard anything, but I flipped on my minimap just to make sure. My map scanner picked up some movement about thirty meters off to our right. I leveled my plasma rifle in that direction and slowly worked my way over another hill. As I approached the top of the hill, I lay down to get a better sight on whatever it was while remaining as hidden as possible. Schmidt and J.T. slid into place behind me. I assumed Norax was covering our rear.

  Over the hill, I could make out three four-legged creatures about the size and rough shape as goats. I relaxed.

  “Just local wildlife,” I said.

  “Captain, look,” J.T. said.

  I popped my head back up and squinted. One of the baby goats was covered in blue-black patches of smooth skin. Damnit. The aliens had affected the local wildlife too. Should we attack these or just let them go? That question just got quite a bit harder to answer.

  Schmidt lined up a shot on one of the creatures. My minimap came alive with two more dots.

  I instinctively put a hand on Schmidt’s shoulder. He shot me a confused look. To which, I pointed at the two prowling long toothed four-legged predator type aliens above our gentle herd. The new a
liens reminded me of solid black mountain lions from Earth. I scanned them for more information.

  Kremvakt. Rank 1. Alien female. HP 100/100. Armor 10%.

  Kremvakt. Rank 1. Alien female. HP 100/100. Armor 10%.

  Gorkak. Rank 1. Alien male. HP 25/25.

  Gorkak. Rank 1. Alien male. HP 25/25.

  Gorkak. Rank 1. Alien male. HP 25/25.

  “I’d kinda like to get the experience, Captain,” Schmidt said.

  Norax whispered over the comms, “Me too. What’s over there?”

  “It’s just a couple of mountain lions or predators of some sort.

  “No, Captain. They have the smooth skin too. I think they’re infected.”

  “Jeez. Is the whole damn planet infected?” Norax spat.

  “Fine, let’s take them out, but be quick. Single shots to the head. Use your sniper setup. Norax and I will take out the herd below. After this, we’ve got to move though.”

  J.T. and Schmidt lined up their shots while Norax and I moved around the cliff face to get better assault positioning on the herd of alien-infested Gorkaks.

  The tell-tale sound of plasma rifles being fired in unison was our go signal. Two midnight-black prowler beasts fell down the face of the rock about fifteen meters away. The Gorkaks spooked and reared on their hind legs to charge in the random directions they were facing. One sprinted straight for us and the other two shot off at other angles. I shot the one charging us between the eyes and it slid to a stop at our feet.

  -153 hp. Target killed. +50 xp.

  Norax had quicker reflexes than I. Before my shot ever hit the charging Gorkak, a bright red ball of explosion ignited the air behind it. It landed on the ground between the other two Gorkak and sent one of the Gorkak’s careening over the cliff and the other one sailing into the rockface.

  TARGET FRAGGED. +100 xp.

  “Wow. It didn’t even give me damage numbers on that one!” I said. “Nice shot. But I bet we’ve woken everyone up that didn’t know we were coming to help… including the enemies.”