Universe Online - Enter the Game: Complete Edition

by Ryan 'Viken' Henning

  “There's a lot of them in there. Any ideas on how to get to the ship without being cut into pasty ribbons, Commander?” I ask softly, although the Commander only shrugs a shoulder before motioning to one of the marines.

  The marine in question pulls out a stealthed spy ball, and passes it to me. I take it, and after connecting it to my suits computer, nod and stand up, tossing the ball into the hangar. It instantly activates, turning translucent and nearly invisible. It’s an invaluable piece of hardware. Using my fingers inside my gloves to control it, I start scanning around the room; keeping as far from the Drex as possible.

  The Drex don't have good scanning tech, if they use scanners at all, but they do have good eyesight and can possibly spot the ball if it gets close enough.

  “Hmm... Most of the hangar is empty. No cover at all on this side.” I comm to the others; continuing to look around. There has to be something we can use. Anything. Anything at all that'll give us an advantage. Anything that'd help us out of this mess.

  That's when I spot several things on the other side of the hangar. One is the Hangar Management Terminal, and the other is a large load of barrels. Getting close enough to figure out what is in the barrels is a bit of a hassle, passing through several wandering groups of Drex... but I do it and finally get to read what's printed on them.

  Hazardous Materials. Flammable. Explosive.

  Bingo.

  A slow grin spreads across my lips.

  “Ah, found it. The terminal and barrels full of explosives.” I comm. The murmurs of the others whispering comes through against my ear.

  “Very well. Here's what we're going to do.” The Commander finally speaks up, and starts laying out the plan. We make several interjections, and after about five minutes our plan is ready to go.

  And I play the key part. Setting up the trap.

  It takes a lot of work, and quite a bit of time. We'd pulled back to the maximum extent of my range; boosted by connecting into the Commander's suit and his communications array. From there, I use the spy ball to remotely access the Hangar Management terminal, setting up the ship to be flight ready. After that I change a bunch of settings, and it takes even longer to write up my own programs and get them installed, bypassing all sorts of lockouts and security measures along the way.

  It is more than a little finicky.

  Finally though that's all set. I disconnect the terminal and move the spy ball over to the neatly stacked barrels, rolling it up onto the top of the stack.

  “Okay guys, you ready?” I comm to the group, and wait as I get nods from everyone. One of the marines even passes me a sidearm, a simple pistol. It connects to my suit, and I put it in the holster that opens up on my right hip.

  “Here goes nothing.” I mutter, before activating the program I had wrote for the spy ball. It de-stealths, and starts bouncing up and down on the metal barrels; attracting all sorts of attention. Within moments, more than half of the Drex are drawn to it; although they are wary of opening fire on explosive materials.

  Too bad for them.

  The ball detonates with with a surprising amount of force and within moments the hangar has become a scene of carnage. It was by no means an easy feat, either. Rewriting the safety programming that keeps the power cells within the spy ball from experience feedback and overloads was a major hassle. But the end result was more than worth it.

  The barrels go up in flames and then BOOOOOOOM! More than half the hangar is up in flames and the Drex that were anywhere near the conflagration are instantly killed. Even they cannot withstand that sort of impact or heat.

  At the same time, we rush out of our hiding place and into the hangar and I pull out the pistol and start lobbing off shots. I'm not that good, but the marines with their heavier and superior equipment are more than up to the task. With them in a short wedge formation in the front, with the medic wedged in the middle and the Commander and myself running in step at the rear; we bulldoze a path right toward the waiting ship.

  The Drex are in disarray, and for the most part are easy pickings. It takes them several moments to figure out what was going on. By the time they finally realize that they are under attack we are deep in their midsts. The Dex’s counter attack is swift and heavy.

  That's when I activate the second part of the plan.

  Now that I'm within close enough range, I activate the programs I'd installed in the hangar terminal by remote. It responds instantly.

  The ship had previously been slowly booted up and now kicks on in an instant; bringing the thruster engines into a quick pre-flight check. The directional thrusters move within their full range of motion. Normally that'd be the end of it, but I'd instructed the on board computer to ignite the thrusters at the same time, causing it to shoot out superheated jets of propulsion plasma.

  It is hot enough to burn the metal composite of the floor and ceiling. And anything nearby. Including the Drex.

  Their armor melts and their weapons explode due to the heat, but it ends after only a handful of seconds. It wouldn't be good to break our ride, right? It does the job though. The sudden attack from their rear casts them into disarray again; breaking up the neat formations that provided them their covering fire against our own attack.

  “Go go go go!” The Commander yells over the comms, even as the entry ramp into the ship opens up and slides down, the airlock automatically opening.

  Actually getting into the ship is still a gamble, though. One of the marines takes a shot to his chest; and falls, I and the medic rush forward and pick the man up, even as he's screaming in pain. The Commander gets hit in the arm, but keeps going with only a grunt. Another of the marines gets hit in the leg; tearing it to shreds from the knee down. He ends up yelling and firing for all he's worth, yelling at us to continue on.

  My own panted breath is steaming up the inside of my helmet, but there's a grin on my face. It’s the first time my blood has boiled like this in a long time!

  Finally we make it up the ramp, even as the marine we left behind starts chucking out his set of grenades, covering our backs as I slam my hand onto the emergency close button. The ramp comes up with a BANG, locking us in.

  “You, take the controls! Get this bird out of here!” The Commander yells at me, his face pale from the pain and blood loss. I merely nod and leave the injured marine to the other two and the medic and rush into the cockpit at the front part of the ship, having to climb a short set of bars to reach the upper level where the cockpit is.

  The seat is hard composite with a very thin lining of some sort of faux leather, but I still jump right into it and strap in before grasping the control sticks. The screens come on before my eyes, and I can tell that the Drex outside are already shooting at the ship.

  Thankfully it is at least armored enough to survive the barrage.

  The pre-flight check has already been done, so we're ready to get the hell out of Dodge. All that's left is for me to comm the Hangar terminal and deactivate the docking clamps and open the doors. It is done with barely a twitch of one of my fingers. It’s one of the things I had overrode earlier. The hangars door open up with a hiss, sucking all the air out of the hangar and into the space beyond like a jet, pulling the Drex out with it.

  Normally a forcefield would have come up to keep the atmosphere inside, but this time there's no reason to leave a bunch of living Drex behind us.

  I had intentionally deactivated the forcefield earlier, as well.

  Sadly, I'm not trained to actually pilot even a small craft, so I'm forced to rely upon the automated systems to help out in that regard. We still whip around and get out of there like bats out of Hell. At least, we were going to; except there's a whole fucking blockade of Drex ships waiting just outside.

  The only saving grace is that they apparently hadn't expected anyone to try to get out from the inside. It makes them hesitate in opening fire and I have the ship doing basic maneuvers as we boogy out of there.

  “Brace for impact!” I yell as soon as the ship
tells me that we've been targeted, and I have to take manual control as the ship drops me out of autopilot. I do my damnedest though. Out in space, it’s not like I can hit anything important. So I dive down, then up, pivoting left and right as fancy takes me, trying to shake the lock-on icons that have popped up on the screens in front of me.

  “Get someone on the guns!” I yell again, and one of the unhurt marines does so almost as quickly as the words get out of my mouth.

  All in all, it is not an easy flight. Especially for my first time. We take several hits, start leaking atmosphere and fuel, and one of our engines takes a nearly direct hit from a mass driver; nearly blowing us to bits before I could reroute power and the leaking fuel.

  We still make it out of the blockade. They aren't intent on chasing us; seemingly more interested on their prize, the station itself. Bunch of scavengers.

  “I'm rerouting power to the warp drive, Commander! Where we headin'?” I finally say as the attacks die off, leaving us in eerie silence only broken by the slow hiss of leaking air. Thankfully we didn't take -too- much damage, and the warp drive was still functional.

  “Head toward the nearest human colony. We have to report this as fast as possible. The Drex jammed communications before we even realized they were there, so no one else has gotten any warnings.” The Commander says, his voice thin from pain and tired now. I'm personally still too filled with excitement to come down from my battle-high just yet.

  “Aye aye, sir.” I say, having the computer pull up the listing for the closest colony. Only about twenty light-years away. With the coordinates input into the computer, all I have to do is wait for the power in the drive to reach critical mass while pointing us in that direction.

  “Too bad we couldn't rescue any of the escape pods...” I say then, finally realizing that we'd forgotten something.

  “No point. With the blockade, any pod that made it safely into space would have been sitting ducks. They're probably all gone.” This time it is the medic that replies, and I realize with a start that it’s a woman. I don't even have a retort to that though, either.

  “Warp in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...” I count down out loud instead.

  -|- -|- -|-

  The world goes white around me just as the warp drive activated, and I find myself sitting in a rather comfortable leather chair. In front of me is a coffee table with various drinks and snack foods, and I realize that I am rather thirsty and hungry about the same time that the smell hits me.

  I grab one of the soft drinks and a bag of chips and go to town, only belatedly realizing that I'm not even wearing the spacesuit anymore. It doesn't really matter though. I'm too busy refreshing myself to be too worried.

  For a couple of minutes I'm left to my lonesome, filling my empty stomach and drinking my fill before a seat appears across the table, and a young woman is seated in it. She’s wearing a dark business suit with a skirt that barely reaches her knees, highlighting her long legs.

  Dark brown hair that hangs down her back in a simple twisted ponytail, baby blue eyes, and a large rack currently being pressed up against the tight material of her jacket completes the picture of a sexy office worker. Except for the thin-framed glasses that rest on her nose.

  The glasses aren’t a negative, though.

  “Ara... We weren't expecting anyone to complete the Beta Test that fast. You can imagine the confusion that was caused when we suddenly received your status report. Not only did you complete the test, you did it in less than three hours, and with perfect results. Amazing.”

  The woman starts talking without preamble, and I'm left shrugging my shoulders as I pull my gaze back up to her face, with something like a wry smile on my lips.

  “It was fun. There wasn't any reason to draw it out.”

  “Eh? I guess that must be true. Still, it's more than a little amazing. Even the programmers who wrote out the level couldn't do what you did, and with the Engineer's preset, which is arguably the hardest choice.”

  *DING*

  You have completed the Universe Online Beta Test!

  Your mining station was ruthlessly attacked by the Drex, resulting in thousands of casualties. You could have escaped on your own, but instead you joined up with others and managed to escape with only a single casualty.

  Number of Survivors: 6

  Commander survived: Yes

  Warp Drive operational: Yes

  Number of User Deaths: 0

  Total Test time: 2 hours, 37 minutes, 46 seconds.

  You are the first person to complete the Beta Test.

  The blue holographic projection comes up over the table, and I take my time reading it before nodding.

  “It counts me as a survivor as well. We were lucky that we only lost a single marine.” I say after a moment, feeling quite proud of myself.

  “The clock is still ticking for the other Beta testers, but you're already done. That's a great achievement, regardless. The best time for one of the staff here was just under four hours, and he lost three of the marines and the engineer. He'd chosen the officer preset.” The woman says then, flashing a great big and almost blinding white smile at me.

  “Well, I basically just went with the flow. The starting briefing really helped, as did the tutorial. Especially the tutorial, given that it was in the same station. All I had to do was memorize the basic layout and play around with the available equipment until I was comfortable enough to know what I could do with it.”

  My words are a bit modest, given that I'd spent over five hours in the tutorial, doing everything I possibly could do in that instanced zone. I'd basically given the Help function a fit with all of my questions.

  “Hahaha! That is true. You're one of only four who went through the whole tutorial, and we're already rewriting the Help function so it can provide better support for the crazy questions you asked. But that's part of the beta testing process. Anyway! Not only are you getting the Beta Tester bonus, as the first person to complete the test and with such a high score, you're also going to receive bonuses and extra support when the game launches.”

  The woman was rather excited, and even I have to raise my brow in piqued interest.

  “Oh? Can you tell me about these bonuses? We were told we'd receive tester bonuses during the briefing, but no other information.” I ask without any preamble.

  “Hmm... Hold on and let me see if I can say, 'kay?” The woman suddenly looks mischievous, and I nod as she pulls up her own panel and starts typing away on the interface. I cannot see anything from where I'm sitting, but I'm not to worried anyway.

  “And the answer is... No can do. Apparently the higher-ups want to make sure all it comes as a surprise. Sorry!”

  “Ah. Oh well. I'll find out as soon as the game launches anyway.” I reply, a little put off. The game is still six months away from launching. That's quite a bit of time to have to wait.

  “Sorry about that. But I have been told that you are allowed to jump back into the Beta Test again. The management team is interested to see what you can do with the other presets. If you can beat the test in under three hours with the Soldier, Officer, and Manufacturer you'll get an even better surprise.” Now she's starting to look like a wolf wearing sheep's clothing. There's a catch there, I just know it, but I'm still not too worried.

  “Sure. I'll need a couple of hours though before I log back in. I can only stay in the pod for five hours cause the doctors get worried.” I say, shrugging a shoulder.

  “Oh... Hold on.” The woman says, suddenly taken aback and once more brings up the holographic panel.

  “EH!? Allec Renn? The ALS patient? Oh my. Sorry, I didn't realize. No wonder management is interested in you. Also, the technicians will be coming to modify your Dive Pod in a couple of hours as well. So just log back in when you are able to. The Beta Test is going to last for the next week, so you have plenty of time.” Her response was expected, but I still sigh and shrug my shoulders.

  “Alright. Thanks. I'll be seeing you later then.
” I say with a cheeky grin, swiping away the notice that's still floating above the coffee table.

  “Logout.”

  The world fades to black.

  -|- -|- -|-

  Fun Fact #1: Yes, there is going to be mecha in this story.

  Chapter 1 – For Every Beginning...

  Six months. That's the amount of time it takes to completely change the world. At least according to the news broadcaster yelling on my TV screen, reporting live from Solar Dynamics Headquarters building in Los Angeles, California.

  The launch of SD's flagship game, Universe Online was already underway, with only two hours left to go. After nearly six months of waiting, I'm ready to dive into the sci-fi universe that has been taking the planet by storm. Especially after videos of the Beta Tests were put up on the internet. Including several of my own.