by Morgan Cole
Table of Contents
Summary
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Chapter One: Entering the Infested World
Chapter Two: To the Spike
Chapter Three: To the Rescue
Chapter Four: Spiking the Spike
Chapter Five: Aftermath of the Rescue
Chapter Six: Return to Paradise Plains
Chapter Seven: I am Being Detained
Chapter Eight: Escaping the Sheriff's Station
Chapter Nine: Meeting Theoden
Chapter Ten: In Theoden's Realm
Chapter Eleven: Resupply and Prep for the Trip North
Chapter Twelve: Telling Theo and Playing with the GN-75
Chapter Thirteen: Our New Ride
Chapter Fourteen: Headed North to the Border
Chapter Fifteen: Driving in Saskatchewan
Chapter Sixteen: At Carly's Diner
Chapter Seventeen: North Saskatchewan Here we Come
Chapter Eighteen: Into the Wilderness
Chapter Nineteen: Howling and Ice
Chapter Twenty: Over the River and Through the Woods
Chapter Twenty-One: The Northern Outpost
Chapter Twenty-Two: Sol Has Got Some Issues
Chapter Twenty-Three: Flying Back to Paradise Plains
Chapter Twenty-Four: Searching for a Solution
Chapter Twenty-Five: Found our Lead
Chapter Twenty-Six: Scouting the Base
Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Distraction
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Priming the Distraction
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Storming the Base
Chapter Thirty: Flight in the Dark
Chapter Thirty-One: Finishing the Redemption
Chapter Thirty-Two: Defending the Base
Chapter Thirty-Three: Flying to Mercury
Chapter Thirty-Four: Arrived at Mercury
Chapter Thirty-Five: Breaching the Base Defenses
Chapter Thirty-Six: Riding the Potato
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Finding a Way In
Chapter Thirty-Eight: In Connahr Base Mercury
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Repairing the Solar Tap
Chapter Forty: I've got Aliens in my DMs
Chapter Forty-One: An Unexpected Find
Chapter Forty-Two: Time to Spend it All
Chapter Forty-Three: On our Way to Pluto
Chapter Forty-Four: Throwing Rocks
Chapter Forty-Five: Battle in the Orbit of Pluto
Chapter Forty-Six: The Signal and a Quest
Chapter Forty-Seven: Solar System Tourism
Epilogue
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About the Author
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Summary
HORDES OF ALIEN MONSTERS are breeding on Pluto. The shield protecting Sol is failing. Can Jake save Earth from infestation and annihilation?
After his triumph on Pax, Jake returns home to Earth. In far northern Canada his grandfather hid an outpost that may have the solution.
The town sheriff thinks he's an imposter, unnamed government agencies would love to vivisect him, and powerful forces lurk in the shadows.
Even with his grandfather's powerful legacy, will Jake have what it takes to stop the threat to Earth?
If you're a fan of space opera, visceral science-fiction combat, and powerful heroes fighting to save civilization, then you'll love this LitRPG book from Shadow Alley Press.
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Chapter One: Entering the Infested World
WE'D RECEIVED A DISTRESS call—a recorded message being broadcast over the gate connection. It had been meant for my grandfather, Mattias, but he wasn't with us anymore. The message was three months old, playing on repeat.
The message played, and a short, wide-shouldered figure in heavy red armor appeared in front of the desk on a clear section of floor. The thick overlapping metal plates of his armor were in rough shape, with deep scratches and burn marks breaking up the shiny red finish. He was standing in a familiar space, the obvious signs of Union modular construction visible all around him. His helmet was retracted, revealing a broad, friendly looking face under a shining, bare scalp. A thick black mustache and what looked like an epic beard disappeared into the chest of his armor. Tired black eyes looked directly into mine.
"Mattias, we haven't seen you here for years, but I hope you're still alive brother, because we need your help. Everything's gone to shit. Something's happening in the Union, none of the gate addresses we have are connecting. The Infestation has flared up and the outpost is getting hit hard. We're not even having to venture into the city any more to farm; they're coming to us. Threat levels are trending up and we need an evac. There's eight of us left here and we're having real trouble with the Ferals. Help us out. We've got a ton of Nanite Clusters to trade.
"I'm sending a message like this to every gate address we have, on repeat. There are hundreds of them in memory, so we've got to limit the amount of time we wait for an acceptance. Hope to see your ugly face soon, brother."
With less than two minutes left until the connection closed, I'd made the call to open the gate. I'd suited up in the newly upgraded Assault Armor, grabbed my gun and Excalibur—my lovely custom-made wrecking bar—and rushed to the gate room.
"Thirty seconds," Brick announced.
I slid to a halt in front of the closed gate and raised my Gazer. On either side were Metra's dogs, the heavy assault drones that had been her contributions to the fight in the Refinery node. They had been repaired and upgraded. Their weapons were trained on the gate and they were poised and ready. With our combined firepower we could seriously screw up just about anything on the other side.
"Open it, Brick," I yelled.
The panel flickered and then snapped into place, revealing a mirror image of the gate room we were standing in, but on the world of Hephaseta 2. It was well lit, a bit dirty, but completely empty.
"The room is clear. Brick, you getting anything?"
"There is no central control system for me to connect to on the other side. The restrictions on AI usage are absolute on Infested world outposts. All systems will be manually operated or simple automatic systems without networking. Nothing is connected through the gate interfaces as part of the same set of restrictions."
"So I'm going to need to go in and look around?" I asked.
"Yes, it appears so. I would like to install a short-range communications relay as well. I will require permission to take control of one of the Manufactors briefly to build one."
"You can pause number three, Brick," Metra supplied. Even though we'd spent a bunch of our resources to get all four Manufactors in the Light Manufactory, they were generally all busy all the time.
"Thank you, Metra," Brick replied.
I had no idea what was on the other side of that gate. Whoever that guy in red armor was, he'd recorded that message months ago. It was possible he and all his friends were already dead. Maybe the Vassago had kept the outpost intact as bait. The longer the gate stayed open with nothing happening, the less likely that possibility seemed.
"I'm going to go in. Brick, can your spiders bring me five plasma grenades, please?" I asked.
"Of course, Jake,
" he replied.
I reached out with my Drone Control implant and connected to the three drones that were dormant in the Light Manufactory nearby. They woke up and began flying down the corridors toward the gate room at my command.
I'd kept the same configuration as before—a particle beam drone, a needler drone, and a scout—but I'd modified them even further from the base Union designs. Each of them had better power systems and better maneuverability, and the scout drone was as stealthy as I could make it. As long as the scout drone used only passive sensors and didn't move too quickly, I suspected it would be extremely hard to spot. I hadn't actually tested it against Ferals yet.
The door to the gate room opened by itself and the three drones arrived seconds later. They hovered above my head, awaiting orders.
A line of spider bots entered the room shortly after, each one carrying a grenade almost the size of its body. I stuck the grenades to my armor on my left and right sides.
I performed a quick "paranoia" check of my status screen.
╠═╦╬╧╪
Jake, Humanity-branch
Transcendent Flesh Level 2
Physical Stats:
Strength: 20
Coordination: 15
Endurance: 14
Mental Stats:
Acuity: 20
Intuition: 20
Perception: 20
Nanite Clusters: 82/100
Mitrasa Zeropoint Energy Tap
Engineering Vision
Subdermal Armor
Drone Control Link
╠═╦╬╧╪
An icon caught my eye that hadn't been there before. A bulky, familiar silhouette that clearly represented my Assault Armor. I pressed it and a brand-new status sheet appeared.
╠═╦╬╧╪
Krigar Assault Armor KAA-8V2
Armor Integrity Levels:
All Sections Nominal
Stores:
Bio-consumables: ~60 days
Life Support: ~14 days
Nanite Clusters: 0/500
Energy:
Internal Generation: 100 PU/s
Auxiliary Generation (Augment): 25 PU/s
Internal Storage: 5000/5000 PU
Energy Consumption:
Propulsion Units: 0/60 PU/s
Gravity Plates: 0/20 PU/s
╠═╦╬╧╪
"Whoa, Metra. You added a stat sheet for the armor?"
"Sure. It's not just a hunk of metal anymore. It needs it."
Everything looked good with the armor. She'd added quite a bit of power generation to it, I could only assume to feed the new propulsion units and gravity plates. It didn't hurt that I'd be able to power a thirsty weapon like my Gazer for a long time, too.
"I'm going in to take a look around. I won't go too far until you get the comms relay up, Brick."
"Be careful, Jake," Metra said.
I nodded, and stepped through the gate. I realized immediately after she probably couldn't see me. My drones followed me through.
The HUD inside my helmet told me that the air on this side was safely breathable but more oxygen heavy than Humans liked. Nothing my Transcendent Flesh couldn't handle, but it's not like I would be taking the armor off on this side of the gate even if I could breathe the air. The temperature was a little cold, but again nothing too harsh.
The gate room on the other side was identical to the one on my side, but looked older, somehow. It wasn't like it had been chewed on by Ferals. It was more that it felt... worn. Old. There was even actual dirt in the corners.
I moved to the door and was a little surprised when it stayed closed as I approached. I'd gotten very used to every door in the station opening for me as I approached and almost slammed into the stubbornly closed portal in front of me.
"Touch it and will it open. There's no AI watching doors on that side," Metra said, the sound of her voice carrying through the gate. It echoed oddly in the metal room. I looked back and realized that her voice had come from one of the Assault Drones still guarding the gate.
"Thanks," I yelled back and touched the door.
It slid open and I stepped through. The corridor in front of me was like every corridor in my station, except dirty and even dented in some places. It looked like some fighting had happened here, although it didn't seem like it was too serious. Ahead of me not too far off I could see an obvious Connector node, but the door was open. I looked behind me and noticed the door to the gate room hadn't closed automatically.
Pulling up my minimap, I ordered the scout drone to map, and it silently flashed down the corridor. The empty map started to fill in as the scout found more and more open doors, but no threats and no people.
It took just under two minutes for the scout drone to map out the whole base, or what it could get to. The gate room I'd entered from was the bottom part of a stubby plus sign with a Connector node in the middle. To the left was a small barracks; to the right what looked like a galley. Underneath the center of the base, down a gravitic drop shaft like the one in my Habitat complex, was a small fusion reactor. It was enough to power the gate and the rest of the base but not a monster like the one we'd reactivated on my station.
The only closed door was to the north of the Connector node, opposite the gate room. I recognized it as an airlock. There was nothing like Brick's central Core control room that I could find, and no one else alive or dead.
"Shit, no one's home," I muttered to myself. "I wonder if they left a note?"
I checked the barracks first. It was a simple long and open space with ten beds, five on each wall with a large locker at the foot of each bed. The bedding was a mess, more on the floor than on the beds. Five of the lockers were secured. The rest had been opened and thoroughly emptied of whatever had been in them. Various bits of trash covered the floor, pieces of nutrient paste bar and other less identifiable bits.
"So this is what it looks like without Brick's bots to clean up," I mused. I had gotten quite used to anything on the floor that wasn't supposed to be there just disappearing, recycled into the station's material storage arrays. Sometimes it was quite grisly, like when Brick's spider bots had to break down a corpse into pieces small enough to move. I tried not to watch when they did that.
The lockers were tempting me to crack them open, but there was plenty of time for that.
"Jake, I've connected the communications relay," Brick said, his voice coming to me over the Interface clearly once again.
"Great. No one's here, Brick. I guess we're too late."
"It was three months ago,” Metra said. “Let's send Brick's bots through to salvage whatever we can from the base and close the gate. No tempting fate."
"I will be happy to do so, Metra. However, now that short range communications are in place, I am receiving Union carrier signals from nearby. It seems at least two are still alive. Should I connect you?"
"Yes, do it Brick," I said immediately.
"Connected," Brick reported.
I had no idea what the proper protocol was. Maybe there wasn't one. It didn't matter; there was no time.
"Hey, this is Jake Monde at the outpost. Who's out there?"
"Monde? Is Mattias with you? Thank the stars you're here, even if you're a bit late," the man on the other end said. He sounded like the guy from the message.
"No, Mattias is dead. I'm his grandson. We just got your signal. Things have been rough on our end. Where are you?"
"I'm sorry to hear that. Matty was a good man. Can you come and bail us out? Me and Kiril are trapped about halfway up the Spike. How many of you are there? The Ferals the Shard has been producing have been becoming nastier. They got nearly all of us, one by one. Kiril was just about torn in half. I've got him in a stasis pod here with me."
There was so much there. I wanted to ask questions, but convincing the guy on the other end I was a newbie didn't seem like the best idea right now. I'd need him to have faith that I could get him out of this jam.
"Sorry to say the
cavalry's just me and my drones. What's your name?" I asked.
"I'm Regar, First Seeker," Regar replied, his tone seeming to imply that should mean something to me.
"Okay, Regar. Feed Brick your position and I'll come and get you," I said.
"Who's Brick? I thought it was just you?" he replied.
"I'm Brick. I'm a Core controller," Brick interjected.
"Ferals, Jake," Regar cursed. "You're relying on one of them? Did your grandfather teach you nothing? Restrictions or no, machine intelligences can't be trusted."
I was a little annoyed at this. "Hey, Regar, you're not in a position right now to choose who bails your ass out of this situation you got yourself into. A little respect for my friend, please."
There was a short silence on the other end. "My apologies, Jake. I intended no disrespect."
I noticed there was no apology to Brick in there, but one step at a time.
"Accepted. Metra is back on the station as well, but she's our engineer. She'll be supporting us as she can."
"Greetings, honored First," Metra said. "I regret to say that I would be of no use in a Spike. May I ask how this outpost is still intact without anyone here?"
Metra's voice was serious and full of respect I hadn't heard from her before. I definitely needed to figure out just what the deal was with Regar.
"There is a plasma turret above the airlock. Normally it's manually controlled by whoever has the duty shift. Before the three of us left on this mission, Kiril jury-rigged an automatic firing system. It will fire on anything it detects, friend or foe."
"We'll fix that. Metra, can you take control of the turret?" I asked.
"I will. Honored First, you said three?"
"Yes. Kiril, Danner and I. Danner's dead. We were pushing for the Shard and—" he said, his voice cutting off.
"Regar, what's going on?" I asked.
"No time to talk. They've breached the collapse and it's time to fight. Come and get us, Jake, please."
"I have a position signal from the First," Brick reported.
"Then I've got to go. Metra, do you have control of the turret?"
"I do."
"Good. Don't shoot me."