Aces High (Reality Benders Book #6) LitRPG Series

by Michael Atamanov

  I pressed a red button on the wall, turning off the forcefield holding the little thief in place.

  “Scram! Into the hallway! Collect your things from the guard and wait for me there!”

  Tini didn’t argue and nimbly slipped outside. Now I needed to have a serious talk with Svetlana Vereshchagina and Destroying Angel. I crossed my arms behind my back and paced the small cell, gathering my thoughts and preparing the right words:

  “So then, where are we at here? Two adult women committed a flagrant act of criminality because they trusted the judgement of an underage adolescent thief... Do you really think that’s an adequate explanation? And meanwhile,” I turned to the German gunwoman, “I never expected such idiocy out of you. A distinguished Olympic champion, the most trustworthy and judicious member of my team, a person I never would have thought to doubt, an example for all the others to imitate... And here she gets caught trying to defraud a space casino!”

  Psionic skill increased to level one hundred twenty-one!

  Maybe I was overdoing it with the mental magic, but both of the women were already weeping waterfalls of shame, ready to be stricken down where they stood. It occurred to me that maybe I should turn down the psionic pressure, but I held firm. Yes, this was the right way. Let them experience remorse and fear of the unknown in full measure. Maybe then they’d think a thousand times before signing on to another illegal and risky venture.

  “Captain, I cannot find any justifications for my actions. I am guilty. What will become of us?” Svetlana Vereshchagina asked through tears.

  With a heavy sigh, and not especially bending the truth, I told her in a firm tone:

  “You will each be fined twenty-seven million Geckho monetary crystals. If you do not have that kind of money, you will spend five years in a far-flung space prison with some of the galaxy’s most notorious criminals. And if you had randomly chosen a casino belonging to the Par-Poreh royal family, you would have been subject to the death penalty.”

  I made a pause to read the women’s thoughts and make certain that they had fully grasped the gravity of their possible punishment. Hmm... They had a bit, but not fully. Svetlana, for example, was still certain her captain would buy their freedom, and thus there was nothing to be afraid of. I had to escalate things even further:

  “Let me tell you right now. I only have the money to pay for one of you. The second will be sent to prison and will spend the next five years surrounded by hardened scoundrels from every corner of the galaxy. And just so you know, the Trillians are great masters in the art of detaining wrongdoers. They will use either suggestion or drugs to break your will and force you to move your body into your cell block in the real world as well. Choose. Which of you should I save?”

  Both prisoners exchanged glances. Destroying Angel reacted first. Through tears she squeezed out:

  “I don’t deserve to be bailed out. I will go to prison.”

  “No!” the second coconspirator objected. “I was the one who convinced you to agree! You didn’t want to take part at first. So, I am more at fault and deserve to go to prison. You should walk free.”

  Destroying Angel shook her head:

  “The twenty-seven million would be better spent on a combat starship to defend planet Earth. So, both of us will go to prison!”

  Psionic skill increased to level one hundred twenty-two!

  Mysticism skill increased to level sixty-five!

  I checked both of their thoughts. Now I had achieved total remorse and willingness to undergo severe and deserved punishment. Well, alright then. I hope the lesson sticks. Using Telekinesis, I pressed the two red buttons at once, freeing both arrestees:

  “Take your things and return to the frigate. And know this — I was not exaggerating in the slightest about the punishment. You should thank Gerd Uline Tar and our Relict Urgeh Pu-Pu Urgeh. The coming of a member of the ancient race to the city has overshadowed every other event. My business partner capitalized on the buzz and agreed to have Urgeh Pu-Pu Urgeh appear in a couple advertisements for the casino. And then the owner of the gaming establishment dropped the charges. And to get the charges the authorities brought against you dropped as well, Urgeh Pu-Pu Urgeh and I had to give a big three-hour interview to the Trillians, recounting our adventures in space and often revealing information that the Relict and I would have preferred to keep secret.”

  For the last part I did have to bend the truth a bit. The interview was not at all forced. I myself had offered some Trillian journalists to give it. And not so much even to get the final charges against Destroying Angel and Svetlana Vereshchagina dropped — after the casino dropped their charges, the authorities didn’t much care to keep holding my crew anyway. I didn’t do it for the expected Fame boost either (though it had in fact grown to ninety-nine — the coming of a living Relict had generated massive interest from every spacefaring race). I had other more significant reasons. The return of Leng Gnat to our galaxy was no secret, and thus I had to carefully lead some very influential players to believe that I had not hung them out to dry with the mobile Relict laboratory, and all our agreements remained in force. Beyond that, when I said I had been put in charge of recruitment on Earth, I dropped a veiled hint and said I would need a very good instructor. The kind I had in my crew before. And that I did in fact have something to offer that instructor.

  Chapter Eighteen. Duel

  SOME MIGHT SAY I got off easy, but I didn’t think so. I had to shell out bigtime to get my crew out of trouble. Argue, kick up a fuss, lean on my authority, and sometimes also use magic, bribes and promises. Well the Relict, of course, was also a big ace up my sleeve. Everyone was intrigued by Urgeh Pu-Pu Urgeh. They all wanted to see the reborn legend with their own eyes. Without the Relict, I can’t say if I’d have been able to pull it off. As it was I was walking a razors edge, getting away with just a fairly severe fine in the millions although I risked much worse. Taikhirhh-o-Tsykh was famed for its absolute security for guests and total lack of criminality. Fraud just so happened to be a criminal activity, and that was nearly our undoing. But my hard work was finally paying off. I had spent a long time working on my reputation, and now my reputation was working for me. If some unknown Free Captain had come to the law enforcement department to bail out his crew, he’d have been summarily dismissed. But no one could work up the courage to just chase off a prominent Leng, especially one accompanied by a living member the Relict race.

  “Our Relict has become a Gerd!” my business partner Uline Tar told me with pride, as if she had been cranking up the Technician’s Fame herself. “Urgeh-Pu is in the casino now and he’s on a hot streak!”

  “Yeah, the casino owner promised me today would be the Relict’s lucky day — to the tune of seven hundred fifty thousand. That’s his down payment for filming the ad. After that, the Technician will be delivered under guard back to our frigate. Uline, would you get in the pilot’s seat?” I asked the Geckho woman, “my head is just splitting after that long nerve-wracking day. Has our ‘distinguished’ threesome returned to the ship yet?”

  “Yes, captain, all three are already back on the frigate. I have assigned each of them fifteen chores as punishment. I’d rather have them scouring the ship than robbing another casino!”

  I mustered up a smile, then turned to the Chef-Assassin sitting behind me:

  “Amati-Kuis, great job today! You held your own with dignity, just as a Leng’s companion should. You translated everything clearly and confidently. I couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you!”

  The last part I said out loud in Trillian. Yes, the seemingly endless negotiations had been enough to teach me around fifty words. It was quite the easy language to learn, in fact. Much easier than Miyelonian or Geckho. No complicated constructions or grammatical cases. Word order was unambiguous, so there was no need to worry that you might say something that meant the exact opposite of what you intended just because you put the words in the wrong order. My Astrolinguistics skill was up to one hundred
and eight by the close of the never-ending day. My Psionic, Mental Fortitude and Mysticism skills had also been pulled up a decent amount.

  I must admit, I don’t remember flying back to the space port — I dozed off in the shuttle. Uline even had to wake me up. After I heard out the senior Engineer and made certain the repairs were going full swing, I headed off to get some rest. I had barely enough strength to make it to the captain’s berth. I thought I’d get my sleep right in the game, but the clang of cutting metal and shouts of the repair workers were too loud even through the hull, so I opened the menu and selected “Exit Game.”

  I habitually dismissed the suggestion to review my statistics for the session — all that experience and level data only interested me at the very beginning. With time, it stopped seeming quite so informative and significant. I already knew all of my Gnat’s stats by heart, so seeing everything summed up again was pointless. I lifted the virt pod lid and headed to my nearby deluxe apartment on the Kasti-Utsh III station.

  The electronic key didn’t work right away for some reason. At first the denial code lit up a few times, then I saw a message glimmer back from the wall panel: “Occupant identity verified. Attention! The security system detected an unauthorized entry to your room and changed the lock code.”

  Interesting. I wonder who dropped by? Was it Gerd Ayni? Or had Valeri come for a visit? Or maybe someone else wanted to meet with me? I did a quick walkthrough. Oh! This was new — in the middle room on the top of a big white table I found a message written by hand in Miyelonian with dark blue marker:

  “I scolded the special services for their indiscretion and ordered all surveillance gear removed from your apartment. Gerd Lekku checked himself — you’re all clear now. Pretty cute place you’ve got here. Maybe I’ll drop by some time, pay you a visit. Be ready to make that cocktail, the one I love.

  Keetsie.”

  There it is! Not everyone can boast that their residence has been blessed with a visit by one of the most famed rulers of the Miyelonian race. But I didn’t know whether to be happy about that or not. After all, I knew perfectly well what the Great One wanted — the mobile Relict laboratory. However, I was not yet ready to part with it, and I was frankly afraid of how Kung Keetsie-Myau might react if I turned her down.

  THIS TIME I WAS ABLE to get a good night’s rest. Either there was some fancy schmancy “restful sleep” gadget in my bedroom, or ten hours was just enough, but I was actually surprised to find myself fully rested when I woke up. I took a contrast shower, just about scalding my skin off in the process when I tested out the shower setting, “electric pulse fur cleanse.” I went over to the data terminal and ordered a light breakfast delivered to my apartment, then sat back in an armchair in a bath robe with a can of hot invigorating beverage and put on the local news on the big screen.

  There were two main stories: the coming of a living Relict to Trillian space with Free Captain Leng Gnat, and the military decorations given to Miyelonian troopers that had distinguished themselves in the recent military campaign against the Meleyephatian Horde. In the second, I saw Kung Keetsie-Myau constantly flickering past on screen. The commander of the Fourth Fleet personally gave the awards to the most valiant captains and commandos before herself receiving the highest decoration of the Union of Miyelonian Prides from the paws of a different ruler. It consisted of a platinum cocarde in the shape of a tailed comet mounted on a piece of headwear. She got it in honor of her being the most successful fleet commander of the Miyelonian race. Meanwhile, Kung Keetsie was shown so much in every story on every channel that I started to get the sneaking suspicion that Miyelonian society was being gradually prepared for my acquaintance to soon become their sole ruler, having overshadowed all others with her popularity and influence.

  At a certain point, my attention was drawn by a suspicious noise from the hallway. Someone was stamping their feet outside the front door, seemingly even screeching their claws, then jerked at the handle. Was this the food I ordered? I brought up the feed from the door camera on my screen. Well, well! I didn’t even recognize her at first — it was just too out of the ordinary to see Valeri not in an antiradiation space jumpsuit. Instead she was decked out in some fancy long golden dress with a glimmering ornamental collar around the neck.

  I jumped up out of my chair, opened the front door with the remote and hurriedly started grooming myself, using my fingers to smooth out my disheveled and still wet hair, fluff up my robe and quickly kick the empty self-heating can under the couch.

  “Little Sister, come on now, what’s this?!” I pushed the huge Shadow Panther away as she tried to fall on me with affection, nearly knocking me off my feet. “Come in, Valeri. Just give me a minute to get myself into something more presentable.”

  This was the first time I had seen Valeri outside the game and, I must admit, I was struck by the extraterrestrial girl’s beauty, both literally and figuratively unearthly. The Tailaxian’s huge eyes, skillfully underlined with cosmetics, looked three times bigger than normal human ones. Unusual, even somewhat shocking, but still so deliciously fetching! A light tattoo of four wavy lines on the swarthy skin of her left cheek (the symbol of the Great Hunter if memory served) did nothing to detract from this native of a different planet’s uncanny beauty. In fact, more the opposite. Instead of wearing her black hair in a rubber-banded ponytail or waist-length braid as usual, Valeri-Urla had put it up in an intricate style, distantly reminiscent of the one Princess Minn-O wore.

  “Well Minn-O taught me to do it like this,” Valeri said with a smile, demonstrating her ability to read my thoughts and relishing my abashment with clear satisfaction. “By the way, thank you for the compliments! They’re very nice to hear!”

  While I changed clothes in a different room, she looked over the big guest room, walked up to the full-wall panorama window and took in the view of the local star and open space.

  “Nice place you got here...” she said, then gave a happy chuckle. “And looks like, I’m not the first to notice.” Seemingly, Valeri had read the marker scrawling on my table. “Keetsie... Keetsie... Is she the Miyelonian that’s all over the news?”

  “The very same!” I confirmed, already changed into a stylish suit and back out in the main room. “Kung Keetsie-Myau, commander of the Union of Miyelonian Prides’ Fourth Fleet. I just so happen to be on friendly terms with that ruler of the Miyelonian race.”

  “I see just how ‘friendly.’ You apparently even know the Great One’s favorite cocktail. By the way, I wouldn’t mind a drink myself. But that isn’t what I came here for. Gnat, I am deeply indebted to you for getting me out of prison and removing all the implants and implements of control from my body. And so, I challenge you to a mental duel!”

  I smiled, thinking it was a joke or that my guest had misspoken. But no, the alien beauty wasn’t smiling at all and in fact looked supremely serious. Just to be safe, I asked:

  “Wait, wait. There must be something I’m not getting. You’re grateful to me, and so you want to challenge me to a duel? Have I got that right?”

  Valeri-Urla nodded, not taking her enormous hazel eyes off me, then finally tried to explain:

  “Gnat, you have done a great deal for me. You strung along the Prelates of Tailax and leaders of the Horde. You took a risk for me. For my sake, you even did something that was once considered impossible — you devised a way of removing Tailax’s implants. A feat such as that surely merits the most generous of rewards. I spent a long time trying to think of a way to repay you and came to the conclusion that the most precious thing I have to offer is myself. But you see, Gnat, I was born and raised on a wild world, the quarantine planet Zeta Reaper III. And it has its own particular traditions and laws. On top of that, I am the Urla. The Great Huntress, the only one of my entire planet. I serve as an example for the hunters of all villages and so I am obliged to uphold ancient tradition like no one else. Only a man who can prove himself worthy of the Great Huntress may have her. So, prove yourself worthy! Defeat me
in a mental duel! And note that I am not challenging you to an archery or dart throwing competition — those are the skills hunters are most proficient in on my primeval planet. Instead, outdo me in the domain you are proficient in!”

  That cleared things up somewhat. Valeri-Urla hard yet again decided to test me. Just like our first psychic duel back on my old Tolili-Ukh X frigate. Like when she persuaded me to come bathe in the ocean teeming with Naiads. However, the fact she hadn’t even asked if I wanted to be with her came as no surprise. But what if I didn’t?

  Valeri-Urla chuckled, again reading my thoughts with ease:

  “Well, isn’t that exactly what you want? How long have we known each other, Gnat? About two months. How many times have we conversed mentally? And how often have I lent you support psionically? I’ve lost count. Your mental defenses have long since let me through unimpeded because you have very warm feelings toward me and consider me a close friend. So, I have read your intimate thoughts about me many times and know what I’m talking about. But if I am mistaken after all, all you have to do is tell me. I’ll leave your room at once and never pester you with this ever again, either in the game or the real world!”

  I took too long to answer, she turned with dignity and silently headed for the exit. I had to call out to her, and even stopped the already opening doors with telekinesis:

  “Wait a minute, Valeri! I admit, you are not wrong. I really have liked you ever since the first day we met and have dreamt of a woman as fantastic as you. And I agree, tradition must be upheld. And so, if a mental duel is the only way I can have you, let us have a duel!”

  Before I’d even finished talking, Valeri-Urla attacked with no courtesies or warnings of any kind. I doubled over, my body stopped obeying me, my eyes went dark. Woah... I had no way of resisting such a harsh concentrated psychic attack. If at that moment she ordered me to run headfirst into the wall, I would have had no choice but to obey her command. But my mystified and helpless state only lasted for five seconds. Then a sense of spite started bubbling up within me. How could this be??? I was a powerful psionic, not to mention a Leng with heightened Intelligence and magical abilities. How could I not deal with some huntress from a primitive planet?!