A Check for a Billion

by Vasily Mahanenko

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “Sounds too good to be true.”

  Instead of answering, Eunice whistled the engineer over and handed her the device. The snake coiled around the girl, installing the device on her armor suit ‘on the fly.’

  “Fancy an upgrade, Cap’n? It’s a pity to see you waddling around in the old garb.” The snake’s wry face turned in my direction. “It’s not such a pleasant procedure what with your scrawny little body still inside the armor suit, but it will come in handy. This device integrates with the body instead of the suit.”

  “Sure thing — unless you smother my wife with all your experiments,” I mumbled, watching Eunice’s vital signs on my screen. Her respiration and pulse increased, as did her blood pressure, but she patiently waited for the snake to finish the procedure. I turned on the camera inside the armor suit and started. “What are you doing to her?!”

  There was something to worry about. Eunice’s face had flushed red, she was biting her lip, and only the perspiration on her forehead indicated the pain that my girl was suffering.

  “I am implanting three capacitors with inactive elo into her arm. When she is hit by an EM blast, her body will activate them in sequence and they will reset the armor suit.”

  “And what will happen to her if she is hit by an EM blast when she’s not wearing her armor suit?” I asked just in case.

  “Erm…I don’t know…I guess it might tear her apart…Say Cap’n, I believe I haven’t thought this through. Give me a couple of days, and I’ll figure out how to discharge the capacitors when there’s no armor suit.”

  “The hell are you talking about, you dumb piece of scrap?” Now Eunice grew alarmed as well. “Why didn’t you tell me anything earlier?!”

  I could understand her anger. And I couldn’t help but rejoice inwardly that the implant procedure would be postponed. Considering that women have a higher pain threshold than men, I doubt I’d have been able to last as long as Eunice without uttering so much as a whimper.

  “You never asked.” The engineer’s three eyes flapped in bewilderment.

  “Take this junk out of me now!” my wife pressed.

  “She’s right, snake,” I added. “Abort the procedure, take out the implants, iron out the bugs and we can try again later.”

  “Well, you see, the thing is…” stammered the snake. “Cap’n, it’s impossible to remove the capacitors now…they’re already in her. For good. They’ll even be there if she suffers rebirth.”

  “Why you thick headed garden hose!” Eunice lost what remained of her temper and tried to kick the snake. Bemoaning her misunderstood genius, the snake once again wrapped herself around the girl and removed the inactive powercells. The capacitors remained in my wife’s forearm, but a random EM burst would no longer turn Eunice into a loot crate.

  “You really thought that the pirates would give you something of value?” I asked the upset girl, as soon as the snake went off on her other business.

  “It’s fine. Eine will take everything off our hands anyway,” Eunice avoided answering my question directly. “The items are unique, so the German will surely bite. Meanwhile, check these out!”

  My wife poured a whole heap of precious stones onto the table. Topaz, emeralds, sapphires and even diamonds. They were beautiful, faceted, and the size of walnuts. I watched Eunice roll the stones in her palms, and their shine was beautifully reflected in her eyes. Of course, I didn’t say out loud that gems are absolutely useless to us now, though I did mentally calculate how many potential credits Eunice has sunk into these pointless stones. The problem was that players had no use for gems in Galactogon and so never bought them. There were locals that might be interested, but they were so wealthy that we didn’t know any. This would be another issue to deal with later.

  “Brainiac, let’s go home. We need to restore our homeworld binding.” I sighed and changed topics, turning to Eunice. “You will get your chance to go toe to toe with Eine, but in a little bit.”

  Frankly, I really wanted to watch Eunice and Eine haggle. I’d even have to make sure and microwave some popcorn for the occasion.

  An hour later, having made a short stop on Blood Island and unloaded our cargo holds — including the Anorxian prince and the still-slumbering Zatrathi warrior — we found ourselves on board our ship, staring at one of the most mysterious objects not only of Galactogon but the entire universe, whether meatspace or virtual. A black hole in all its glory. Brainiac adjusted his jump coordinates to ensure that we emerged some distance from the indicated point. And yet even at this considerable distance, the force of gravity was incredible. We had to constantly maintain 30% thrust, just to remain in one spot!

  “It’s both beautiful and terrible. The blood in my veins is ice cold,” Eunice said, spellbound and unable to look away from the view before us.

  The absolutely black center was surrounded by rings of burning plasma and rocks that glowed red. As we watched, one of the asteroids was pulled into the hole — thinning out to a thread that then looped around the black hole like around a spindle. The flattened stone slowed down, then at some point stopped and disappeared. The asteroid had crossed the event horizon.

  “Cap’n, we’re not alone here.” Brainiac’s warning interrupted the solemn sight. “The Zatrathi are here!”

  Four cruisers, each one looking like some deadly virion, emerged from the other side of the black hole. The ships moved slowly in medium orbit, paying no attention to us. I wasn’t going to get involved in a battle with four enemies at once. It would be far too risky. After making sure that the Zatrathi really were disinterested in us, I opened the throttle and put some burning plasma between us.

  “They are studying the black hole,” the engineer concluded after analyzing the cruisers’ behavior. “They seem to be sending drones into it, which transmit a signal until they are pulled inside. We have managed to intercept the signal. It contains ordinary telemetry: pressure, temperature, energy flow. Cap’n, why are they interested in this?”

  A question with an asterisk. I could only shrug. Who knows what these aliens have in mind?

  Suddenly Eunice leaned forward and ordered:

  “Brainiac, send the following message on the open channel. Send it in both Uldan and Zatrathi: ‘Explain the purpose of your visit. Otherwise, I will attack!’”

  “What are you doing?! What do you mean you’ll attack them?” I turned to my wife. She had sufficient permissions for the ship computer to obediently execute her order.

  “Lex, they’re closer to the black hole than we are. The gravitational forces are so immense there that any equipment they have must be going nuts. What if their brainwashing helmets don’t work so well out here?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but a Zatrathi voice interrupted me:

  “Our cruisers are not controlled by the queen. I repeat our cruisers are not subject to the queen’s influence. Please do not attack. We are studying the interference with the queen’s signal. Please do not attack. The Zatrathi are not enemies of Galactogon.”

  Checkmate, Pirate Surgeon. What are you going to say now? Hah! I always have an option for such a case:

  “To confirm your peaceful mission, send us the coordinates of the Zatrathi homeplanet.”

  “We do not know them. The Regal Relay we have onboard is hibernating.”

  I was already rubbing my hands in anticipation of this chance to dig around a Zatrathi ship, when my plans were rudely interrupted.

  “I am picking up a hyperdrive disruptor beam. Captain, we have guests — and mean ones this time!”

  The Zatrathi flying fortress appeared so far away that I couldn’t tell it from the surrounding stars. The Zatrathi aboard the cruisers also began to worry. This was evident from how their ships began to hastily turn around and hide themselves behind the black hole. Brainiac didn’t think much of their plan:

  “There’s another flying fortress there. And likely more. I am counting nine enemy ships. They are arranged in a sphere formatio
n. We are surrounded. I am detecting 1,500 torpedo launches. Their speed is 50% of our max and growing. Their target…they are not aimed at us. They are attacking their own ships! What are your orders, Captain?”

  “Human! Save the child! It is clean and has no binding. The queen wants to destroy it! You know that we are innocent.”

  Title enhanced: Devil’s Advocate. You have a chance to obtain evidence that the Zatrathi are an enslaved race. If you accept the child, the Zatrathi that have arrived will attack you. If you ignore the offer, their flying fortresses will depart without causing you harm. In that case, you will lose the title of Devil’s Advocate.

  Those bastards!

  “Lex, remember the check!” Eunice reminded me just in case, as if I wasn’t thinking of it already.

  “What’s the torpedoes’ time to contact?” I wanted to delay my decision as much as possible, yet Brainiac didn’t offer much solace:

  “Sixty seconds!”

  “The title gives us nothing. In fact, it might even harm us,” Eunice went on plying her line. She has already made her decision.

  I looked over at the Zatrathi cruisers one more time. If I only knew why we had been brought here. If there was something here, then the black hole would have crushed it long ago. And anyway, I didn’t believe for a second that the Zatrathi were here by coincidence. There were simply too many coincidences occurring at one point in space and time. Without a doubt, the enemy was here to force us into a decision: Find the prize check or participate in the scenario. But was this even a choice? What if there really was no choice at all? What if this ‘child,’ whatever it was, is the only being who knew the coordinates of the Zatrathi homeworld?

  “Thirty seconds until contact,” Brainiac pushed me to make up my mind.

  “Lex, have you considered it thoroughly?” Eunice asked me in an icy tone as I placed my hand on the orbship’s projection.

  “There is nothing to think about, Eunice. This is just a test. Brainiac, transmit the following message: ‘I am ready to accept the child. Where shall we rendezvous?’”

  “Thank you, human! Take it and save it. The fate of the Zatrathi race lies in your hands.”

  One of the cruisers catapulted a fighter in my direction — mere seconds before fifteen hundred deadly missiles turned the renegades’ cruisers into empty husks. The Zatrathi did not even try to take evasive maneuvers. The black hole greedily welcomed the new mass.

  “Catch it, Brainiac,” I ordered. Our tractor beam easily locked onto the fighter and pulled it toward us. The flying fortresses meanwhile had not yet aggroed us. They were waiting. I grew anxious once again. All I had to do was launch this fighter into the black hole and they would leave us alone. Then I would get a chance to study this location at my leisure. What if I’m wrong? What if this is a test to see what we’re willing to do for a billion real credits? Are we prepared to oppose all of Galactogon? If the empires discover that we refused to help the Zatrathi renegades, the pirates will be our only refuge. No one will ever work with us. I shook my head, driving away these thoughts. This is a weakness, unworthy of a professional gamer. The coincidences are no accident and the renegades were here to help us with our quest. I had no doubt about that.

  “Bring it in!” My own voice sounded like a stranger’s to me. The gunner lasered off the awkward spires and the fighter’s fuselage was pulled into our cargo bay.

  “Warning! I am detecting two thousand torpedoes inbound. Their speed is 50% of our max. They are locking onto us. Sixty seconds until impact.”

  “Brainiac, set course for Belket,” I ordered, watching the emptied fighter tumble away from us into space.

  “Captain, we can’t leave. We need to be further away from the black hole’s gravity well. It is interfering with our hyperdrive. Attention! The flying fortresses are firing their main cannons at us! Taking evasive maneuvers!”

  Three flying fortresses at once erupted with enormous blasts of plasma — we were positioned between them, basically in the palms of their hands. This is the last thing I needed! Avoiding both torpedoes and the capital ship cannons is risky business. Sooner or later, our agility would fail us. The orbship meanwhile zoomed to portside and down, yet it was like the Zatrathi were waiting for just this. Their other ships opened fire, forcing us to repeat the maneuver and think only about how to survive. There wasn’t even a thought of escape.

  “Two and a half thousand torpedoes detected. Captain, the flying fortresses are coming closer. They are tightening the noose! Plasma beams incoming! Taking evasive maneuvers!”

  To avoid the fate of the destroyed cruisers, the flying fortresses drove hundreds of fighters ahead of them. We dodged another salvo of fire and encountered a terrible sight: The fighters stopped as they came close to the black hole — it was as if they had stumbled upon an invisible barrier. The flying fortress following immediately behind them lit up with its point defense cannons — but this wasn’t meant for us. The Zatrathi captain had ruthlessly ordered the destruction of the fighters, whose pilots had slipped out of the queen’s mind control. Now having established the precise boundary of the black hole’s effect on the mind-control helmets, the Zatrathi fortresses stopped, peppering us with torpedoes and plasma from a distance. Dodging it all grew harder, and Brainiac sounded as if he was on the verge of tears. All his attention was focused on finding some gap to slip between the deadly fire, all the while grappling with the black hole’s monstrous gravity.

  “Fly us closer to the event horizon. Let the black hole deal with the torpedoes,” I suggested. “How is the child? What is it even?”

  “Cap’n, I’m not sure I could explain that to you quickly enough.” The snake’s head popped out in the bridge deck. “I think I had better just show you. Here. This is ‘the child.’”

  A small transparent container, resembling a fishbowl, appeared in the engineer’s hands. Instead of water, it was filled with a pinkish liquid — and instead of a fish, it contained a brainworm. The brainworm was busy using its tiny appendages to stuff itself full of pieces of stuff that floated in the liquid. The ‘child’ turned out to be a Relay that had no binding to the Zatrathi queen.

  “There’s countdown timer here,” the snake pointed to a control panel attached to the bottom of the fishbowl. “I guess maybe when it expires, this thing will hatch.”

  “I don’t imagine this thing came with a manual, did it?” I asked, knowing the answer perfectly well. If we didn’t find a host for this ‘child’ before the timer ran out, it would no doubt die. And the only host fit for this brainworm was a live Uldan, who were pretty scarce in the galaxy these days. This was a conundrum to put it mildly…

  Warlock began to shake and I directed my attention back to the screens.

  “Captain, we won’t last long out here,” Brainiac warned. “We have enough fuel for two hours, no more.”

  The black hole was close enough to touch. Our engines burned at eighty percent throttle just to keep us from further falling into the cosmic abyss, and Brainiac was using the remaining twenty percent of power to maintain our trajectory. On the other hand, the torpedoes were no longer a problem. The missiles’ electronics could not withstand the effects of the anomaly, causing them to initiate self-destruct. As a result, the space around us was lighting up with beautiful balls of fire. Only the immense plasma charged fired from the fortresses’ main cannons threatened us, but our twenty percent of available throttle was enough to avoid their trajectories.

  I turned on a 3D map of the sector and traced a line between two flying fortresses with my finger:

  “Brainiac, as soon as they shoot another round, fly us at full speed along this line. It’s time for us to get out of here.”

  “Wait! Lex, we can’t leave!” Eunice objected. “We need to solve the mystery of the coordinates.”

  “There is no mystery here,” I snapped. “There’s only that damn black hole!”

  “In that case, the time has come to take a risk. Brainiac — fly along this course.” />
  Eunice drew a short line that plunged us straight into the center of the black hole.

  “Captain?” the ship computer asked anxiously. “Is she serious? Let’s just blow ourselves up. For one, it won’t hurt as much.”

  I encountered my wife’s determined look.

  “We’ll be crushed,” I reasoned.

  “You don’t know that. No one has flown here before. What if the black hole is the key? Why is everyone so afraid of it?”

  “Because it’s certain death. Without the possibility of rebirth. Are you ready to risk everything?” I reiterated what everyone else seemed to know.

  “Meeting Mercaloun was also certain death. Flying at a flying fortress is death squared. Why should it be different here?”