by Alex Knight
“Take her down!” Kaiden shouted, gesturing for the remaining turen marksmen to target Esme while he rolled away from a poorly aimed attack from Clarissa. There were only about four turen left though and Esme was still at thirty-one percent health. There was no way they could deal enough damage.
“Eye for an eye,” Esme said and raised her hammer for a killing blow on Zelda.
I need more charge! Kaiden cursed his empty charge bar as he slipped away from Clarissa – she was far from the most pressing threat – and sprinted forward at a normal and painfully slow speed.
Esme’s hammer crackled with energy as it swung downward. Zelda raised a hand as if to block it but there was no way she’d survive the attack.
The hammer came down and connected with a shockwave of force – except, it didn’t hit Zelda. Thorne threw herself in the way at the last moment. Her health bar flashed, then drained to empty. She collapsed to the floor, dead.
Party member killed!
She’d saved Zelda from Esme’s lethal blow, but sacrificed herself in the process. And she hadn’t even hesitated. Kaiden stared for a moment, shocked at what he’d witnessed. Thorne hadn’t had time to calculate the move, to play it as part of her plan. It’d all happened too quickly. She’d just… done it. Just thrown herself in the way and taken the hit.
Just like a proper teammate would have done…
But all for nothing. Kaiden cursed, still trying to close the distance. He couldn’t get there in time.
Ability: Last Rites (Passive)
When the warden reaches 0 health, Last Rites is triggered, allowing the warden 10 seconds to kill all opponents in a 50-foot radius of the point of death. Should they succeed, they will be given 1HP back. If not, they will die. Kills made during this time earn no EXP. No abilities can be used during Last Rites.
Cooldown: 6 hours.
Thorne’s power warden passive activated and she jumped up from the floor alive, but with not even a single percent of health coloring her HP bar.
“Not dead yet,” she growled.
“But about to be,” Esme retorted.
“On the contrary.” Zelda leveled the barrel of her hammer-gun and fired.
Ability: Paralyzing Shot
Fires an electric blast that confuses the electrical impulses in the target’s muscles, deals base damage and slows targets movement by 50% for 10 seconds.
Cost: 30 charge.
Cooldown: 30 seconds.
Esme’s body spasmed as electricity surged through it and Zelda backed out of range. Thorne lunged in with a renewed ferocity. She had no health, but for the next ten seconds, she also couldn’t die.
“Titus, keep Clarissa off us!” Kaiden shouted, then finally reached the fight and started swinging.
The big man had advanced on the opposing shield warden. She was back where the battle had started, the cargo bay door on one side and the airlock to the void on the other. Titus squared off with her.
With no charge to speak of, Kaiden aimed several hammer strikes at the back of Esme’s head.
That got the power warden’s attention – and reduced her health to twenty-three percent.
She spun around with a hammer strike that Kaiden caught on his shield. His charge bar swelled, filling to thirty-five. He aimed another strike, and her reply came in the form of a sweeping blow that connected for critical damage. His health fell to thirty percent.
Thorne attacked Esme from behind with strike after strike. It was the best she could do considering she could use no abilities when Last Rites was active.
Zelda used Lock On, then fired an Improved Burst Arrow at Esme. The attack exploded against her, dealing damage and blinding her for three seconds.
Kaiden dumped what charge he had into one more ability.
Ability: Enfeebling Strike
Loads charge into your hammer. On a successful hit, this charge floods into the target’s nervous system, making them more susceptible to pain. Increases damage taken by target by 50% for 10 seconds.
Cost: 50 charge.
Cooldown: 2 minutes.
Esme cried out as the attack landed, then again as the barrage from Thorne, Zelda, and Kaiden continued. Every one of their attacks was bolstered by Enfeebling Strike and Esme’s health stood no chance against the onslaught. It fell to zero in just a few blows.
Power Warden Esme assisted kill - 3,100 EXP gained!
For a moment, Kaiden thought they were too late. Thorne’s time was up – but no, Esme fell and Thorne stayed standing. She’d completed Last Rites – having killed the only enemy who’d been in range when it’d activated – and was rewarded with a measly one percent of health. Not much, maybe, but enough to keep her alive.
A moment later, though, Kaiden found himself staring down Esme once again as her own Last Rites activated. Luckily, the game’s AI still seemed to count this as a kill for Thorne’s own Last Rites. The ability must be considered an after-death resurrection ability, so the initial kill still applied.
“Get back!” Thorne shouted. “She’s bound to the radius of the ability. Stay out of her range and we’re fine.”
“I got the other one covered,” Titus called from across the hall, exchanging blows with the opposing shield warden. She was trying to make it to Esme, but Titus was the perfect person to keep her occupied.
Ten seconds passed in what felt like ten minutes, but with no abilities Esme’s timer expired and she died again, collapsing to the floor and, this time, staying there.
“One left,” Kaiden said, feeling the battle firmly in hand now as he faced the remaining warden. There was no way they could lose. But if any of them died, they’d still be out of the game for a week.
“How’re we going to do this?” Titus asked, disengaging from where he’d been exchanging hammer strikes with Clarissa. At level thirty-nine, she was the strongest of those who’d boarded, and considering Kaiden had told everyone to stop hitting her in order to not fuel Shield Link, she was still comfortably in the orange on health. Sitting pretty at sixty percent.
All the same, she knew she was outnumbered. Seeming panicked, she backed up. The door to the cargo bay was on one side of her; on the other side, a pressure-sealed door led to an external airlock.
We can work with that, Kaiden thought.
“Titus, hit her with a Shield Charge!” he shouted.
Ability: Improved Shield Charge
Charge at double your speed for 5 seconds. Direct impacts deal 100% of base damage.
Cost: 40 charge.
Cooldown: 2 minutes.
Energy surged into Titus’ legs, then engulfed him entirely. He shot forward in a blur and Clarissa just had enough time to raise her shield.
“Open the airlock, Acton!” Kaiden said.
“With pleasure.”
The door hissed open just as Titus slammed into Clarissa. Kaiden saw her eyes widen, then she was thrown backward and out of the airlock and into space.
No assisted kill notification came in; her suit was pressurized and, like all warden suits, had its own short-term air supply. But they didn’t need to kill her. This was close enough.
“Nice shot,” Kaiden said, nodding toward Titus.
“Thanks for the layup,” he said.
With the last of the boarders repelled, Kaiden let out a long breath, then slumped against the wall. Was it possible to feel physical exhaustion in a video game?
“Shall I have the pilot bring us around and finish off the last of our guests?” Acton asked through comms. “She’ll be no match for our turrets.”
“No,” Zelda said. “It’s more important we escape the corvette. Is it still following us?”
“We left it behind some time ago,” Acton replied. “Ramming it worked out pretty well, all things considered.”
Thorne flashed a smile at that.
“Looks like we don’t make that bad of a team,” she said, and at that moment, Kaiden couldn’t say he disagreed.
Chapter Fourteen
“You s
hould eat,” Thorne said, nodding to Kaiden’s mostly untouched bowl of soup in between slurps from her own near-empty one. “You need to keep your energy up and your mind sharp.”
“I don’t know whether I should be more worried by the fact this soup-gel doesn’t have an expiration date or the fact that it almost tastes edible,” Kaiden said, slurping cautiously at his spoon.
“It’s supposed to be a gel, really. You just squeeze it into your mouth. But seeing as we have a kitchen, I added a bit of salt, a little bit of broth, and heated it all up.”
“To make a semi-soup, semi-gel abomination?” Kaiden said.
Thorne had pillaged a ton of the stuff from abandoned military reserves after the chaos of the Test. Each tube provided all the daily vitamins and nutrients a body needed. It was an extremely efficient way to eat. Furthermore, it was well documented that a hot meal was good for morale. Nutrients and a morale boost; what more could one ask for from food? Thorne frowned as her guests continued to make a fuss about the soup – particularly its taste, as if that was at all important.
“The good news is there’s enough of this stuff in the cupboard to last us for years,” Zelda said, only half paying attention to the conversation. She was on her handheld console, searching through the database as always.
Kaiden laughed. “That’s also the bad news.”
A looming shape filled up the entirety of the hallway as Titus emerged from the bathroom, drying his head with a towel.
“We complaining about the gel meals again? They’re not so bad, eh?”
He tossed the damp towel on the back of one of the dining room chairs as he passed.
“Hey, hey!” Thorne snapped her fingers at it.
Titus groaned and rolled his eyes, but moved the towel to the heated drying rack.
“I know we live in a swamp bunker, but there’s no reason it has to look like it,” Thorne said, hoping if she repeated it enough one day the big man would stop needing to be reminded. Though they’d likely overthrow the Party – or be captured by them – before that ever happened. “The dehumidifier has enough trouble keeping this place dry without damp towels lying around and itching to get mildewy.”
“Yes, Mom,” Titus grumbled, then shuffled off to the kitchen to get his own portion of gel-soup.
Kaiden slurped another noisy mouthful, then checked his handheld console.
“Acton should still have the ship on course toward Maximus’ guild base, but if we’re online in the next thirty minutes we’ll be able to pick up missions when he stops to refuel.”
“I’ll be ready,” Thorne said, then raised her bowl to her lips and sucked down the remains of the gel-soup, broth and all. “Mmhmm,” she said, trying to sound satisfied. “Invigorating.”
Kaiden shuddered.
“Huh, this is ominous,” Zelda said, pausing with her spoon halfway to her mouth. “‘Operation Killswitch,’” she said, reading from the database. “‘The latest attempt in the Party’s ongoing struggle to leverage control over Nova Online.’”
“That sounds bad,” Kaiden said.
Zelda set down her spoon and looked up at everyone.
“Bernstein’s mentioned in here several times that the Party has had its sights set on bringing Nova into its jurisdiction for some time. NextGen Games has always been too internationally and politically well positioned, though. Not to mention filthy rich.”
“Nova has always been something of a thorn in the Party’s side,” Thorne agreed. “The creation of the warden program was meant to ease that pain point. And it has, but not entirely. As you’ve seen, wardens can only do so much. They’re restricted to operating – mostly – within the limits of Nova. Within the limits of what NextGen says is okay.”
“Something tells me that doesn’t sit well with the Party,” Titus said, dropping into a chair with a steaming bowl of soup.
Thorne shrugged. “Not in the slightest, but what can they do?”
“Operation Killswitch, apparently,” Zelda said, but shook her head. “There’s no more information on it, though. Just another dead link in the database.” She sighed. “I really wish Bernstein had been able to finish this thing.”
Thorne bit her tongue for a moment, then figured what the heck. You won’t know if you don’t ask.
“Can I look through the database?” She asked it simply, as if it wasn’t anything special, but still the question hung in the air. She knew – or at least hoped – she’d been gaining trust with the trio, but it was slow going. They’d let her hear Bernstein’s message, but aside from that, all her knowledge of the database came from them. She’d never gone through it on her own. Technically, Zelda was going to make a copy of it for Dawson, so Thorne knew she’d have a chance to look through it before delivering it for him to find. That felt deceitful, though. If she was going to make any meaningful progress here, she needed to be forthright.
“I know you still don’t fully trust me,” she said. “But I’ve worked for the Party for years.”
“Exactly why we don’t trust you,” Titus said.
“Right, but it can also be an asset. How much information in there is missing pieces? How much of it might I be able to add to because of my time with the Party? Bernstein’s seen everything from the outside. Combine that with my knowledge from the inside and we can have a more complete database.” Thorne paused, then bit her lip.
That’s half the reason, at least.
“And…” she said, then sucked in a breath. “And, I need to know the extent of the Party’s crimes. The extent to which I’ve been complicit in them. How much have I unwittingly helped them? I’ve always served to help the people. Has anything I’ve accomplished ever done that, or has it all been to prop up a tyrannical oligarchy? How much of—”
“Yes,” Kaiden said.
Thorne stopped. Frowned.
“All those reasons are good. Sensible,” he said. “But the heart of the matter is, well…” He trailed off, then looked up with confidence in his gaze. “I trust you. We trust you.”
“We do?” Titus asked, looking up from his soup with surprise. “News to me.”
Kaiden shook his head.
“The circumstances are strange, I’ll give you that. Thorne was our enemy. But things have changed. Just look at our last fight. Without her we would’ve been slaughtered. But Thorne fought her own past allies – and to great effect, as well. She took a massive beating keeping Esme distracted while we focused on their blast warden. That was a turning point in the fight.”
“And she stopped what surely would have been a lethal blow on me,” Zelda said, reluctant but nodding along.
“Without hesitation,” Kaiden added. “There was no thought in it. No planning, no plotting. You just… did it,” he said, looking right at Thorne now. “That was instinct.”
“She knew she had Last Rites,” Titus argued, arms firmly crossed.
“I don’t think that changes anything,” Kaiden said, undeterred. “Look, we can’t keep living in this limbo of suspicion. We’re all a team, and we need to start working like one. Anything less means we’re holding ourselves back, and if we’re going to do this – if we’re going to try to bring down the Party – we can’t hold anything back. We don’t have time to doubt each other.”
Thorne tried to hold back a smile.
Don’t gloat. Don’t look too pleased, she reminded herself. But this was exactly what she’d been thinking for so long now. Exactly what she’d wanted to say, but there was no way they would have accepted it from her. No, it had to come from someone else. That it was coming from Kaiden was all the better.
Titus still looked troubled at the idea.
“She worked for the Party, man,” he said.
Kaiden nodded.
“And you for King Street. And Zelda for Bernstein. And me for... well, no one important, I guess. But the point is we’re all on the same team now.”
“If we let the past hold us back, we compromise the future,” Zelda said suddenly and with a curt
nod. She looked over to Thorne with a serious expression. “Bernstein would never have turned away a potential ally. But it’s more than that. You’ve had every chance to betray us, and yet you haven’t.” She paused a long moment, then nodded again as if confirming something to herself.
“I trust you,” she said finally, then slid the database across the table.
Chapter Fifteen
“Buh bye,” Titus said, his voice crackling and staticky as it came through comms. A moment later, Kaiden was forced to look away as a burst of fire from Titus’ turret erased the last pirate fighter in a blossoming explosion of debris.
Pirates killed: 40/40
Quest Complete: Purging the Pirate Problem
Reward: 8,000 EXP, 2,000 credits
“Nice! The scenic route might take longer, but it’s a lot more fun,” Titus said.
“Not sure how much fun has to do with it,” Kaiden said, turning off his turret and letting it whisk him back inside the Veritas II. “We have to keep hammering out these missions if we want to be high enough level to have any chance at taking Warden HQ.” All the same, though, he had to admit their progress had been good. The quests were basic, maybe, but they paid in EXP and that was what counted. They’d each leveled once already to thirty-four and were on the verge of tipping into thirty-five. Thorne had leveled from the fight with the wardens, which had put her at thirty-five. Their recent grinding had her all the way up to thirty-six.
“This isn’t a sight-seeing trip,” Zelda said from the cockpit. “It’s strategic. The major shipping lanes would be faster, but there’s too much warden traffic on them. They’ve doubled, maybe even tripled the number of patrols. Us taking down that corvette didn’t exactly go over well.”
That was putting it mildly. Their faction prestige with the Warden Corps, which had already been a whopping negative 151, had dropped even further to negative 180. And then there were the broadcasts. The Warden Corps had been putting them out at least once a day since their failed attempt to board the Veritas II. Kaiden pulled up a screenshot of the latest one.