by Alex Knight
She was high above the maze now and could look out across its entirety. From such a height it was easy to see the exit – and the Angler Worm guarding it.
She charged toward it, sprinting along the top of the exterior wall as the camera drone zipped along beside her. Kaiden got a good view of her face. Focused. Determined. And maybe, if only a little bit, smiling.
As Zelda approached, the worm gave a great heave and stretched up as tall as it could. It rose above the wall, blotting out the sun for a moment, its millions of legs splayed out and ready to fall. And fall they did, in a rain of stabbing limbs and crushing weight.
But Zelda wasn’t there.
Her eighteen percent health was enough for one last trick. A trick she’d used earlier, but that worked just as well here.
She launched off the wall, flinging herself diagonally over the trench and toward the bridge. As she did, she detonated an Improved Kinetic Grenade at her feet. The concussive blast washed over her and carried her over the empty expanse. She plummeted, then crashed down on to the bridge. Her health flashed down into the red as momentum forced her into a roll.
Finally, she came to a stop just beyond the edge of the bridge, the flag beside her on the ground, and the labyrinth behind her, defeated.
Chapter Fifty
“Zelda! You absolutely brilliant maniac!” Kaiden couldn’t stop himself from shouting as he ran out of the broadcast room to where she’d landed just beyond the bridge.
She got to her feet, wiping dirt and grachnid blood and who knew what else from her armor, but she was smiling.
“Well, not all exactly to plan, but I suppose it worked out—"
Kaiden hit her at a sprint and wrapped her in a hug. Hadn’t even planned to do it, wasn’t thinking properly, really.
She stumbled back, surprised but just managing to stay on her feet.
“That was incredible! I mean, the way you trapped the dilopoad in the hedge. And then the… oh.” Kaiden realized he was hugging her. “Uh, ah. My ba—”
“That. Was. Insane!”
Titus hit them both from behind with a tackle hug that sent them all tumbling to the ground. The big man only laughed the louder for it. “I thought that worm had you for sure. I mean, that thing was massive!”
As he spoke, Kaiden looked up to find said worm was still lingering at the edge of the labyrinth and eying them with a look that went beyond malice. It wouldn’t cross the trench and come after them, right? It’s probably not allowed to leave the labyrinth…
Kaiden didn’t hang around to find out. He helped Zelda up, then led her and the big man back inside. Thorne was waiting for them, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed.
“Not bad, kid.” She gave Zelda a nod. “Pretty damned impressive, if I’m being honest.”
Zelda blushed at the compliment, seeming not to know what to do with all the praise.
“Just doing my part,” she said. “Group effort and all.”
Titus slapped her on the back.
“Group effort nothing. That was all you.”
“You guys helped,” Zelda said. “I couldn’t have done it otherwise.”
“I could be wrong, but something tells me you’d have found a way,” Kaiden said, then looked up to find Odditor waiting for them. His arms were crossed and there was a lopsided smirk on his face.
“I believe this is yours?” Zelda held out the flag. Whenstone stepped up and took it.
“The antes, please,” Odditor said, holding out a hand.
Whenstone produced them. A tiny brass padlock – the piece of Bernstein’s database – and a folded piece of paper – the visual representation of the login details and security questions for Zelda’s account. Odditor closed his hand around them and in one smooth movement tossed them over to Zelda. Knowing Odditor, he’d probably hoped she’d snatch them out of the air dramatically. Instead she looked too shocked to move and the padlock bounced off her armor while the paper floated to the ground.
Kaiden dove down to grab the antes.
“You know, somehow I didn’t think you’d actually give them up,” Zelda finally said, her eyes wide as she watched Kaiden straighten, the padlock and paper in hand.
Odditor laughed at that. A laugh from deep in his stomach that set his whole frame to shaking. When he’d finished, he wiped what Kaiden was sure was an imaginary tear from the corner of his eye and smirked.
I don’t like the look of that, Kaiden thought to himself, then began preparing his arguments. Zelda had beaten the labyrinth, but all Odditor had promised them for it was the antes and a conversation. He hadn’t agreed to pledge his support. No. They still needed to win him over, and that was going to take foolproof logic and sound arguments. Except, was it? What sort of argument persuaded Odditor? The dude wasn’t exactly like everyone else.
Kaiden paused at that thought.
How do we do this? I guess just give it our best. Convince him of the worthiness of the cause.
Kaiden sucked down a breath, then began.
“Odditor, now that we’ve won your attention, if you just hear us out I’m sure you’ll see the worthi—”
“Oh, do, do be quiet. I don’t need your arguments, and more so, I never wanted them.” Odditor cut him off. “What I needed was to know, to know you meant business. You see, Bernstein always talked of fixing things. Of fixing the world beyond Nova. A noble cause, I have to admit.” He paused dramatically, drawing out the moment. Letting them hang on his every word and imagine what he was going to say next. “And one I happen, happen to agree with. The problem is, saying one thing and being prepared to do it are entirely different matters. You all say you want to take up Bernstein’s cause. That’s, that’s easy to say. What I wanted to see, what I needed to see, was that you were willing to make the necessary sacrifices. That you were, were willing to do whatever it takes to succeed in this little... endeavor.”
“This was a test?” Zelda asked “You had me risk everything on a test?”
“It wouldn’t have been a very good test if nothing was at stake,” Odditor said, and now he looked all too pleased with himself. “And the good news is, you passed. Beat my labyrinth too, which, truly, that’s… that’s something. Not even Bernstein managed that.” Odditor paused for a moment, thinking. “You know, I’m sure my labyrinth is already itching for a rematch. Maybe you’ll give it another go sometime, once this whole thing is over?” Zelda’s expression provided a clear enough answer to that question. Odditor frowned, as if pouting, but kept speaking. “We’ll discuss that later. For now, though, you have proven, proven your commitment. Bernstein was my preferred partner in this undertaking, but you four…” He looked at each of them in turn. “Well, you’ll do, I suppose.”
Well, isn’t that flattering? Thanks.
Odditor gestured to Whenstone. “Give them the terms.”
The big turenoid cleared his throat – which did nothing to make his deep, coarse voice any easier to understand – and began to speak.
“Odditor stands ready to bring the full might of his forces in Nova Online to bear in support of your cause. I have prepared a document listing in detail the size and strength of these forces. Rest assured, they include no less than one dreadnought, eight large player-staffed guilds, three NPC factions, and, of course, the menagerie.” As if on cue, several screeches and growls erupted from the now-still labyrinth in front of them.
Holy crap. Eight guilds? Three entire NPC factions? That was... an insane amount of strength for one man to control. And now it was available to support their attack? Kaiden could barely process the information. Maximus had been one thing, but this? This was so much more.
Whenstone continued with the terms as dryly as he might read the instructions to assemble a cabinet.
“A minimum period of twenty-four hours will be required to muster these forces. They will, of course, only accept orders from Odditor. All commands to them must be relayed to him and vetted first. If he agrees with the orders, then they will be passed a
long. Which brings me to the final and most pivotal point of these terms.” Whenstone set his gaze on Kaiden and let it linger there a while, conveying the severity of what he was going to say next.
“Odditor and his forces will only move against the Warden Corps – and by extension, the Party – when a viable plan is in place. He has no interest in a prolonged conflict. Rather, if a blow is to be struck, it must be intelligent, precise, and final. His forces will not be mobilized for anything less than complete victory.”
Silence followed the terms, but Kaiden knew there was no way they wouldn’t accept them. Odditor had an army and they were going to put it to use. His mind reeled with the potential. An attack on Warden HQ wasn’t a pipe dream any longer. With this force and Maximus’, it might actually be possible. He hadn’t run the numbers, would need to discuss with Thorne, but they had to be close in strength, right? Enough to match the forces the Warden Corps kept at their headquarters.
But, with the terms Odditor had laid out, that wasn’t enough, was it? He wouldn’t mobilize unless victory was assured. What exactly did that mean? They couldn’t use his army unless they had an overwhelming advantage? The thought gave Kaiden pause, tempered the joy he’d been feeling at the sudden turn of events. He’d need to discuss with the others, figure out their next step, and what exactly Odditor would need to be convinced to put his army into action.
“This is all great,” Titus said, breaking the silence, “but I’m still confused on something.” He looked at Odditor quizzically. “If you needed to know that we were committed to taking down the Party, why make Zelda run the labyrinth? I mean, I understand making us ante up, but didn’t that already prove our commitment? Why have Zelda still run the labyrinth and risk dying?”
Odditor waited a good long moment to answer, then smiled.
“Because it was, ah… fun.”
Chapter Fifty-One
The humming of the medbay had faded to an almost pleasant drone of white noise. In reality, it was helping Kaiden think – something he very much appreciated, considering how insane everything had been since the revelation of Odditor’s support for their cause.
Since then it’d been all grinding and planning, grinding and planning. They had to level up as much as they could and figure out how in the world they were going to take down Warden HQ.
The last quest had been a tough one. Odditor had pointed them to the dilopoad home world and a chain quest there that had been – well, considering all of the dilopoads spat venom, rather messy. The EXP had been good but Kaiden had nearly left the boss fight with a week’s vacation. He had taken a direct hit from the monstrous frog creature’s Acid Spray and found the regen debuff from the higher level venom simply wouldn’t go away. He’d needed to return to the medbay of the Veritas II to heal and remove the persistent status effect. The others hadn’t waited up, pushing ahead to finish off a side quest.
Instead of questing, Kaiden had originally put forth the idea of grinding against Odditor’s menagerie. The man had a seemingly unlimited supply of monsters for them to fight, so it made sense – a sort of miniature version of the Grinder. Kaiden hadn’t counted on the fact that Odditor was thoroughly in love with his collection of monsters, so that idea hadn’t really gone over well. And there was the minor issue that Zelda had appeared on Odditor’s stream, so the Warden Corps was sure to show up at Odditor’s base sooner or later looking for her. So, here they were instead, grinding missions in a hopefully backwater-enough sector to avoid notice. Everyone had picked up a few levels, but seeing as they were all above level fifty now it was slow going. The endgame wasn’t designed to be rushed through, but time was a luxury they didn’t really have.
“Watch your back!” Zelda shouted through comms. Kaiden could hear the sounds of laser fire and the piercing squeal of a dilopoad.
“Got it, thanks,” Titus answered back.
Comms made it sound like they were right next to him, but they were actually quite distant, Ellenton having flown them down to the planet’s surface and their mission while the Veritas II waited in orbit. Kaiden turned the volume down a bit. Not so much that he couldn’t hear everyone, but enough that the constant battle callouts wouldn’t interrupt his focus.
“All right, then,” he said aloud, though he was alone in the room. Just him and the buzzing of the machines healing him back to full. “Let’s figure out this puzzle, yeah?”
And puzzle really was the word for it. Warden HQ was a tough egg to crack. Thorne had told them so weeks ago, before they’d set out on this mad adventure, but back then there’d been so much to take care of before making an assault that he’d mentally put off considering how exactly to go about it. Now, though, they’d made enough progress that he was starting to realize just how daunting the task ahead was.
Warden HQ was located on the asteroid Custos, which circled the known universe on a fixed orbit. Not exactly the most realistic orbital mechanics, but in the end, Nova was a game and sometimes the ‘Rule of Cool’ displaced realism. Cool orbit or not, Custos was the site of Warden HQ and it was fortified as expected, which was to say: exceptionally well.
Thorne had shared 3D renderings of the base with everyone and Kaiden pulled one up now. It hovered in the air in front of him, the image only interrupted when the ring of the medbed passed through it, its white light still healing his wounds.
The heart of Warden HQ – and most of the infrastructure, really – was deep inside of Custos, protected by the rock. He gazed at the projection of the slowly spinning asteroid in front of him, wishing he could see down beneath the surface. Scans of the tunnels there were locked down so tight not even Thorne had access to them, but scans or no, it was safe to say the whole facility had been designed to repel intruders. After all, the heart of Warden HQ was its command center, and next door to it, the control room for the AFBS – their target. Fighting through to that room was going to be costly personnel-wise and take a herculean effort. But he was getting ahead of himself.
Kaiden turned his attention back to Custos’ surface, back to what he could see.
Reinforced guard towers were visible first, with machine-gun nests built into them – positioned to provide overlapping fields of fire at any approach to the facility. Then came the armored hangars set into the rock with large anti-air batteries situated around them. While most of the Warden Corps’ ships were on patrol at any given time, Thorne had assured everyone that a considerable force was always held in reserve on Custos. Looking closer at the surface, Kaiden could make out bunkers half dug into the ground and littered with gun ports and even some artillery. And at the center of it all, the gate. Though ‘gate’ wasn’t really a proper word for it. It was more an armored wall that, even from the scan, looked so dense Kaiden could hardly believe it was able to move. But Thorne had assured them it did. And that it was the only way down and into Warden HQ.
So, then. Getting into Warden HQ was simple. They just needed a big enough fleet to occupy the Warden Corps’ while a large enough ground force fought through the killzone of guard towers, reinforced bunkers, and presumably, an opposing army. Then they needed to blow the gate open, and fight their way through the defender-centric hallways and tunnels of Warden HQ until they made it to the control room for the AFBS.
“So yeah, no big deal,” Kaiden said aloud and leaned back with a groan.
The Warden Corps take their HQ’s security seriously. It’s almost as if they don’t want any interlopers breaking in and hijacking their systems.
Kaiden dismissed the scan of Custos and instead turned his attention to the documents Whenstone had prepared for them. As it happend, they listed not only Odditor’s forces but also an estimate of those Maximus could bring to bear. A conversation with PlayaSlaya would confirm the numbers, Kaiden didn’t doubt, but until that happened, he had a feeling Whenstone’s information was accurate. He didn’t seem the kind to speculate wildly.
According to the notes, Maximus could likely bring a bit over three hundred players to join th
e assault. Most of those would be max-level players, and even those that weren’t would have PVP experience – an invaluable trait in the fight to come.
So Maximus brings three hundred players, but not the ships to support them. They’re largely a ground-based faction, Kaiden thought, reading further through the notes. Luckily, that’s where Odditor comes in.
Whenstone had briefly mentioned the sort of firepower Odditor had at his disposal, and it’d been impressive. Seeing the specifics now, though, it was even more impressive.
One dreadnought fit for combat, twelve heavy cruisers, and twenty light cruisers. Kaiden gave a low whistle at that. Good numbers to make up the core of a combat fleet. Good enough to take on the warden carriers that’ll no doubt be stationed on Custos. Thinking back to the Anakoni and the forces it’d held, Kaiden knew each warden carrier represented a fearsome amount of force wherever it was stationed. Thorne expected Custos to have three or four of them in orbit around it.
Moving on from the core of Odditor’s fleet, Kaiden found the document listed twenty-eight corvettes, thirty-two shuttles, and two hundred and thirty-one ‘fighters / interceptors.’
More ships here because they’re smaller, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less useful. The shuttles can help ferry troops to the ground while the corvettes and fighters keep the battle going overhead.
But so far these were all war ships, more tuned for combat than anything. Kaiden ran the math in his head. Odditor’s shuttles should be enough to ferry Maximus’ troops to the ground, but even still, that was a risky plan. Shuttles were hard to defend and easy to kill. Each one lost before it landed would mean a hit to the total number of ground forces.
Freighters – fourteen. Now we’re talking, Kaiden thought, a smile creeping across his face as he read further through Whenstone’s notes.
The bulk of the troop transport, it looked like, would be handled by freighters. Not exactly quick-moving ships, but when they weren’t loaded with cargo they had plenty of room for soldiers. A good thing, considering Maximus’ warriors weren’t the only ground troops they’d have.