Chapter 1:
First Blood
REAL. This was actually real.
That posed a problem.
Why was this happening to me? I couldn’t think of a single good reason, yet here I was.
“What’d I do yesterday?” I wondered. I went to work as usual. I came home from work as usual, ate dinner as usual, showered, gamed for a while, and went to bed—as usual. None of the clichés held true. There were no weird messages creepily appearing on my computer screen, no trucks decking me to transport me to another world. It was just a regular day—well, aside from this.
“Completely bizarre,” I complained. But complaining wasn’t going to do me any good. Gotta be positive. If this was real life, then I had somehow made my way into Stella Online, and I just had to accept it. Did that mean I could live the mercenary life I enjoyed in the game? Bound by no obligations, rising up in the universe by my own strength. Yeah, that sounded great. It was a hundred times better than being stuck in a network administration job with no hope of advancement. Besides, I could make use of my specialties here.
Nice. Suddenly, I was in a much better mood. If I’m stuck here, I might as well enjoy it. Yeah, that sounds good to me! I still had a few concerns, but there was no sense dwelling on them if I was stuck either way.
With that settled, I had to figure out where the heck I was. The Galaxy Map should have confirmed my current location, but when I opened it, all I got were the words “NO DATA” in huge, heartless letters.
Well, that wasn’t good. The vast frontier of this universe presented a major navigational hurdle. I couldn’t just wander around blindly and hope things worked out. In the four years since Stella Online launched, no one had managed to reach the center of the galaxy. I couldn’t be sure this place was identical to the game, but I had to assume it was close, which meant it was massive.
I gave up on ascertaining my current location and checked on the status of my ship. I didn’t have a bounty set on me; that was a relief. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about getting caught by the galactic police and sent to jail right off the bat.
Next up was checking on my affiliation and belongings. It looked like I was nothing special, just an ordinary guy. I didn’t even belong to a mercenary guild. My name hadn’t changed from when I played Stella Online, though.
Meanwhile, my current funds stood at a whopping zero Ener. Seriously? I was broke?! What about all the money I saved up while playing? My heart dropped as I went to check the ship’s cargo, my last hope.
It looked like I had a small amount of food and water stored among the ship’s cargo. How considerate of…whoever prepared all this. I didn’t have the faintest idea who my anonymous benefactor might be, but at least I wouldn’t starve.
Apart from the food, I had a small cache of flak ammunition and two spare energy packs.
“Rare Metal too, huh? And quite a lot of it. That’s pretty sick.” The universe of Stella Online had abandoned paper and coin currency long ago. Everyone now used a digital currency called Ener. Not only did this make transactions easier and more convenient, it also left an electronic record of every interaction.
One of the best ways to get Ener was Rare Metal, a scarce but necessary commodity throughout the galaxy. Finding Rare Metal was like digging up silver or gold back on Earth—precious, in small supply, and valuable just about anywhere.
Space pirates and others who preferred to stay off the books especially loved Rare Metal. It was a physical good, which made it harder to track than electronic currency. Of course, this meant that cruising around with a ship full of Rare Metal made you a tasty target for pirate NPCs and other less savory sorts out there in the universe. In game terms, those NPC encounters would get much more frequent if you had Rare Metal on board.
“Warning! A vessel of unknown affiliation is scanning this craft,” the support AI blared.
“That didn’t take long,” I said. Being scanned by another craft didn’t necessarily mean I was being targeted by space pirates. Maybe there’s an issue with the ship’s frame? It was entirely possible the scan came from a benevolent third party just trying to help.
The far more likely possibility was that I simply looked suspicious as heck.
Why would a ship carrying so much metal—something used for anonymous transactions—be parked in an empty sector of space? It was just too sketchy. It would be completely reasonable to believe I was here to make illegal bargains with space pirates.
“A vessel of unknown affiliation has brought its weapons systems online,” the support AI droned. Welp, it looked like the goddess of fortune would not smile upon me today. I didn’t have a bounty, so those weapons had to be space pirates.
“Hey, bro. Whatcha doin’ out here? Funny place to take a nap.” I didn’t recognize the voice that crackled over the intercoms.
“Ha ha ha! Nothing in particular. Don’t mind me,” I replied.
“Heh heh heh. Don’t be like that, bro. Here we are, meetin’ each other by chance out in space. Say, how ’bout you let me have some of your cargo? Then I might let ya off without any funny business.”
“I’ll have to refuse, but I’d be happy to sell it to you for a reasonable price.”
As we spoke, two more unidentified ships left faster-than-light travel with loud bangs. All three of them activated their weapons systems and prepared to fire.
The new ships showed up as models on my display. Their builds were a mess. The haphazard frames bore sloppily installed weapons that hardly looked ready for battle. Their hulls each had different cargo sizes. The frames, the weapons, everything about them was completely uncoordinated. In stereotypical space pirate fashion, dents and scratches marred the ships.