“Well, this is a problem.”
There was no more denying it. This was definitely not a dream. And that posed some issues. What kinds of issues? Well, for one thing, I had no idea what to do about any of this. I’d woken up on a ship drifting along through the dead, black expanse of the universe. On top of that, I didn’t know why this was happening and had little hope of finding a way home.
“Maybe someone made full-immersion VR a reality when I wasn’t looking, and I’m actually in a full-dive scenario.”
I tried messing with a few consoles and screaming the words “open menu!” and “log out!” but no menu or button that would let me out of this reality appeared. What a cruel, cruel world.
I was at an utter loss. I had no choice: I had to do what humans do best and adapt.
“Depending on my perspective, this might not be all that bad.” I had my beloved ship. I had my piloting skills. Best of all, I clearly had the ability to trounce space pirates with ease. If there really was no way out of this, I could live the mercenary life I’d built in Stella Online.
I also had cargo I could trade for a decent sum of money. I might even be able to use my ship and my skills to hunt down more pirates for some extra cash. The three ships I’d already taken down were carrying 19,000 Ener. I didn’t know what prices were like in this world, but space pirates in fully equipped ships like those wouldn’t be carrying chump change. The 19,000 Ener wouldn’t buy a whole ship, but it would probably let me refuel Krishna, stock up on ammo, and do some maintenance.
“Oh, yeah. I should grab their cargo and data,” I remembered. In Stella Online, you could harvest cargo and data caches from defeated space pirates’ ships. It wouldn’t make you rich, but you could scrounge up some decent loot, maybe even learn the location of other nearby pirates. If the stars aligned, you might even discover the coordinates of a pirate home base. Locating, attacking, and defeating a whole pirate base would net you some serious treasure. You could also go the more noble route and just report it all to the galactic police. Not a bad payday, either way.
I navigated the Krishna in closer and gleefully stripped the pirate ships’ corpses of their cargo, data caches, and less damaged equipment. All Stella Online’s ships carried drones for this very purpose, and my beloved Krishna was no exception.
“Nothing important, as far as I can see.” I mostly found low-quality food and some booze among the pirates’ cargo. Alcohol could sell for a decent price, but some galactic empires—empires that governed star systems—outlawed it, making it a tough item to actually profit from.
Outlawed or not, if someone found the booze, the worst they’d do was confiscate it and give you a warning. It didn’t carry the high fines and potential exile that illegal slavery or hard drugs did. Those things might even provoke a physical response from the galactic police, and you definitely didn’t want to go toe to toe with them.
“Ooh!” The data caches were a hit. Not only did I glean the coordinates of the main station in this galaxy, but I also learned the location of the space pirates’ home base. I’d get more just from selling this info than anything I’d filched from the ships.
Unfortunately, the cache also revealed that there were no habitable planets in this star system. Nothing out here but asteroids rich with ore. That didn’t mean it was deserted. Those asteroids would have mining stations and prisons where criminals were forced to work, and there were several trading colonies stationed nearby.
“No data on nearby star systems, huh?” Unfortunately, the cache didn’t go beyond this star system. It wouldn’t help me find a neighboring system that might be friendlier. I had no clue where this star system was in relation to the rest of the galaxy, but accessing the information network at a station or colony was probably my best hope of finding out. “Might as well go for the trading colony, then.”
I set my sights on the largest trading colony in the star system. According to my information, I’d also find the police headquarters for this system on that colony. It would be a convenient place for receiving my bounty and selling the information I stole.
I set the main generator’s output to cruise and turned the ship toward the trading colony. A little nudge on the throttle got the ship up to ample acceleration so I could activate the faster-than-light drive.
The engine roared. The scenery around me bent and warped. Stars bled into streaks that flowed past the windows. I didn’t know the practical theory behind the FTL drive, and Stella Online didn’t really explain the details, but I knew it was mostly used for long-distance travel within star systems and I could definitely tell why. I was moving insanely fast. The universe rushed past my windows. Debris pinged against the ship but didn’t leave any real damage. Maybe there was some special technology keeping me safe?
My beloved Krishna also had a system for navigating between star systems: hyperdrive. The ship could slip into the hyperspace lanes between star systems to travel at speeds far faster than light. I didn’t know the particulars of the underlying theory, but the important part was that it’d let me hop between star systems. I didn’t really need to know all the nerdy details to make it work. I just had to sit back and enjoy the ride, which was fine by me.
I could also travel super-long distance via wormholes. Of course, it wasn’t as easy as just hopping into any old wormhole I happened to find. They were usually managed by NPCs belonging to galactic empires, and heavily regulated. Some players could help out the empires and get access to wormholes, but a normal mercenary like me wouldn’t be so lucky.
Even as I sped along pondering the mysteries of interstellar travel, I passed an enormous gas giant. The incredible sight made me want to turn off the faster-than-light drive and admire the awe-inspiring scenery of space, but I had to hurry to reach that trading colony. If I sat around ogling the wonder of space, I could get attacked by more pirates.
For now, my top priority had to be reaching the safe harbor of a trading colony and gathering information. I’d have time later to admire all the gas stars, asteroid clusters, and wondrous unknowns of space I wanted. At least, I hoped I would.
Still, I took in as many of the incredible sights around me as I could. I was no sci-fi nerd, but who could turn down a display like this? Curiosity was a valuable thing; it didn’t hurt to indulge it a little.
I was still stargazing when the Krishna’s support AI notified me that I was approaching my destination. I braced myself to turn off the FTL drive, but the craft decelerated much more smoothly than I expected all on its own. Whatever happened to inertia and all that? Maybe there was some force field protecting the ship that I didn’t know about. I used a touch pad in the cockpit to message the trading colony and request permission to dock in their hangar.
They responded promptly. “This is the Port Authority of Tarmein Prime, accepting your docking request. Um, Captain…I’m sorry. It seems the data regarding your name is corrupted.”
“Huh? Oh… This is the Krishna. My name is…” I hesitated. My name, huh? My real name was a pretty darn boring and common one, but maybe it would sound interesting and unique compared to the naming conventions of this universe. My in-game name was probably a safer bet, though. “Hiro. I’m Captain Hiro.”
Thus, on the tenth day of the eighth month of the 2,397th year of the Grakkan Empire’s calendar, the mercenary named Captain Hiro was reborn.