First Line of Defence: Chapter 9 (Patreon)

Chapter 9

The 3rd Cycle.

A warm steel plate toasted my naked backside as I entered the Game. I was filled with optimism as the new Cycle started and the lid of the regeneration chamber began to rise. The smell of metal greeted me, and I smiled.

I sat up a moment later, and swung my legs over the side, ready to get to work. “How extensive is the reset, Tee?”

“Apart from having all your traits, extra credits, and resource points, everything is the same as when you first started the Game. In case you were wondering, your traits no longer scale based on the order they were selected. From what I can see, they’re all at their peak.”

When I’d gained the dungeon master, a second door had been added to my regeneration chamber. It led to the barracks where the NPCs that could help me perform station maintenance resided. It had expanded when I got the squad. The barrack’s door opened while Tee explained, and my dungeon master walked into the room.

Diego noticed I was naked and walked over to my locker, yanked out my overalls, and tossed them to me. Diego looked like a fit middle-aged man, with slicked back black hair, and hard grey eyes. He was handsome with a rugged edge that suggested he wasn’t interested in nonsense. He wasn’t ready for combat, wearing simple blue jeans and a white shirt, while carrying a tablet.

I jumped off the table and pulled on the overalls.

Diego watched me the entire time. It wasn’t the gaze of someone checking me out, but someone sizing me up to kill me. “You’ve changed, Sir.”

His comment surprised me. “You remember what happened?”

He nodded. “Dungeon masters are independent entities, Sir. We exist to protect our dungeon, but our ability to grow and develop causes us to occasional become sapient. Because of this, we’re afforded the same rights as players, even though we’re not sapient. So, I was able to cut a deal with the moderator on behalf of my dungeon. We lost the technology and credits, but I got to keep the experience I gained along with the tactical knowledge.”

That wasn’t a bad deal. “Nice, to finally meet you, Diego.”

“Nice to meet you too, Sir. We were a little busy for pleasantries when you made me.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I’d like to talk about the reset, Sir.”

“Go ahead.”

“Sir, I’m aware of the credits and resource point you have at your disposal after the reset, and I believe that you are unaware of changes that will occur to your dungeon mobs if you tamper with the R2D2 weapon system. I want to offer my assistance with their development as I’m the foremost expert on the R2D2 weapons system.”

“So, the two weapons systems are designed to be one system.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“What do you mean by you’re the foremost expert on the D2s?”

“I have a complete understanding of the R2D2 weapons system and how potential upgrades will interact with it, Sir. There is literally no one in the Game who could ever surpass my expertise when it comes to this weapon system.”

“Is this something all dungeon masters can do?”

“Yes, Sir.”

That would be the first thing I told everyone at the end of this Cycle. Anyone who had a unique weapon would have to take the dungeon master. It was the only way our stations would have other decent weapons systems.

“What can you tell me, Diego?”

He leaned against the wall and folded his arms. “Of the two weapon systems, the R2 is the only one that can be modified, Sir. The D2 can be improved, but not modified. Its design is balanced perfectly to produce your immortal soldiers. Any variation will break this and change the dungeon mobs.”

I frowned. “What’s the difference between modified and improved?”

“A modification would be giving it a fourth barrel. An improvement would be the alloys used to create it.”

“Do you have a proposal in mind?”

“Not yet, Sir. I need to know what technology you have access to.”

“Tee, can you organise that for him?”

“Not until you get to the control room and give me access,” Tee replied.

I walked over to the locker. “I’m on my way.”

I opened my locker and grabbed my boots and sidearm. My particle pistol looked the same as it always did. It never actually changed in design, even when I had bought my personal tech path up to 40.

My overalls, however, turned into an ironman style suit of armour at higher levels which was cool. Right now, my station development path was only level 1. It could stay that level, until I leveled the rats and upgraded the station.

I pressed the button beside the door, and casually shot the level 1 station rat waiting in the corridor as I exited. The shot hit it in the back of the spine, making it a paraplegic. I left it there to go and heal and made my way to the control room, doing the same to the other station rats the crossed my path.

Shooting where I wanted was now so easy that it was painful to think about how bad I’d been. I was finally confident in my ability to do station maintenance. I was actually looking forward to seeing how far I could go alone with path enhancements.

I opened the blast doors, exposing a control room that was just as boring and drab as it had always been. That was about to change. Dad was right. I needed to stop thinking of this as a game and instead think of it as a career. That meant I needed to personalize my workspace.

I slapped the control console. “Tee, it’s time to redecorate the control room and turn it into a command room.”

“It’s about time. What are we going with? I’m thinking tentacles and anime girl body pillows, so you feel at home.”

I laughed. “That’s not happening. I want a command chair designed after the one from the Enterprise, but make it comfortable, because the one on the show never looked comfortable. I also want the carpet, the view screen, those display screens on the walls, and I want the lights to glow red when a fleet is approaching. I want the centre of the room to be lower than the rest so that we can fill it with a massive 3D hologram of the station and the space around it. I want a ready room through the wall to my left, with Star Trek sleeping quarters and amenities attached.”

“I don’t think they ever showed what the toilets looked like. And sonic showers aren’t a thing.”

“Give me a regular bathroom that looks appropriate then.”

“I can do that. What else?”

“Give me a meeting room through the wall behind me on the opposite side to the blast doors. Is there any way for me to give you a body?”

“Not without limiting what I can do, but you can give me a holographic projector. It’s kind of redundant, in my opinion. It just gives you something to look at. It’s for species that can’t handle talking to disembodied voices.”

“If you don’t want it, we will leave it out. I want the control console replaced with holograms and a retractable footstool that can go into the floor in case I want to put my feet up. There also needs to be buttons on my armrest that can end and mute calls, so I don’t have to tell you to do it. Also, can you have the holographic images improved? They’re kind of fuzzy when my genetic advancement gets past ten.”

“I can, but it will cost 5,000 credits to buy the blueprints for the tech.”

I frowned at the price. I had limited resources. “How much is everything going to cost me currently?”

“10,000 credits and 15 RP. It will take about an hour to implement.”

I blinked. “That’s cheap?”

“This is cosmetic stuff that doesn’t have a huge impact on the station's function. The price is appropriate.”

“Pay it and give Diego access the technology we can buy. I want to see what he can come up with.”

“Do you want me to hold off buying the upgrades for the version you and The Librarian designed?”

A list of level 2 D2 upgrades appeared in front of me. The total cost was 8,500,000 credits.

The government guys weren’t that good at thinking outside the box. The only good designs they had managed to put together in time were for a bigger version of the D2s, and even those hadn’t been perfect.

The Librarian and I managed to take what they gave us and redesign it into something that was actually good. If I’m being honest, it was more The Librarian than me. The way that man’s brain worked when optimizing something was a natural gift that I couldn’t come close to.

The new design was called the D2-M. It was the most cost-effective long-range D2 design, period. It was extremely expensive credit wise and wouldn’t do anything more than strip the external weapons off a ship like a heavy destroyer or battleship, but it was perfect for what I wanted it to do.

“Patch me into Diego and send him the design. I want to hear his thoughts.”

There was about three seconds of silence, before Diego replied. “Is this a joke, Sir?”

He sounded outraged. “How bad is it?”

“Sir, your immortal soldiers will lose two thirds of their combat effectiveness, and their ability to respawn more than once.”

That was bad. “Send me your designs when you can, Diego.”

“I’m done, Sir.”

“You’re done.”

“I have a neural processor, Sir.”

“It means he can upload information directly to and from his brain,” Tee explained. “I’ve got one in my human body.”

“Show me the level 1 and 2 specs for Diego’s D2s, Tee.”

Name: D2Level: 1Designation: Light Railgun Damage: 60-180Rate of fire: 1/30 secRange: 37.5 unitsAccuracy: 37.5 unitsPower Consumption: 25E

Name: D2Level: 2Designation: Light Railgun Damage: 90-270Rate of fire: 1/30 secRange: 52.5 unitsAccuracy: 52.5 unitsPower Consumption: 50E

It wasn’t a bad design, even though the power consumption and rate of fire were still terrible. “Can you improve the rate of fire, Diego?”

“No, Sir. The original design prioritizes range, accuracy, and damage, so those can continue to grow. That’s the best rate of fire you can achieve with human technology.”

“What improvements will the immortal soldiers receive?”

“They’ll shoot faster, further, and be more accurate. There’s a slight improvement to their armour and the sturdiness of their equipment, and they’ll have more grenades and missiles for their launchers.”

“Tee, how much is this going to cost me?”

“Forty-eight million credits for the level 2 upgrades and eighty resource points to build them.”

Tee displayed the blueprints, Diego wanted to buy. The price for his version was six times what I’d budgeted. “Tee, can Diego lie?”

“No and he can’t lie through omission either.”

“Diego, how much will it cost to improve the R2s?”

“Improve or improve and modify, Sir.”

“Improve and modify.”

“Would you prefer them to target, missiles, fighters, or both, Sir.”

“Can you make them capable of taking out bombers?”

“No, Sir. The original R2 was designed to be extremely small so it could fit on top of D2 and provide point defence support. This size limitation prohibits it from being powerful enough to penetrate a bombers armour without making it ineffective as a point defence weapon.”

“Make it capable of targeting missiles and fighters.”

“Done, Sir.”

“Throw the stats up and tell me the damage, Tee.”

Name: R2Level: 1Designation: Point Defence RailgunDamage: 5-10Rate of fire: 120 rounds per second Range: 4 unitAccuracy: 4 units

Name: R2Level: 2Designation: Point Defence RailgunDamage: 10-15Rate of fire: 120 rounds per second Range: 5 unitAccuracy: 5 units

“For a level 2 version it will cost you twenty-seven million credits,” Tee said. “For both, seventy-five million.”

“I won’t be able to afford to buy any of the weapons the other station master’s AI clones designed if I do this. Can I still afford to copy Alex’s reactor?”

I wasn’t the only one whose AI clone had designed a decent weapon. Only a few of the station masters from the military had what would be classified as a unique weapon or system, and only half had been confirmed to be good, but almost every gamer had.

Alex had the most powerful reactor. The Librarian had the best armour. Daniel had done something similar to me, but with a mid-weight railgun instead of a light. A guy from Australia had a missile called a Hammerhead that was pretty interesting and cheap and a woman from Ecuador had a popup missile battery, that fired and reloaded significantly faster.

“You can afford to buy the level one version of Alex’s reactor and the Hammerhead, but that will pretty much blow your entire budget.”

I read through the list twice. “Buy Diego’s R2 and D2, Alex’s reactor, and the Hammerhead.”

I pulled up my upgrade list for the D2s. I had a thousand class points that I could only spend on the D2s, and there was no point in waiting.

I unlocked all three different types of rounds and then bought the maximum upgrades for: damage, rate of fire, range, accuracy, energy efficiency, explosive, stealth, and manoeuvring rounds. Along with the double and triple barrel, taking away 45 class points from my personal pool I’d gained from reaching level 13. It left me with 46 class points.

I needed to invest enough so that I didn’t have to think about station defence at all for as long as possible. There was too much to learn and not enough time to learn it all.

The list of upgrades looked a lot shorter now.

D2 Upgrades

Internal Reactor +5E0/10Cost: 10

Point Defence R20/1Cost: 500

I also only notice the change to one of the upgrade options after I’d upgraded the others. “Diego, do you know what the upgrade options are for the D2s?”

“Yes, Sir.”

That was handy. “Why has the amount of energy the internal reactor produces changed?”

“I changed the energy transfer system and included a micro reactor blueprint purchase to increase the effectiveness of the internal reactor, Sir. This way they can become fully independent like the R2s.”

My AI clone had designed my weapon systems to behave like towers in a tower defence game. It had given me weapons that didn’t need outside assistance. I needed to buy that guy a beer.

“I didn’t know you could do that,” I said.

“I’m sure I mentioned that upgrades would change for some weapons as you level,” Tee replied.

“I thought you meant that they’d just appear on my list. You didn’t say that I’d need to own specific blueprints.”

“Most of the time, you don’t. This is a hidden upgrade. They only appear when a design is optimized. You should buy Diego a beer.”

Tee and I were on the same wavelength. “Definitely.”

I pulled up the specs for my new upgraded D2 railgun.

Name: D2Level: 2Designation: Light Railgun Damage: 180-540Rate of fire: 1/15 secRange: 105 unitsAccuracy: 105 unitsPower Consumption: 25E

Ammo:

Payloads:-Explosive: Max

Casings:-Stealth: Max

Augmentation:-Maneuvering: Max

The new D2 were nasty compared to what the Wargarg had to face, which meant I wouldn’t have to deal with external attacks for a long time, unless I got creative. And I was going to get creative. Work with what I received each Cycle didn’t interest me, so I needed to set a trap that encouraged the other factions to attack me. If I didn’t, I’d have to worry about their faction leveling.

Each time their faction leveled their ring would move further away from the station. I could shoot them the moment they left the ring right now, but that would eventually change. So, I needed more levels, credits, and resource points.

“I’m going to go and level the station rats,” I said, annoyed at having to do this again. “I don’t know why he didn’t just let them spawn at level 10. I mean, dying doesn’t lose me credits anymore, so what’s the point?”

“It uses up time,” Tee said. “Time can make a massive difference at later stages. Your transit station could grow to be the size of the moon. You will be making thousands of weapons a Cycle. Doing what you’re doing now is impossible at those stages, so giving you upgraded mobs even if it was just the rats would be a big advantage.”

That was an annoyingly good argument. “At least now the station is level 2, I get twice the resources and credits from the station rats.”

“And because you are level 13, you will only have to die 8 times instead of 100. Do you want me to build ten basic D2s to equip the station?”

“Yeah, it will look strange if we have no defences. I’ll finish this, and then we can do the expansion quest. This time we’ll try to do it properly. And when that’s over, we’ll build the sensor scramblers we got from the Wargarg and hide all our alterations.”

***

The knowledge about how to use a particle pistol and how to fight had added itself to my head the same way everything else had, which meant I had no clue how I knew these things. I just did. It felt like something I had always known, something that had been with me so long that I’d forgotten where it came from. It was as natural as walking or breathing.

So, dealing with the rats was frustrating.

I instinctively dodged without thinking about it. I had to actively force myself to stand still for them to hit me. Closing my eyes didn’t help like it had in the past. I could read the environment and dodge them using only sound and scent. Letting them hit me made me twitchy. Thankfully it didn’t take nearly as long to level them all as the first time.

Once that was over, Tee started the first expansion quest for me. The Kilocksin spawned again, and I went to meet them, ready to try to clear my quests for the special clearance reward.

I had my hands raised, showing I was unarmed as I walked around the corner into their corridor. All six eight-foot reptilians held their spears, with their muzzles pointed towards me as I made my way forward. Their eyes followed my steps in a way that told me they were well trained.

Tee had promised they would behave like their race, and that Kilocksin didn’t attack unarmed individuals unless provoked. Unarmed apparently included those with holstered weapons.

I was hoping he was right, because I was getting tired of seeing the inside of the regeneration chamber.

I watched the Kilocksin, searching for a clue that might help me clear this quest the way I should.

During the 2nd Cycle, three generals had successfully cleared one of these quests with a special clearance method. They all agreed that the quests were designed to teach us about our enemy and that the rewards were more than worth the effort. They had each received a cultural education package for their special clearance rewards. It had turned them into an expert on their enemy’s culture overnight.

I wanted that.

So, I was going to take as much time as I needed to get it. Tee thought I was probably supposed to fight these guys without weapons, stating that not all special clearance quests would work for all paths. Tee figured I had a good chance of succeeding, even though I hadn’t increased any of paths.

After seeing how they moved, I agreed.

I could pull these guys apart easily. They were strong, but they were slow. Their reaction time was nowhere near a humans.

I smiled as I walked up to the humanoid komodo dragons. “Good evening gentleman, any of you interested in doing this old school?” I slowly drew my particle pistol, tossed it to the side, and raised my fists.

“The ape-man wants to fight, Tumpa” the biggest one said as he hit his chest. “This is good.”

Tumpa tossed his spear to another and then removed his shield bracer. Next, he lost his armoured vest. He did the old head tilt to crack his neck and walked over.

He towered above me, by almost two feet, but my smile became genuine since he was being friendly. “Is there a ritual greeting we do before this sort of fight among your people?”

I now had all sorts of knowledge about unarmed combat to draw on, and almost every race on Earth had a polite way of starting a fight.

“You show respect. This is good. To signal you wish to fight a Kilocksin warrior, place your hand over your mouth and then move it toward your opponent, like this. It means the time for negotiating is over and you want violence. If your opponent agrees, they will do the same in return. We then stand at arm's length and lightly tap the back of our hand to our opponent’s hand. When we make contact, the fight begins, and the victor proves who had the strongest conviction.”

“Like this?” I tried to imitate what he had done.

“No. You covered part of your nose. That is incorrect. It means you wish to fight me because I smell bad. It is an insult to your opponent. The force with which you cover your mouth is also an indicator of how deeply you feel that negotiations have finished.”

I absently scratched the back of my head. “How much can you communicate with this gesture?”

Tumpa paused as if thinking. “You can tell someone you only wish to fight to impress a potential mate. You can tell a friend that this is a matter of honour and that your feelings for them have not changed. You can tell another that you have lost someone dear and need to work out your frustration. It is as broad as any language.”

If the quests were designed to teach us about our enemy, then this might be important. “Would you mind explaining all of this, so I do it properly?”

The Kilocksin seemed happy as he nodded.

After twelve hours, I told Tumpa I needed to get some rest and then promised him I’d come back after I’d slept. This one gesture had more to it than a Japanese tea ceremony, and this was the first time I felt tired while in the Game. I’d never lived long enough for a proper sleep cycle to kick in, and the system reset me every time I died, so until now, I didn’t need it.

I briefly considered shooting myself in the head, so I didn’t have to sleep, but that seemed like going down a dark path that didn’t lead to a happy game experience. Also, the first sleepless Cycles in-game had really got to me. My dreams had been weird. I’d had this one where I was in a dance competition against vampire flamingos. The loser had to go on a date with Shrek, dressed as Fiona.

It was a weird date.

Not wanting to repeat that level of bizarreness, I made my way back to my command room. I smiled as soon as I walked through the blast doors.

The room was larger and the entire centre of it was taken up by a massive hologram of the station and the surrounding space, which only enhanced how stupid the ball-shaped station looked. It was just plain dumb. Nowhere near as cool as the Borg sphere, even if they looked similar.

The rest of the room was fantastic.

Tee had put up the design and specs for the D2 on one of the wall screens, along with the layout for the dungeon, the dungeon mobs I had at my disposal, the station systems, and the resources I had left. Everything I needed had its own screen. And there was a proper viewscreen along the front wall. No more talking through holograms that were disproportionately sized. My command chair even looked the way I had imagined it.

I walked over and took a seat.

It was like my old gaming chair. The one they no longer produced but was way better than anything they had on the market now. It fit me perfectly.

“You did good, Tee. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. I just connected what you were describing to the station's main computer, and it did the work. It took me like two seconds.”

“Sure, it did,” I said, knowing he was lying. “I’m going to have a shower and then get some sleep. Is there any way to turn off that sleep option and have it work naturally?”

“I’ve just disabled it for you. Have a good sleep.”

Nine glorious hours later, I made my way back to the Tumpa and continued my lessons. It wasn’t fun. It was barely interesting. And if this turned out to be a dead-end, I was going to have to punch a few rats to get rid of my frustration.

I smiled at Tumpa late the second day.

He had spent eighteen hours teaching me how to start a fight correctly. He was an AI-generated NPC, but he was also so lifelike I felt grateful, so I challenged him to a fight. It was a fight of thanks. Making the gesture correctly was complicated with four fingers. The Kilocksin only had two and a thumb.

The fight of thanks wasn’t really a fight. It was a slapping contest where you let your opponent slap you first. The fight could be called at any time, but it was considered polite to let the initiator hit you back. So usually, you got hit twice, and they were only hit once.

Usually.

Tumpa slapped me so hard I died.

I woke in my regeneration chamber, staring at a prompt.

Quest Completed

Expand Control I

Quest Rewards:Defence Slots: 20Path Points: 1Tokens: 100

Secret Reward:Kilocksin Liaison TumpaKilocksin Cultural   Education Package

“Oh, damn,” Tee said. “That’s a hell of a reward.”

“Yeah, it’s cool that I’m going to understand their culture,” I said, climbing off the table to go get dressed.

“Not that. I mean Tumpa. I think they gave you him so he can keep everything fresh and teach their culture to Diego. It will make your immortal soldiers better fighters against the Kilocksin. Yep, he spawns in the barracks with Diego and the squad. He can even help you do station maintenance and level.”

“What’s his level cap?”

“Yours.”

“Damn, that’s kind of great, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. I mean not right now, because you need the experience, but someday.”

“Have you figured out how much it’s going to cost me to build the station the way the designers suggested?”

“About 50,000 RP.”

“The design is cosmetic?”

“Only because you can’t afford the additional upgrades yet,” Tee said. “It’s also massive and leads on to a whole bunch of future possibilities. They did an amazing job on this.”

That was true.

The government contacted the team who had designed Deep Space Nine, explaining what I needed. They’d been happy to participate since it was me who wanted the help, even working around the clock to get it done. But they’d quickly realized they were better at designing something that looked cool rather than functioned well and asked for the assistance of experts.

They’d been given naval ship architects.

Because of that and a few other reasons, my station wasn’t going to look like Deep Space Nine as much as I would have liked. My weapons looked too much like World War II battleship cannons to fit that design style.

The new design had a lot of straight lines and sharp corners. Terraced layers where weapons could overlap. I’d still have the two rings and the arches, but instead of three arches, there were going to be five, and every inch of them and everything else would be covered in weapons.

The station design they finished creating looked like Deep Space Nine and a battleship had a baby, and it took more after the battleship. It was intimidating, but it didn’t look futuristic.

“They did do a good job, Tee. Built more D2’s and I’ll level the rats. Then I’ll take a crack at the second expansion quest and see if I can get it done before the end of the Cycle.”

“You know the turrets can’t move once they're placed right.”

“I’ve got that option that says it can?”

“Yeah, but that costs resources.”

I groaned. “Why did you let me build the other ones then?”

“You said the station needed defences.”

“How much will it cost to move them?”

“Only 10% of their total cost.”

“That’s a quarter of my daily resources. No way I’m paying that. They can wait. Load up the second quest. Let’s do this.”

It turned out that despite my polite enthusiasm, I couldn’t complete the Horde’s quest in a way that didn’t involve killing them. Every time I went to talk to them, they told me to get out of their territory, and when I tried to keep talking, they killed me. So, by the time the 3rd Cycle finished, I still wasn’t done.