Chapter 12: The New Guy, Morgan POV (Patreon)

Chapter 12

The New Guy

Morgan POV

I mentally shifted my particle pistol to sentry mode, transforming it into a shoulder-mounted turret as the eight giant, koala-looking pirates charged me. Half a day of playing cat and mouse with a kraken had turned me into a ball of nervous energy, and I needed to vent. However, transit ring challenges were only allowed to be tackled one at a time, so fighting another fleet to relax wasn’t possible, which left me with either station maintenance, sparing with Thumpa, or the challenger hall.

Performing station maintenance required me to build new weapon systems to spawn additional mobs. The Crucible had so many R2D2s that clearing all the station rats required Tee to gun them down with his internal turrets for the first few hours of each new Cycle. Everything I could kill had been dead for nearly a day, and I wasn’t interested in fighting station rats. They weren’t a challenge. Which only left me with the mobs that spawned from the stronger weapon systems.

The rat commando that the Moats spawned and the rat sniper that the Poseidon spawned were slightly more challenging than the regular station rats, but the spider rat that Auto Hive Hangar Bay spawned was just as easy to kill. The commando was a bigger, beefier version of the regular rats, so it wasn’t much fun despite being harder. On the other hand, the sniper could chew through the hallway walls and use the material to spit out bullets, but I wasn’t interested in trying to do a Neo impression today.

Neither was a cost-effective way to blow off steam, and I couldn’t justify building them, leaving me with Thumpa or the challenger hall. After two minutes of sparring with Thumpa, I realised I wasn’t looking to challenge myself. I wanted to relax and barely staying ahead of the Kilocksin’s fists didn’t allow me to do that. So, I settled on trying to clear a mission from the challenger hall.

The Crucible’s hallways were empty of everything except maintenance drones and the pirates I charged towards my next fight. With a sword stolen from the first group of pirates I’d run into, I casually ducked under the blade, coming toward my head. The ducking involved a simultaneous lunge that gutted my opponent.

The challenger hall’s missions were as varied and numerous as the ones for the challenger ring, but they were significantly harder to clear. My station’s level limited the internal turrets' technology, and they could only easily clear missions a third of the station's level. With a level 14 station, that meant Tee had only been clearing level 4 missions.

My current opponents were from a level 10 mission, the highest level, and they were barely a problem for me. But barely a problem was exactly what I needed to blow off steam.

“Morgan, we’ve got a problem.”

I sidestepped a thrust, wanting to groan and complain to Tee, before forcing myself not to whine my reply. “I’m exercising, Tee. Is this really a life and death issue?”

“It could be.”

I lopped off an opponent’s head and kicked it into another opponent’s chest. “How big is the problem?”

“The Church of Transcendence declared war on humanity.”

I stepped around a slash, cutting the back of the offender’s hand and causing him to drop his sword. I removed his arm with a second quick slash before moving on to the next opponent.

A faction declaring war on humanity was a problem, but it wouldn’t normally require an immediate response. “Who are they, and why are they important?”

“They’re a cult or religious fanatic. They’re also how the new guy became whatever he is.”

That was important. “Are you sure?”

“His hack was noticed and backtracked to the Church of Transcendence’s cathedral. I’ve got enough information pointing towards their Pool of Transcendence as the source of his power that I don’t need to look elsewhere.”

I leapt off the wall, performing a simultaneous spinning kick and slash, giving me a little breathing room. “How exactly is this declaration of war our problem?”

“It’s not. Our problem is that, for some reason, the annoying politicians in Sector 3 are now in the Church of Transcendence along with a bunch of the military. I don’t know what deal they struck, but it looks bad.”

“How bad?”

“Like they’re actively working against humanity bad. They’re taking part in the genocide and killing players and NPC by the millions. I’ve already lost most of my contacts in Sector 3, and it doesn’t look like the others will survive by the time Nicholas gets back.”

“Capitulation would be political suicide.”

“Depends on whether people find out. To put it another way, I want to contact their rivals and inform them of the situation. It will gain us more supporters, but we would be seen as actively affecting the power structures of foreign nations.”

“Shit…You want to get that involved in politics over this?”

“We need to.”

I took a step back and willed my shoulder-mounted pistol to shoot the pirates. “Activate The Squad and have them finish clearing this mission for me.”

Turrets descended from the ceiling and helped gun down the last of the pirates, leaving the hallway a quiet, bloody mess. I turned around, rose into the air with a thought, and started flying for the bridge. Hallways flashed past me as I let autopilot take over.

“Tee, talk to me. Why do we need to get this involved?”

“They might ruin everything if they’re allowed to stay in power.”

“We don’t get to influence Earth’s political system because someone might do something.”

“They’re working against Earth for their own self-interest. If that’s not the definition of corruption and treason, I don’t know what is.”

“Then we point out what they’ve done. We show everyone. We don’t dictate what the politicians do, but we tell people the truth.”

“Morgan, you own a planet. You own a country. You have more political clout with the Peacekeepers than these people do. You need to decide how we’re going to operate going forward. Earth politics matter less than those that take place in the Game. What happens if one of these idiots gets annoyed and attacks an allied fleet or insults someone they shouldn’t? What happens if they cause us to lose an ally because they're too small-minded to accept an alien culture? How many ways could a conversation with Kilocksin go wrong if one of them were in charge of the negotiation?”

I landed inside my command room and walked to my command chair, unsettled by his logic. Humanity’s place in the Game was too unstable to have someone like that in power. Just because they were the right people to be in charge outside the Game, it didn’t mean they were the right people inside it.

I checked my sensor readings while I thought it over. The kraken was still circling the station, and the ammunition and missile reserves were slowly climbing. Nothing had changed.

I leaned back and sighed. “I see your point.”

“Thank you.”

“I still don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to like it. You have to do what’s necessary or what’s the point of the organisation you’re building.”

“God, I hate this. I hope my administrator shows up when this Cycle ends. This stuff is doing my head in.”

***

An hour later, I watched the kraken pull back until it was well past the transit rings. It seemed to be getting smarter. It had finally realised I wasn’t allowing it to heal, and it was trying to put enough distance between us so it could. Hopefully, my countermeasures would work because I didn’t have my particle cannon until the next Cycle.

“Tee, increase power to the sensor scramblers and power down the station’s systems. Slowly curve our rounds through space to look like they’re coming from other directions. We need the kraken to have no idea where we are when we stop firing and disappear from its sight.”

“I think the new guy has finished terrorising the Horde,” Tee replied.

“Focus on the here and now, please.”

“I can multitask.”

“I know you can, but I can’t.”

“This is more interesting than what you’re doing.”

Tee was trying to annoy me, and it was working. The fastest way to shut him up would be to play along. “How many systems did he trash in the end?”

“Five. He finished by hitting their fleet construction facilities. The complex was made from a hundred different shipyards, all crammed together. The sectors crippled.”

“That seems like far too low a number to cripple a sector.”

My brain did the math only after the words had left my mouth. Nicholas had destroyed five systems in four hours. Even the drone swarm I’d controlled wasn’t that powerful. Forget destroying a fleet or two. He was unimaginably powerful.

“They put most of their resources and credits into the fleet construction facilities. That system had 80% of the sector’s mining vessels and resource fabrication facilities.”

“Why didn’t the local Horde do that?”

“They didn’t have any systems that were as resource-rich to work with as the Horde next to Sector 3.”

“Anything else I need to know?”

“The new guy has completely changed our faction's dynamic. We’re a serious threat now.”

I had come to the same conclusion.

I scratched my jaw, trying to work the new development into my plans. “We should open negotiations with Kilocksin and other favourable factions. If Nicholas can cripple the sectors around us, it makes this prime territory to set up a joint empire.”

“You haven’t convinced him to help us yet.”

“He’s working with humanity’s best interest at heart. It shouldn’t be hard. Start mapping the local sectors the new guy can harass. Divide the territory between factions we can ally with. Consolidate each faction but make it so humanity has to hold the least number of transit stations while gaining the most benefit.”

“The other factions won’t like that. They will immediately see we’re using them as a shield.”

“We don’t have the skill or the faction benefits to compete with their fleets, and they know it. There is a long-standing tradition of non-confrontational species working in support roles to other species. If we take up this position, devoting ourselves to strike teams, small vessels, and resource production, it will leave them to focus their resources on larger military matters.”

“Humanity’s population is a fraction of the other factions’ populations, so we need significantly less territory. That might help our argument for using them as a shield. I’ll start making maps, but we need a proper plan before we take it to the other factions, and they will want our station along the border as a sign of support.”

I grinned. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Should we tell General Prime about the new guy?”

I shook my head. “He’s busy slowing down the invasions. Don’t distract him until we’re Earthside.”