Continue Online (Part 3, Realities) (39 page)

"Unit Hermes, your own flight skills are subpar, and your ship does not excel in any specific fashion, therefore categorizing you into a squad is difficult. What would you like to do?" Treasure spoke to us. I cringed as the
[Mechanoid]
listed off our problems for everyone to hear.

"Treasure, I am supporting Unit Hermes, our capabilities will be adequate for any role you assign," Jeeves tried to speak up for us.

I flushed red with shame. Defending our skills to a bunch of AIs who were clearly better at flying had been a bad idea. Then again, there had to be a method to contribute. Ideas flashed through my head until I realized the game had already assigned me a role.

"Treasure, we're going to stick with Iron's unit until he gets close to the Knuckle Dragger, I'll try to attack the ship from behind, maybe we can do damage," I said.

"Our goal is to recover the Mistborn. Assistance toward this goal is required to gain contribution." Treasure responded as her image's face nodded.

"I'll be able to do added damage from the ship's rear." I cringed when thinking about the
[Rear Assaulter]
title, but it was a huge bonus to damage behind enemy lines. It worked perfectly during my duels and against combat dummies. Maybe it would work using a spaceship.

"Treasure, Unit Hermes and Unit Jeeves have increased the maneuverability and firepower of their ship by a significant amount since their encounter with the Leviathan," Iron said. "This will improve our odds by two percent."

"This is our best method of contribution to the consortium," Jeeves added its opinion.

"Very well. Everyone has their part. We'll need to breakthrough to the Jump Gate as fast as possible." Treasure spoke and our ship flared to life. The hum of engines felt comforting when compared to the silence of Trillium's van. Their sound was a low idle noise similar to an electric fence.

"You ready, Jeeves?" I asked.

"Affirmative, User Legate."

Treasure was still talking, "The Wayfarer Seven support crew will steadily move toward the gate! We'll hold it and tow the Eight nearby. Once there, we will warp out as a group to
[Mechanoid]
territories. Make sure you're with us before we hit the jump!"

Our ship, along with dozens of others, fell from the
[Wayfarer Seven]
's body. I could finally see what we were up against. There was a ship in the distance that looked giant and mean. Around it swarmed a ton of other ships. A few were player ones that seemed to have an off-kilter formation from Commander Queenshand's people.

"Unit Hermes. You're with me." Iron's face appeared once more on our display. "We'll carve a path inward and clear you space to dive in."

"Thanks."

"Thank me by performing to the best of your ability," Iron said in deep tones as his image clicked off. That was amazingly polite for the giant
[Mechanoid]
.

I moved the ship forward, happy to see our energy usage had decreased. This ship was vastly improved over the old one. A quick scan of the stats as we moved forth revealed we were about double the old scores on everything but
[Repair]
speed.

"User Legate. I will micromanage our shield and damage output. If you wish to go in guns blazing, please warn me so I can maximize our survival chances," the AI said behind me. Whatever it was pressing caused a lot of beeps to fill our cabin.

"You sure you want to risk this?" The seven ships in front of me started to pick up speed. It felt like we were on the beginning of a rollercoaster, in space, with laser beams and high stakes. Maybe the comparison to an amusement park was a poor one.

"Affirmative, User Legate," the AI's female and male voices said from behind me.

"Well, I think we'll be okay. They're way smaller than a Leviathan!" I tried to sound positive. This was our best chance anyway.
[Mechanoid]
s were stronger in a group, even now there was a small icon showing some passive buff being applied for each active unit.

Our squadron again picked up speed. We were in an arrow formation pointing straight toward the
[Knuckle Dragger]
. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a second arrow formation filled with reds peeling away toward an edge. Their ships spread wide like a flower of destruction blooming.

Treasure's icon on our battle map hung back near the
[Wayfarer Eight]
. A progress bar popped up showing what our status was. I looked up just in time to see a giant missile cruise by even faster than our formation. It looked like a rocket rumbling along.

It reached the enemy line before we did and exploded in a shower of fireworks and metal. The Advance Online game system put a message up in my screen outlining our situation.

I waved it to one side. The enemy vessels totaled twice our number.
[WTS a Spaceship]
was nowhere in sight nor mentioned on the quest tracker.

Iron's crew kicked the speed up another notch, following in behind the blinding glare of that explosive round.

"Switching optics to wireframe mode," Jeeves said. The formerly blinded system we had flipped around and I felt like everything became an old arcade shooter. The kind my father used to talk about. Low graphics, low quality.

Beams of liquid fire came across the landscape. Iron's unit took them head on and small particles of angry red splashed off of poorly rendered shields. Whatever was happening had barely dented the giant
[Mechanoid]
and his tank like spaceship.

Bright lights pooled. In wireframe mode, they looked like growing yellow stars attached to the tips of each ship right behind Iron. I could see the blue shield lining drop right as they reached a peak. Stars of energy flew off into the distance and the blue shield reappeared instantly.

"Are they attacking?" I asked.

"Unit Iron serves as a shield for the others. They're using the safety to launch larger attacks." Jeeves poked at his screen. "We can assist with the next volley, move to here and prepare."

"I'm only human!" I couldn't pull off timing that precise. The ship nudged into position anyway. A small bar appeared to one side with a countdown timer that made me nervous looking at it. What if I tried to fire the laser and Iron's shield was still up? Would we all explode in a plasma filled failure pie of my baking?

"I know, User Legate. That is why I am here," Jeeves said. The little 'Attack' button that had been flashing before faded out and Jeeves' name popped up next to it. I guess the AI had taken control of the guns.

We, mostly Jeeves, fired off another volley into the enemy fleet. It did minimal damage but served to scatter the largest pocket of fighters.

"Do not let them break you, men!" Commander Queenshand's voice cranked in from an unknown source. "Stay together and focus on them one at a time!"

"Updating attack pattern," Iron said. "Unit Hermes, Unit Jeeves, we're breaking through. Be ready."

"Affirmative," Jeeves said. A new path outlined our destination. I got ready to crank up the engine to full power.

I learned, at least a little bit, ways to save our energy. Without any actual gravity, we wouldn't slow down that much. Only resistance could drain us of speed. Space was full of strange things that seemed counter intuitive. We would build speed, cut the engine to save energy, and only activate the go button when changing directions.

"Safest route plotted. Verifying destination with squadron commander," Jeeves said.

A line appeared against the wire frame representation of the battlefield. I was thankful for the dumbed down version, it made navigating through far easier. Obstacles were simply large brown lines against a dull black background. Friendly ships lit up green, unfriendly units were an odd shade of blue. Our path out was full of yellow arrows like a landing stripe.

"Looks good, Unit Jeeves. We'll peel off and hit them center mass," Iron said as his face popped into momentary existence.

A red-faced
[Mechanoid]
female appeared next to Iron. She gave a shake of her head. Whatever she communicated silently seemed to cause Jeeves to change our course slightly. Ruby smiled faintly then her squadron crossed right in front of ours, going at breakneck speeds. The red ship spun about making hairpin turns and landed more than a few shots.

Iron's group tilted abruptly and veered straight into other ships. They slowed a little as two of the red ships spun around to fire behind them. They adjusted their inertia almost perfectly and were essentially driving backward in space.

No wonder Treasure said I wasn't any good. The precision of these other
[Mechanoid]
s was literally robotic.

"Here we go!" I shouted. The yellow line hung nearby like a freeway off ramp.
[Wayfarer's Hope]
flared into high gear and our bodies were yanked backward from the thrust.

I leaned in with the ship's movement, veering us downward to the left side of the battlefield. Ruby had cleared a path in that direction then abruptly switched sides to distract them.

One straggler hung in front of us. I tilted somewhat off course to bring it in line. Small crosshairs faded in and out signifying the likelihood of my aim assisting. Jeeves pulled the trigger again when I wasn't looking.

"Fine! You attack them!" I shouted at him. The noise rebounded in our small room causing Dusk to cringe. Sparing a glance at the
[Messenger's Pet]
showed how unhappy this entire adventure was making him.

"Don't worry, I'll buy you a lot of cupcakes! Have you tried red velvet yet? Or white fudge?" I started rambling at Dusk while trying to swerve our course away from larger blunt objects. Each turn of the wheel in front of me painted a new line of yellow toward our destination.

"Chocolate peanut butter cup? Have I given you those yet?" I kept talking. "Carrot cake?"

Dusk perked up a little. Moments later he was flinching as I spun us around incoming attacks. Zero gravity caused the
[Messenger's Pet]
to float momentarily until we stopped jerking around. Small bits of our shield were being shaved off. One shot pierced through to our hull and left a smear upon the front window.

"Jeeves!" I shouted while squeezing off another few shots. My poorly aimed blasts clipped one person's wings and their ship flew off its prior collision course.

"One moment, rerouting."

"Maybe we should have picked up a stealth module." I grit my teeth while complaining about all the options we didn't buy for the ship.

"User Legate, if we did that, then there would be no room for the three bombs I have procured," Jeeves said.

"What?!" I hastily checked the displays. Another blast hit our shields causing white wired representations of laser beams to splash across the vision.

"Three containers of a similar ordinance to what we used on the Leviathan. Though I must advise-" the AI started talking and my brain overloaded with relief. This was no longer a random skirmish in enemy territory, now it was a bombing run.

"I could kiss you!" I shouted. We had heavy explosives! We could use them to great effect. I just had to find ways to insert them deep inside the ship. Maybe we could fly inside of it?

That would be risky. Once we did, we might not be able to back out. Then we would miss the warp point and fail this quest anyway. Xin's actual existence didn't seem to be at risk, though, only my ability to be with her. I couldn't let that happen.

"I must advise they will be useless if we do not penetrate their shields," Jeeves continued.

Dusk was still sliding around. He should be used to this by now!

"Mississippi mud cupcakes. They're delicious." I tried to distract both myself and the tiny digital companion. There were too many things flying across our screen. Each time I dodged one something else collided with us instead.

"I have often speculated that it is the frosting which makes a cupcake," Jeeves said behind me joining in the effort.

Dusk was nodding rapidly with pretty much every cupcake related commentary. Now he was distracted. Small bits of drool dripped down into acid resistant padding we purchased from Emerald. The
[Messenger's Pet]
and his new form came with numerous odd hurdles compared to the slim dragon one.