Battlestate
09:45 Ship Time

“Exiting hyperspace in three… two… one… zero.”

With a flash of blue our two ships transitioned back into normal space. The familiar asteroid field was directly ahead of us, though there was something different this time.

“Picking up some sort of debris interspersed between here and the asteroid field,” Alexis said.

“Confirmed. Looks like the remnants of a battle. It’s hard to tell how many ships we’re picking up or determine what class they are.”

“Sending something over to your screen, Ben,” Alexis replied. “Does it look familiar to you?”

I looked over to Ben’s console and saw that a real-time image of a ship was being sent over. It was rotating so it was hard to see at first, but as the ship spun I was able to recognize it.

“That’s definitely part of the starboard hull and one of the thrusters of an Awaga-Class Cargo Ship,” I confirmed. “Our friends, maybe?”

“Give me a few minutes to scan the wreckages and we’ll know for sure. Whoever this was absolutely got their asses handed to them, though.”

“Shields up, ladies. I don’t want us to be caught flatfooted if whoever did this comes back.”

“Affirmative,” Lucille said.

“I think we’re going to hide inside of the asteroid field while we’re mining, it’s too risky to stay out in the open the way we were doing it. Ladies, your job will be to intercept any asteroids that might impact the Fenrir, which means you’ll need to go around and find asteroids, Mace.”

“We can take a few minutes now to mark asteroids while you’re getting suited up,” Tessa replied. “It should speed up the first few hours quite a bit.”

“That works. How’s it going, Ben?”

“Just about done. I can tell you that the ship definitely belonged to the group we were competing with, but I don’t see the second one. There is also the remains of a Zeon-Class Frigate, but no sign of the other three. Those ships were either captured or escaped.”

“No sign of what destroyed them?”

“Not a scrap. There is an interesting bit on the hull here,” he replied, bringing up a picture of the starboard hull which had half of what would have been a gaping hole. “Based on the radius of the hole and the melted hull around it, the computer is saying that the people who attacked these guys were using a high-intensity particle beam. The beam would’ve punched through the hull like it was butter before melting through the casing of the power core. The massive influx of energy would’ve been enough to cause it to go critical, causing a massive explosion. I’m surprised that there are any pieces of the ship left around here, it all should’ve been vaporized or propelled so far away that there wouldn’t be anything left for us to scan.”

“What type of ship has a weapon that powerful?” I asked.

“Nothing short of a Battlecruiser,” Tessa replied. “Even then, it would have to be a bigger-than-average battlecruiser. Not because it is a particularly large weapon, it’s just that the more powerful energy weapons require their own dedicated power cores. My dad was looking at them when he had the fleet commissioned but ended up deciding not to use them. There are just too many downsides.”

“What sort of downsides?” Mason asked. “They seem like they’re pretty damn good weapons if they can cut through a ship like that.”

“Oh, they are, it’s just that they take at least a minute to charge up before they can be fired and there is a lengthy cooldown period after firing. They generate so much heat that you’re lucky if you’re able to fire once every five minutes. You can get around that by mounting them in pairs or fours so they’re always alternating but there are generally better options that take up much less space.”

“So what you’re saying is if they come back we won’t stand a chance?”

“They wouldn’t have a problem dealing with both our ships. The good news is that they can’t just appear and immediately fire at us, with that weapon at least. It needs to charge up and they can’t do that while in hyperspace. Our shields should hold in the meantime, but we should be prepared to jump as soon as Mason is back on board and everything is secured.”

“Alright, let’s get going then,” I said, standing up to give Ben the controls. “The odds of them returning continue to go up as long as we’re sitting around wasting time. Ladies, go find us a few asteroids while Mason and I get suited up, and then I’ll position The Fenrir in the asteroid field.”

---

It wasn’t easy moving The Fenrir’s two hundred twenty meter length through the asteroid field. The massive rocks were always moving, crashing into each other and, occasionally, breaking into smaller pieces. It was after we started that we realized we should have put some thought into how the girls would actually deflect asteroids while we worked. Small ones weren’t an issue, they could just grab onto one with their tractor beam and put it on a new course.

No, the issue was with the truly massive asteroids. There weren’t many, but they bullied all of the other asteroids around them, smashing them into little bits while only small amounts of material were shaved off in return. As the weaponry on the Osprey was primarily kinetic, that meant that deflecting them was a very expensive proposition.

They did have four forward-firing pulse lasers, but those took anywhere from two to three minutes of sustained fire to cut through an asteroid and break it up, depending on the size. The mass driver did a better job of it, taking only one or two shots, but it took twenty seconds or so between shots. It was also about twenty-five hundred credits per round, which wasn’t much considering how much we had sitting accruing interest, but that would quickly add up.

Since no one else knew how to fly the mining pod, we kept Mason there but transferred Anja over to The Fenrir to man the weapons. Over here, she would have access to the six much more powerful pulse cannons on either side of the ship, allowing her to cut through asteroids in a fraction of the time.

Right after the Osprey docked and she came over, I piloted us into the asteroid field, finding a better position for us to use. What I found was a moon-sized asteroid that was almost completely stationary, which would do two things. The first is that it would keep us hidden from our arrival point. If the ship responsible for the destruction we had seen were to jump in close to where we did, then we would be completely invisible to their sensors. It would also block any asteroids coming in from one side, allowing Anja to focus her attention elsewhere.

It was pretty smooth sailing once we got started. Since Anja was taking care of the asteroids from The Fenrir, that allowed Tessa and the Osprey to check the area for the types of resources we were looking for, just to speed up the entire process.. They were also able to give us some advanced warning if another ship did jump into the system, allowing Mason to get back aboard. If he wasn’t here already, that is.

For this mining run we weren’t going after anything except for radioactive materials. The fact that they were worth so much per ton and that we were the only ones mining the stuff meant that we would actively lose credits by going after other materials. That was fine with us, though. The emitters did a very good job of clearing up any harmful radiation so it was almost like we were mining anything else.

It was when we were about halfway filling the crates that we started running into problems. The arm that allowed Mason to grip onto asteroids and hold them as he broke them down started to malfunction. It would randomly open and close as he moved the arm, which made it seem like something was wrong with the wiring. It behaved normally if he kept the arm in one spot and only used the clawed hand, but as soon as he moved it then it would cease being under his control.

We tried to work through it, but took a break when I almost got crushed by an asteroid he was bringing back. Once the crate we were in the process of filling was secure and the emitters did their job, Ben returned gravity to the ship so we could get to work. Mason had read through the manual and we both thought it was an issue with the wiring, so he headed to engineering to grab some tools.

He was back a few minutes later and used a device that was a mix of a drill and a screwdriver to quickly undo the bolts that secured the two panels to the arm. The panels themselves were actually on hinges, so once the bolts were removed, all he had to do was flip them open to get at the inner workings.

There was a lot going on inside. Much of the space inside both the upper arm and forearm was taken up by metal rods which gave it the majority of its strength, while servos and wiring took up the rest. It was amazing that there was very little difference between Earth technology and the stuff we were using, but the motors were probably a lot more powerful, even with their small size.

Hydraulics would probably replace the electronics if this were a pod meant to be used on a planet, but hydraulics don’t work at all in space. It is way too cold and it would make the pod quite a bit bigger to house heaters to prevent hydraulic fluid from freezing.

The wiring inside was neatly bundled together in two bundles on either side of the arm, which made it extremely tedious to go through and find where the problem was. He had to undo the clips securing the wires as I held a flashlight, and then go through and check each and every wire to find where the problem was. We didn’t end up finding anything wrong with the wires themselves, but neither of us were electricians. We were looking in the wrong spot.

The issue ended up being a wire going to the actuator that controls the claw. Somehow, either by use or laziness, the wire had come loose and was only just barely contacting the positive connector. When he tried to reattach it fully, he realized that the wire didn’t quite have the length needed.

Going back along the wire’s path, he found that it was caught up at the joint and was being pulled whenever he moved the arm. Freeing it up, he then reattached the wire to the connector. Before closing everything, he climbed into the pod and went through a variety of motions, making sure everything was working properly. Satisfied, he refastened the bolts and ran to put the tools away.

Just as he put his helmet back on and climbed into the pod, Tessa’s voice came over the radio.

“Umm, guys? Three very big problems just showed up.”

Mason waved me away and turned to work on securing the mining pod. Turning, I ran over to the hatch and opened it before making my way up to the bridge.

“Mind elaborating on that a little bit?”

“I landed The Osprey on top of a relatively stable asteroid and then shut down the majority of our systems so we could keep an eye out without being detected. Three ships just jumped into the system. One seems like it could be the ship responsible for the debris we found, while the other two look like mining ships. We could get more detailed readings if we went active on our scan, but that would give our position away.”

“Hold off on that for now,” I said as I arrived on the bridge. Ben moved over to his station and I took a seat. “We’ll be heading over to the secondary asteroid field as soon as Mason has everything secured. What makes you think that they’re mining ships?”

“I’ve seen more than my fair share of mining ships over the years, and these ones look similar to the ones my dad’s company uses. They are typically cylindrical or rectangular ships that have an opening at the front. Sometimes the opening is an aperture and other times there are four doors that open individually to form one larger opening. The former is more common, but they allow mining ships to fly right up to an asteroid and engage a tractor beam, pulling it into the ship for processing. A mining ship could fill the cargo bay on The Fenrir in less than an hour. It wouldn’t be rough chunks of ore, either. It would have a purity of over ninety percent and fill each crate completely.”

“Alright, so if these were the guys that took out our former competition, then they’re trying to claim this area for themselves. Do you think they would detect the mass driver powering up?”

“Oh, most definitely,” she replied. “Why, what do you have in mind?”

---

I laid out my plan and then our two ships started moving away from the asteroid field. We were definitely noticed as the battlecruiser moved so it was between us and the mining ships, but we weren’t interested in a fight. Not a straight up one, anyways.

When the battlecruiser had moved to where we wanted it, we jumped into hyperspace on a predetermined course. The jump only lasted for a few seconds; we just needed to get out of sensor range of the three ships. Once there, we stopped and flipped our ships over until we were facing the same direction we had come from. After making sure we weren’t being followed, Sonja began the process of loading one of the nuclear missiles into the mass driver. Well, she only had to press a few buttons, really. The autoloader did the rest.

When it was loaded and the target was programmed into the missile’s computer, the mass driver was charged up and the missile was fired. It was barely detectable on our own sensors, so we were hoping that it wouldn’t be detected before the rocket engine engaged. At that point, it would be too late for them to do anything about it.

About thirty seconds after it was sent on its way, our two ships jumped into hyperspace yet again. This was an even shorter jump, lasting less than a second, but it put us just ahead of the missile that was coming up behind us. As soon as we transitioned back into normal space Sonja began loading in another missile into the mass driver. The plan was to fire it just as the first one was about to pass us, so they would hit almost simultaneously.

Once the second missile was fired, our two ships turned again, though this time we were headed to the secondary asteroid field. Either the missiles would do their job or they wouldn’t, but we had a job to do. We would still be able to swing by later on and see if the missiles hit their mark or not.

“That’s one dirty trick if it works,” Mason said when we were on our way.

“Sure is,” I nodded. “If someone really knew their stuff, they could fire from hundreds or thousands of light years away and strike their target. A lot of stuff would need to be calculated, like stellar drift and the target’s exact location, but someone could destroy a planet without even getting close to it. If it were just a tungsten carbide round then it would likely be nigh undetectable as well. Obviously it would take a very long time to arrive, but it would almost be the definition of ‘fire-and-forget’.

“I just shuddered thinking about it. How would you defend against something like that, anyways?”

“A planetary shield would be the easiest option. Mass drivers are very good when dealing with a ship's hull, but not so great if they have to go through a forcefield first. Depending on the size of the projectile we’re talking about, it would be like a bug hitting a windshield. A sensor net could work, but it would have to be placed far enough away from a planet to give ships time to intercept it with the speeds we’re talking about. Honestly, the best option is probably the same thing that the Confederation uses on their prison planets. They have a planetary shield up all the time, and the only way in and out is through a small opening. Barring insane luck or very precise timing, it would be the perfect defense.”

“Sounds like you’ve been giving this some thought,” Ben said as he joined the conversation.

“How can I not? I’ll be responsible for the safety of billions of people soon. I’ve already made one potential enemy in N’ardil Vilos and I have doubt that I’ll make more enemies in the future. I have to prepare for the eventuality of one of those enemies striking at a planet to try to get at me. Thankfully I’ve got Abi and Tich to bounce ideas off of. They’re both a hell of a lot more knowledgeable about all of this stuff than I am.”

“It’s still so hard believing that all of this is real. It’s bizarre to think that only a few months ago we were graduating from high school with not so much as a clue as to what was going on. Now we’re already over a thousand light years away from home and we’ve only made it a small fraction of the way to our destination,” Anja said. “It’s a little scary, if I’m honest.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Ben said before chuckling. “My mom was so excited about ‘seeing the stars’ that she couldn’t sleep and kept my dad up all night. I received a text from him at around 06:30 telling me that they probably wouldn’t be up before noon.”

“Wait, received a text? How?” Mason asked. “We’re not on Earth anymore.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” I replied. “Abi has a number of subspace transmitters or repeaters or whatever you want to call them placed on many planets. They allow for nearly instantaneous communication from Earth all the way back to the Scutum-Centaurus Arm, which is the region of space that Scyftans arrived on when they fled from Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy. Those transmitters are what allow us to play games like this one. Many of them were developed by companies in that area of space, after all.”

“Shit, I wish I’d known that! I didn’t bother bringing mine because I didn’t think it would be useful. It’s sitting on the nightstand beside my bed back at the base.”

“Eh, it’s not really a big deal,” I said. “You could probably get whatever the Pygmaeans use as phones when we get to Veria, though you’d have to go back to your regular old phone when we get back.”

“True, maybe I’ll pick one up, especially if we’re still planning on checking out a dungeon or two. I wouldn’t be able to assign attribute points otherwise…” he said before trailing off. A moment later, he continued, “I never got how a phone allows you to assign attribute points.”

“I talked to Abi about that a few days ago, actually. She said that it is more symbolic than anything. People across the universe have been spending attributes since their earliest recorded history. It was much more difficult though because you had to imagine which of the five stats you wanted to put your points into.”

“Imagine being a relatively young species that just started delving into dungeons. One day, a member of your tribe comes to you and tells you that he has learned how to become faster, stronger or tougher. Now explaining how to get stronger is easy, strength is… strength, it’s probably one of the easiest things to understand. The other four are quite a bit harder though.”

“For example, ‘faster’ can mean two different things. Most people would immediately assume that you were talking about walking or running, not about reaction time and ease of movement. Someone thinking about the former would accidently put points into Strength, because Strength does increase how fast you can run, but that wouldn’t be what the tribe member meant.”

“On top of that, it wasn’t even clear how many points you were assigning or where you were assigning them, or how many different attributes there were. Each civilization had to figure that out on their own and disseminate that information to the entire populace. Nowadays it is well documented that there are five different attributes, but what if there was a sixth one that has thus far gone unnoticed? It’s unlikely, but possible.”

“The first time an interface was designed, it was a game changer. That was even further compacted when there was an evaluation designed to determine a person’s base stats before they even set foot in a dungeon. There were five different attributes and they were all well defined. People could easily imagine how they wanted to improve themselves and the interface kept track of how many points they spent. Stats like health, mana and stamina, and their respective regenerations, were added after decades of research to help give people an idea of their capabilities.”

“Things proceeded even further when people began carrying around smaller handheld devices that could keep track of everything. That included the abilities that someone possessed, what ranks they were at, and what they actually did. Before that, you would’ve had to take your Skill Gem to a library or your species’ equivalent of an Adventurers Guild and look through book shelves to find out what that skill did. Even then, the information contained might not be accurate,” I finished.

“I knew some of that already, but it really makes you think about what stage humanity would be at right now if Scyftans never discovered Earth,” Ben said. “The implementation of the Adventurer’s Guild over a thousand years ago undoubtedly meant that we had a big leg up on other species.”

“It’s hard to know for sure, but Earth probably would’ve followed the usual progression path. To Abi’s knowledge, the majority of races go through something similar to a Dark Age, where there is little to no societal progress because people are obsessed with delving into dungeons. How long that ‘Dark Age’ lasts is up to the species, really.”

“How long did it last for Scyftans?” Anja asked.

“Just over three years,” I answered.

“That’s it?!” Ben asked.

I nodded. “Telepathic races have it easier than most, and Scyftans are definitely near, or at the top, when it comes to that. Take my tribe scenario as an example. Where non-telepathic races would need to put their thoughts into words, someone with telepathy would be able to send their thoughts directly. Combine that with the fact that Scyftans have the longest recorded range with telepathy and that knowledge can be spread throughout the world in days. Either by someone sending to someone they know and having it spread, or by openly sending.”

“It’s almost like having the internet. That would definitely help,” Ben nodded.

“Mhmm.. it probably would’ve been less than three years, but a number of people got it in their heads that the common people shouldn’t have access to so much power. Microwars erupted all over the planet where groups would take over a dungeon and fortify it. They would delve into that dungeon until they outleveled it, and then leave behind a small force or collapse the entrance to prevent other groups from taking it over and benefiting from it. That larger force would go out and fortify the next dungeon, or assault one that was being held.”

“Thankfully none of the groups merged to be more than a few thousand strong, so the common people were able to fight back. Before long, the common people were just as strong as the roving groups, and outnumbered them greatly, otherwise it may have gone on much longer. Shortly after the last microwar ended, my great grandfather, Egegal, became king. Some opposed him being chosen to lead our people, but the majority were behind him right from the start. The rest you’ve already heard, for the most part.”

---

We continued to shoot the breeze and invited the girls on the Osprey to join the conversation for the rest of the trip. We ended up losing track of time until the computer let us know that we were one minute out from the secondary asteroid field. We quickly returned back to the business at hand, with Mason taking a seat at his console and Anja taking a seat at another. Both would be responsible for the guns on their side of the ship, which would ease the load that Mason would otherwise be responsible for.

“Remember, shields up right away and I want to go active scan as soon as we arrive. If someone else is here, I want to know about it.”

“Copy,” Tessa said. “Ten seconds.”

Ben counted us down and then we reverted back to normal space.

“Scanning.”

While the scans were going on, I used the opportunity to bring up the cameras located around the ship so we could get a look at the asteroid field. While it was definitely a bit smaller than the one we had been mining, it was also much more dense. There would be no way for us to hide in the asteroid field without small asteroids constantly bumping into the hull or shield.

I couldn’t tell if the asteroid field we were looking at was younger than the one we had been mining, or older. The density suggested that it was probably younger, as asteroid belts have a way of ejecting much of their mass over the eons, but there weren’t any moon-sized asteroids present. The biggest one was only a few kilometers long whereas the much-less-dense asteroid field had many asteroids that were over fifty kilometers long.

“Looks like it’s clear,” Ben said. “Not picking up any contacts whatsoever. I’m not picking up much of anything, actually. At the other asteroid field, there were clear signs that ships had been in the area. I think we’re the first ones to travel here.”

“Alright. Tessa, do you need Anja over there or do you mind if she stays here a little longer?”

“We’re good over here. If we get into a fight then your sisters can make sure that the gauss cannons are stocked with ammo.”

“Cool. Mason and I are still suited up so we’ll be ready momentarily. How about finding us some asteroids?”

“Sure.”

---

By the time Mason and I got down to the cargo bay and got everything ready, there were already five asteroids waiting for us. We hadn’t changed our plan from earlier, so that meant that the five asteroids contained the radioactive elements that we were focusing on. Mason took a few minutes to put the arm he had to repair through some more motions, before Ben depressurized the cargo bay and opened the door.

Mason jumped out before the doors even finished opening, using his momentum to travel most of the distance before using his attitude controls to slow him down. Grabbing onto the closest asteroid with his clawed hand, he began dragging it towards the ship. While he was on his way back, I took the lid off the crate we had been in the process of filling before we were so rudely interrupted and moved it so he would have an easier time loading it.

“How’s the arm?” I asked over the radio.

“Good so far,” he responded, engaging his attitude controls to slow down again. “We’ll see if it holds up, but I think I fixed the problem.”

“Maybe we can get it looked at when we get back, just to be sure. Aren’t you running a little low on drill heads now, anyways?”

“Yeah. This one will probably be fine to finish off the run today but I’ve got one more brand new one still sitting in a crate. Still, it won’t hurt to grab a few more.”

Nodding, I remained silent while he got to work. He had reached [Mining] level three back at the other asteroid field, though it was hard to tell how much of an impact it had on the speed at which he was able to break down asteroids. Obviously familiarity and practice with the mining pod was the reason for most of his improvement, but a six percent increase in efficiency is a fair amount.

It only took a few minutes to fill up the rest of the crate though there was still plenty of the first asteroid remaining. We had gotten pretty good at the whole mining thing by now and had a nice system going. Whenever a crate was full, I would quickly put on and secure the lid before moving over to the next empty crate to get it ready. At the same time, Mason would move the current asteroid out of the cargo bay allowing him to move the newly-filled crate much more easily than I could. He had dented the first few crates he moved, but now he used just enough force to grip a crate securely and move it into place. He only had one hand to work with, after all.

Less than a minute after the crate was full, he was already grabbing onto the asteroid again to continue breaking it down. The Osprey had also come and gone many times and there were another dozen or so asteroids joining the four that remained.

“Alright, I think that’s enough for now, Tessa,” I chuckled. “I doubt it’ll take another sixteen asteroids to fill the remaining twenty or so crates.”

She laughed in return. “Alright, last one. We’ll use whatever is left when you’re done for target practice.”

“Wouldn’t that be a waste of resources?” Mason asked.

“Nah, this is nothing compared to the amount of resources in this galaxy, let alone the universe,” Ben answered. “Remember that asteroid belts are remnants of planets. I don’t know how many former planets made up this asteroid belt, but it has to be only one or two.”

“Alright, fire away then.”

---

About four hours later I was putting the lid on the final crate so Mason could move it into place on top of the stack. Once that was done, Mason climbed out of the pod, secured it, and then threw the cables up to me so we could begin tying everything down. At the same time, Ben had closed the cargo bay door and turned on the emitters to cleanse the cargo bay of any remaining radiation.

It had only taken thirteen of the seventeen gathered asteroids to fill the crates, allowing the girls to have some fun in what was, otherwise, a pretty boring day for them. They didn’t bother firing the mass driver, but they did give the gauss cannons and their pulse lasers a few shots each. The former definitely weren’t as effective as the latter as they broke up the asteroids rather slowly, while the pulse lasers carved through like it was nothing.

The pulse lasers weren’t a sustained energy weapon, instead sending out a beam of energy in pulses. The result was that the first beam bored through the asteroid a couple of feet before a very short pause followed by the next one and the one after that. By the time it bored about halfway through, the destructive forces inside of the asteroid were enough to shatter it into pieces. Quite large pieces, but pieces nonetheless.

It likely would’ve taken a sustained beam a little bit longer, simply because energy wouldn’t be striking again and again in quick succession. A sustained beam would have bored in the most when it first hit the asteroid, and then would have had to gradually cut through to the other side. If it could even cut through in one sustained beam.

That was one of the primary disadvantages of sustained lasers over pulse lasers. While they were generally more powerful, they could only be used in short spurts before they got to the point where they were too hot and needed to be cooled down. Pulse lasers also had that disadvantage, but because they fired in bursts, they didn’t generate as much heat, and thus didn’t require as much time to cool.

After they had had their fun, we synced up and jumped back into hyperspace. Our destination was the original asteroid field that we had been mining, but we would be arriving much further out than we usually did. We didn’t want to jump in and immediately be under fire, if the two missiles had hit their mark.

Before that, though, we logged out of the game to get some food. We all made sure to give our characters tasks in case something did happen while we were in hyperspace, but we had forty-five minutes to work with. If the in-game time mirrored real time, then thirteen hours would have passed meaning that it would be time for bed. Only about three hours and fifteen minutes had actually passed, so we would just be having a late lunch.

I did make sure to stop by my room to get Vixa, simply because it wasn’t fair for her to be stuck in the room all day. She certainly didn’t complain, especially when Anja picked her up and began nuzzling her on the way to the mess. She sat on Anja’s lap for the entire meal as the two sisters shared their lunch and showered her with attention. My mom also appeared with Imuna near the end of our meal and agreed to watch Vixa for a few hours, which made me slightly-less guilty.

All too soon it was time to head back into the game, logging back in with about five minutes to go. We had gone over our plans while eating, so we got prepared for a number of different scenarios. We definitely weren’t going to stay around longer than we needed to, but there was always the possibility that the battlecruiser would detect us dropping out of hyperspace and move to intercept us.

We did the same thing we did when we arrived at the secondary asteroid field; the two ships both activated their shields and then began actively scanning the area. We were at the extreme range of our sensors, but we were focusing them on a relatively small area.

“Huh,” Ben said. “It’s been about ten hours since we left and the three ships are still here. Either the missiles did hit and the two mining ships were seriously damaged, or the missiles didn’t hit and they left and came back already.”

“I am detecting more than the usual amounts of radiation in that area, so they definitely did arm and detonate, but I can’t pick up any debris. Not from this distance, at least.” Aleena added.

“Alright, let’s go with plan A. Sending coordinates for the jump.”

We would only be in hyperspace for a tenth of a second, but that will be enough time to cover millions of kilometers. We would only be able to do two or three jumps total before the battlecruiser would detect us with passive scanners, or they already knew we were here if they were actively scanning. Either way, we would soon find out.

The jump went off without a hitch and we were substantially closer. Going active too early would definitely alert them to our presence this time, so instead Ben and Aleena extended the passive sensor range as far as they possibly could.

“No good,” Ben said. “They’re simply too far away to get any sort of reading with the passive scanners. We need to go active.”

I had used the lunch break to get some advice for Abi. I explained the situation we were dealing with in-game, and she gave me a number of things to try that wouldn’t put us in too much danger.

“Aleena, hold off on going active. Ben, give me three one-second bursts, no more than that. It should be enough to get a reading, but the battlecruiser won’t be able to pinpoint our location.”

“One sec,” he replied.

He began typing on his console and then looked over to me when he was done, at the ready. I nodded and he pressed down on his screen. I immediately looked up at the main monitor to see if that was enough.

“Okay, so the missiles definitely detonated and I am seeing quite a bit more debris than there was previously. One of the mining ships is also moving alongside the battlecruiser, but I can’t tell if it is moving on its own or if it is being towed. The other mining ships seems dead in the water.”

“The battlecruiser definitely wouldn’t have a tractor beam capable of capturing a ship that size, but that is not true the other way around. The mining ship would easily be able to capture the battlecruiser. As long as the mining ship didn’t engage their engines the battlecruiser would be able to pull them around,” Tessa explained. “Perhaps the missile that was targeting that one disabled or destroyed the engines?”

“Definitely possible. They were targeted on key systems, right?” I asked. “Also, how long would it take for them to disable the tractor beam so the battlecruiser could come after us?”

“I don’t know. Five to ten seconds, maybe?” she replied.

“It would probably take a minute or so, depending on how good their communications officer and navigator is,” Ben said. “They’re facing away from us right now, so they’ll need to have the tractor beam shut down, then they’ll have to pinpoint our location, set a course and turn the ship around before they could enter hyperspace.”

“Alright, give me a full active scan for ten seconds on my mark. Tessa, I’m sending you the coordinates for our next jump. Lock them in so I can jump us as soon as the scan is over.”

Something that I wasn’t aware of was that ships in fleets, both in-game and in the real world, usually have their navigation computers slaved to the main command ship in the fleet. That allows coordinates to quickly be disseminated through the fleet and locked in. The command ship can then send the command to each computer in the fleet to jump into hyperspace all at once. If it wasn’t done that way then it would take way too long to jump and keep a fleet together, especially when you’re in a combat situation and you need to move quickly.

“Locked in,” Tessa replied.

“Alright, Ben. Do it.”

The battlecruiser and the mining ship were just trundling along, but that changed about seven seconds into the scan. Both ships started slowing down as they spread apart. They had definitely detected us, though that was all we knew, so far. We didn’t bother waiting around for them to show up, though. As soon as the countdown hit zero, I hit the button on my console. Both of our ships were already oriented in the right direction, so we immediately jumped into hyperspace. Now that they knew we were here, it was time to leave.

“Okay, so one of the mining ships is definitely crippled, there was very little power and it seemed like most of the escape pods were used. The other mining ship took some engine damage, but was otherwise unscathed. I think the only reason they’re still sticking around is to rescue as many people as possible and salvage anything they can,” Ben explained now that we were safely headed back to Zecciea. “I was also reading high concentrations of the energy that the emitters put out, so they’re definitely trying to get rid of the radiation generated by the explosions.”

“One out of two isn’t bad, especially for the first time trying out that tactic. The fact that it appeared to work is actually pretty scary,” Mason said.

“Because it took about thirty-eight minutes for the missiles to finally arrive,” Tessa replied. “The shields went up on all three ships when we were preparing to jump, but they probably felt secure enough to proceed with the mining operation after a little bit. If they had arrived sooner, then they likely would have been ineffective. Radiation would have permeated the shield and the hull but they’ve got plenty of emitters on either ship to deal with that.”

“At least we know it works. I’ve already got some ideas to make it more effective in the real world.”

“Oh? How so?” Mason asked.

“You’re familiar with HEAT?”

“High-Explosive Anti-Tank, yeah. They’re essentially shaped charges that are capable of penetrating pretty thick armor. Or were. Composite and reactive armor have reduced their effectiveness quite a bit. You’re saying that no one has thought to put one of those on a missile? They would penetrate hulls like nothing else.”

“Apparently not, but I’m planning on talking to Tich about it. Another idea was a missile that uses either a drill head or a laser, along with the rocket engine to burrow further into a ship. Once it burrows like six feet then it would detonate, making conventional explosives much more effective than they otherwise would be.”

“You could even use a HEAT warhead to help penetrate into the hull. You might not need a drill head or a laser if the shaped charge is powerful enough.”

“True,” I nodded.

---

We arrived back at Zecciea in no time, and quickly put in a request to dock and unload our cargo. There was a bit more traffic around than there had been previously, with a bunch of ships that were as big as the Awaga-Class Cargo Ships, or smaller, but that didn’t have any impact on how long it took to be granted clearance.

We weren’t worried about the prices of plutonium and uranium dropping, nor did we want to pay the fee for storing radioactive materials, so we just had all forty-four crates unloaded and weighed. There were twenty-eight crates of plutonium and sixteen crates of uranium, so we weren’t really maximizing our profit, but we still made a ridiculous amount of credits off the run.

It appeared that the concentration was a bit better in the second asteroid field. There were about eight-point-two tons of plutonium and eight-point-three tons of uranium per crate on average, meaning that we had gathered a little over three hundred sixty-four tons of usable material. With the going prices remaining stable at sixty-six thousand and seventy-eight thousand respectively, that meant that we made twenty-five and a half million credits. That was equal to our two previous runs in a row, granted, but we had a bunch of different metals sitting in storage waiting to be sold.

We were slowly getting used to the amount of credits we were pulling in and with the most recent deposit we were well over sixty million credits. That was more than enough to get a ship that would mop the floor with the battlecruiser but we were aiming higher than that. We would definitely grab a few upgrades for our ships the next time we played, but that was as far as we were willing to go.

The next few hours were just spent lounging. We had spent so much time in the last week playing video games that we just wanted to take a break. We did log into The Escape to make sure that our rooms were paid a little bit longer. Unfortunately that required us having to sell off some of the ammo we had just purchased in the process so we would have enough credits, but we had another twenty-four hours to work with. We would definitely need to spend a few hours to get back to our base where we could log out safely.

All in all, it was just a nice way to end the day. For over two weeks we had spent much of our time either delving into dungeons, training or playing video games which didn’t give us very much time to just relax. Of the nine of us, Tessa was probably the one who had the most free time, though my sisters were just as busy as my friends and I were.

They had been the ones in charge of coordinating everything with the dragons so we could leave on time, and with that done they were helping my dad finalize everything in preparation for the training that would begin in earnest when we got back, as well as the arrival of the ships. There was less work to do while traveling through space, but this was the most free time they had had since I met them.

I was almost as excited for what would be in store for tomorrow as I was when I turned eighteen and could start leveling up. Tomorrow I would finally be able to change my form at will and maybe even unlock my telekinesis.

Maybe…

Hopefully...