Strike
Oddball of the Interwebs
1.
If I could choose one word to describe my world, it would be chaotic.
An endless struggle for power throughout the galaxies.
Right now, I’m on my ship, the Dark Ranger II. In front of said ship, there’s an even bigger ship currently blasting the front off. My cannons can’t keep up; they’re simply outnumbered. Essentially, if I lose, I die.
“Sir,” my computer’s voice rings throughout my cabin. “The damage to the first airlock and hull is at 45%. We will breach at 76-100%.”
I pull on my jumpsuit, and run to the control room. Alerts and red screens are everywhere. My robot assistant, Gyro, looks at me with worried eyes. He has some of the most sophisticated A.I. available, so he can feel… well, feelings. “The ship’s cannons are just plain outnumbered,” he reports. “We can’t win this fight at all. 5 of our 20 cannons are out of commission already, and the nearest docking station is 20 light minutes away. It’s a shame really,” he adds. “Such a remote area to get into a tussle.”
“He hadn’t marked his territory on the maps,” I grumble. “How was I supposed to know I was in his area?”
A loud thunder shakes the room, things falling from the shelves. We have artificial gravity switched on. I look out the window at the large ship. It isn’t a Colossal, but its damn close. “We’re at 53% in the front. If we lose that, I assure you we can’t get away, there’ll be too much drag,” Gryo says, rubbing his hands together.
I fall into my chair, and it slides across the room on a track. I type my code in and say my name: “Matthew Blaese.” It glows green for a second, and shows me a printout of the ship. There’s some red on the sides, but my main concern is the bright red on the front. 57%. “Gryo, is our camo still operational?” I call out. He doesn’t respond for a second, then says “Yes, but not for long. The main computer is up there.”
“Switch it on. We’re getting out of here.”
“Yes sir.”
“Camo activating…” the voice of the computer says. “Success.”
“Alright, let’s get out of here.” I press a button, and my chair glides to the front of the ship. It’s all glass, except the floor. On the armrests joysticks appear, with handles on the top. I grab them and slowly pull them to the right. The ship jostles slightly as we veer, and I feel no more rumbling from the other ships cannons. They weren’t expecting us to disappear. This area of the galaxy doesn’t have invisibility tech yet, that’s how far we are from my home galaxy. As soon as the other ship is to the left completely, I slowly pull back. We glide backwards, the ship getting smaller.
“Sir!” Gyro suddenly yells. “They’re locking onto us with radar. We have to get out of here now!”
“Copy,” I say as calmly as I can, although I’m panicking. If they lock onto us, it’s over. Now or never. I jerk the controls to flip the ship around. Things fly from shelves, and I hear Gyro yelp as he falls to the ground. I flip open a plastic box embedded into a panel next to the chair, and press the white button. A loud rumble, then silence.
Gyro pants for a second, and looks at the screens. “On track for the nearest station. 19 minutes left until required slow down.”
I sigh. “That was way too close.” I whip my wrist around, and a hologram appears from a band. I tap “comms.” “Disc, status.” Disc is another robot. He controls the engines, essentially. His voice comes up, and I sigh of relief. Spinning around so fast has the risk of damaging robots, he could’ve gotten hurt or worse. “Engines are good to go, and so are the shields. They’re in the back, so they only took 10% of the damage. The front and side thrusters, however, are a different story,” Disc says. “The front thrusters shields went down, and the thrusters took 30% damage. The side thruster shields are still up with 83%. Way too close for comfort, sir. I suggest replacing the shields for the front and sides, and doing a complete swap for the front thrusters. Status report complete.” He says the end bit because everything on the comms is recorded, in case something goes wrong. So are the rooms, mainly for legal reasons. Not required, but it makes me feel a whole lot safer. Honestly, I don’t know why.
“Copy. Crane, status.” Crane is the robot that controls the weaponry. His voice comes up. “Front cannons are almost destroyed, with 13 out of 20 left. All shields disabled. Side cannons weren’t used, but shields took 30% damage. I recommend replacing them at the next station. All of the big guns are completely fine, they were inside. Shields are at 100% for them. Status report complete.”
I run my hands through my hair. “Copy,” I sigh, and flick my wrist. The holograms disappears. There’s silence in the control room, only the soft rumbling of the ship. I bury my head in my hands, considering the situation. We just ran into someone’s territory. We severely underestimated them because of the galaxy they reside in. We almost died. I might not have enough bits, which is the currency the entire universe uses now.
I flick my wrist again. “Trace, what’s our currency of bits?”
His voice comes across. “Sir, we have ☄350,400 right now.” ☄ also means bit. Need I mention that’s not enough to repair the entire ship?
“How far can we get to repair the ship without going bankrupt?”
He was silent as he calculated. “We can repair roughly 75% of the ship. We’d have to leave out some cannons, but we can repair everything else, including the shields. But you won’t like how much we’ll have left. ☄50,000.”
“Hell. Alright… we’ll make it work. Stick with that plan.”
“Sir, I feel I must mention that’s barely enough for fuel, food, and oxygen.”
“I understand.”
“Copy.”
I lean back in my chair, the hologram disappearing. I push back all the screens in front of my face that are embedded into the chair, and look at the stars flashing by. “10 minutes until required slow down,” the computer reports. Space is a strange concept. No matter how far we look, nobody will ever get to the end of it. It’s endless. Anything could be out there. Maybe that’s what scares me.
My territory is a fair size, and I control a small trading route. People pay me ☄500 to get through. It’s a very small amount, mind you, but it’s so remote and off course I only get about 30 people a week. Not enough to get by. I take other jobs, like bounty hunting, or hunting a person down. Going after territory. That kind of stuff. You could say I live on the edge.
I reach into a compartment to the side, and pull out my AR glasses. It allows me to work with things I wouldn’t be able to in reality. I place them on, and pull up a scale of the ship. It’s real time, so I can assess the damage without having to leave the ship in a suit. I widen it with my hands, and turn it to look at the front. The hull is mutilated, almost beyond recognition. The dark blue text that reads Dark Ranger II is hardly visible. A bunch of the cannons have wiring exposed, and pieces are floating around in the emergency shields. The underbelly is a bit damaged, but not much. The glass in front of me isn’t cracked; it’s 5 feet thick. There are a few marks, though.
“Gyro, call all the bots to the control room here. We need to be able to leave. The only one who stays is Bask.”
“Yes, sir.” He types into his control panel, and sends a message. The screens change to photos of the bots. Text flashes underneath “waiting for confirmation…” and green check marks appear for 2 seconds in front of the photos before they disappear. In under a minute, all the photos are gone.
Bask controls landing and navigation manually. Think of him as a backup to the ship and myself, if I’m out. The ship can do it, but he can do it from down there if something goes wrong.
“Five minutes until required slowdown.”
The bots, one by one, file into the room and sit in chairs, chatting amongst themselves. Bots are very pricey, around ☄50,000 for a really good bot like Gyro. So I make them myself, and steal the A.I. from the dark web. I polish up the robots after they’ve been built. All said and done, it costs about ☄20,000.
I pull off the lenses and store them, and the chair glides to the main area. The bots greet me, one by one, and return to conversation. Normally I would talk as well, but today’s different. This is a serious situation, and they know this. They let me think, and I appreciate it. They all learn it over time.
“One minute until required slowdown.”
“Alright everyone,” I call out. They all stop chatting and look at me. “We’re going to dock soon, so listen up. I haven’t been at this station before, but it’s supposed to be a good one. Despite the reviews, we stick together until we know the place. Strek, make sure we’re on sentry when we dock.”
“Yes sir,” the robot calls out. Strek controls security.
“My construction bots, get the job done as quickly as possible, but don’t mess it up. We don’t know if that ship followed us.”
Confirmation.
“Gyro, Trace and Crane come with me. Make sure you guys have your laser pistols.”
Yes sir.
I clap my hands. “Sit in your assigned seats for docking, then.”
“Completing slowdown…”
Everyone leans a bit back as the velocity drops massively. Then it’s all back to normal. I glide to the window and look out the side. The docking station is in view, and it’s fairly big. Enough to buy and make repairs.
I pick up a comm. “Docking station one-nine-eight-two, this is shuttle Dark Ranger II, I.D. seven-nine-seven-three-four requesting to dock.”
I wait. A voice comes up after a short period. “Dark Ranger II, you have been confirmed and have been given permission to dock at station 21. Make sure all bots are disarmed, and you have papers ready for verification.”
“Copy.”
The ship slowly glides to dock 21 as Bask leads it up. The computer isn’t sophisticated enough to dock in such a crowded area. It slows and stops. A loud whirrr comes from the airlock as the bridge reaches out to the docking bridge. A sudden jolt, and we’re up and running. The ships lights dim to save power, and all engines shut off. They only turn on to make adjustments. The docks have no gravity, so all ships float and don’t have to waste fuel.
I stand from the gliding chair and it speeds back to the center of the room. After putting on my gloves and cape, I walk to the airlock and open both doors. Docking stations have air, so no need for the procedure. “Ready you three?” I ask the bots. They nod, and the other bots watch, relaxed. They can’t appear tense or they’ll be confiscated.
I walk out to the bridge and a guard is standing to greet me. We shake hands, and I give him my papers. He scans them over, pulls out a device to snap a photo of the code, and hands them back. “Welcome to the station, sir,” he says cheerfully.
“Thank you very much,” I say, putting my hands in my pockets. I walk to the center, and it’s packed. There are a lot of people and aliens, with shuttles surrounding the entire area. Only few stations are left open. We got lucky.
I check my bots are still behind me, and walk over to a repair booth. I go to the counter and ring a bell. A robot comes and greets me. “How can I help?”
“We were attacked and need massive repairs. Trace here controls the currency, and he’ll deal with that. Gyro can offer where the repairs are needed.”
The robot nods, and about 10 little bots float out of the ceiling toward Gyro. Trace walks up to the counter and plugs into a computer, uploading the information. Gyro’s jetpack activates, and they float off toward the ship. Crane stays with me. He has the weapons, so he’s not needed here.
Next I approach the weapons booth, and Trace catches up right when we get there. I look at the bot operating the shop. “How can I help you today, Mr. Blaese?”
“You already have my info?”
“When someone docks, all robots receive their names so communication is much more simple.”
“I see,” I mumble. “I have 16 cannons that need replacing, and around 20 shields as well.
Trace walks up and uploads our currency. The robot looks and frowns. “Your currency after this will be ☄45,000. Are you sure you want to continue?”
I suck air in through my teeth. So low, and we need to refuel on supplies. After that—
“After all our restocks, we’ll have around ☄10,000.” Trace saw it on my face. I nod. “Do it. We don’t really have a choice. Besides, the restocks will last another year or so.
The robot nods, and Trace unplugs. Crane floats off toward the ship with an assistant robot. The robot with him is gigantic, probably carrying the weapons and shields compiled.
I plop down on a seat, and sigh. Trace sits next to me, looking down, elbows on his knees. “How long can we go off ☄10,000?” I ask him. He frowns, and looks at me. “About 3 months. We have to get money quickly. We can’t live like this forever, you know.”
“I’m fully aware,” I reply. He looks to the ground again. I pat his back. It’s cold, hard metal, but he feels like family anyway. It stresses Trace when we go low on money. It’s his job, after all. If I go bankrupt, he’s on sale, and he knows it.
After about an hour, my wristband chimes. I look at the message. Gyro is reporting the ship is ready. “That was fast,” I reply. “Get you two on board. Trace and I are on our way.”
I walk up to the Dark Ranger II. Looks as good as new. Could use a paint job, if we’re being honest though. I walk through the airlock, and all my bots are there. Trace follows closely behind, and both airlocks close. The lights come on, and the cabin warms up to regular temperature almost instantly.
“Well boys, let’s get back to our territory. We got full supplies, and we need to find a quick job for some quick bit’s. Hop to it. Curfew at 2200.”
They all file out, and Gyro goes to his cabin. He is no longer needed for the remainder of the evening. I sit in my chair as the ship pulls out, and sigh.
Now what the hell am I supposed to do?
END OF CHAPTER 1
If I could choose one word to describe my world, it would be chaotic.
An endless struggle for power throughout the galaxies.
Right now, I’m on my ship, the Dark Ranger II. In front of said ship, there’s an even bigger ship currently blasting the front off. My cannons can’t keep up; they’re simply outnumbered. Essentially, if I lose, I die.
“Sir,” my computer’s voice rings throughout my cabin. “The damage to the first airlock and hull is at 45%. We will breach at 76-100%.”
I pull on my jumpsuit, and run to the control room. Alerts and red screens are everywhere. My robot assistant, Gyro, looks at me with worried eyes. He has some of the most sophisticated A.I. available, so he can feel… well, feelings. “The ship’s cannons are just plain outnumbered,” he reports. “We can’t win this fight at all. 5 of our 20 cannons are out of commission already, and the nearest docking station is 20 light minutes away. It’s a shame really,” he adds. “Such a remote area to get into a tussle.”
“He hadn’t marked his territory on the maps,” I grumble. “How was I supposed to know I was in his area?”
A loud thunder shakes the room, things falling from the shelves. We have artificial gravity switched on. I look out the window at the large ship. It isn’t a Colossal, but its damn close. “We’re at 53% in the front. If we lose that, I assure you we can’t get away, there’ll be too much drag,” Gryo says, rubbing his hands together.
I fall into my chair, and it slides across the room on a track. I type my code in and say my name: “Matthew Blaese.” It glows green for a second, and shows me a printout of the ship. There’s some red on the sides, but my main concern is the bright red on the front. 57%. “Gryo, is our camo still operational?” I call out. He doesn’t respond for a second, then says “Yes, but not for long. The main computer is up there.”
“Switch it on. We’re getting out of here.”
“Yes sir.”
“Camo activating…” the voice of the computer says. “Success.”
“Alright, let’s get out of here.” I press a button, and my chair glides to the front of the ship. It’s all glass, except the floor. On the armrests joysticks appear, with handles on the top. I grab them and slowly pull them to the right. The ship jostles slightly as we veer, and I feel no more rumbling from the other ships cannons. They weren’t expecting us to disappear. This area of the galaxy doesn’t have invisibility tech yet, that’s how far we are from my home galaxy. As soon as the other ship is to the left completely, I slowly pull back. We glide backwards, the ship getting smaller.
“Sir!” Gyro suddenly yells. “They’re locking onto us with radar. We have to get out of here now!”
“Copy,” I say as calmly as I can, although I’m panicking. If they lock onto us, it’s over. Now or never. I jerk the controls to flip the ship around. Things fly from shelves, and I hear Gyro yelp as he falls to the ground. I flip open a plastic box embedded into a panel next to the chair, and press the white button. A loud rumble, then silence.
Gyro pants for a second, and looks at the screens. “On track for the nearest station. 19 minutes left until required slow down.”
I sigh. “That was way too close.” I whip my wrist around, and a hologram appears from a band. I tap “comms.” “Disc, status.” Disc is another robot. He controls the engines, essentially. His voice comes up, and I sigh of relief. Spinning around so fast has the risk of damaging robots, he could’ve gotten hurt or worse. “Engines are good to go, and so are the shields. They’re in the back, so they only took 10% of the damage. The front and side thrusters, however, are a different story,” Disc says. “The front thrusters shields went down, and the thrusters took 30% damage. The side thruster shields are still up with 83%. Way too close for comfort, sir. I suggest replacing the shields for the front and sides, and doing a complete swap for the front thrusters. Status report complete.” He says the end bit because everything on the comms is recorded, in case something goes wrong. So are the rooms, mainly for legal reasons. Not required, but it makes me feel a whole lot safer. Honestly, I don’t know why.
“Copy. Crane, status.” Crane is the robot that controls the weaponry. His voice comes up. “Front cannons are almost destroyed, with 13 out of 20 left. All shields disabled. Side cannons weren’t used, but shields took 30% damage. I recommend replacing them at the next station. All of the big guns are completely fine, they were inside. Shields are at 100% for them. Status report complete.”
I run my hands through my hair. “Copy,” I sigh, and flick my wrist. The holograms disappears. There’s silence in the control room, only the soft rumbling of the ship. I bury my head in my hands, considering the situation. We just ran into someone’s territory. We severely underestimated them because of the galaxy they reside in. We almost died. I might not have enough bits, which is the currency the entire universe uses now.
I flick my wrist again. “Trace, what’s our currency of bits?”
His voice comes across. “Sir, we have ☄350,400 right now.” ☄ also means bit. Need I mention that’s not enough to repair the entire ship?
“How far can we get to repair the ship without going bankrupt?”
He was silent as he calculated. “We can repair roughly 75% of the ship. We’d have to leave out some cannons, but we can repair everything else, including the shields. But you won’t like how much we’ll have left. ☄50,000.”
“Hell. Alright… we’ll make it work. Stick with that plan.”
“Sir, I feel I must mention that’s barely enough for fuel, food, and oxygen.”
“I understand.”
“Copy.”
I lean back in my chair, the hologram disappearing. I push back all the screens in front of my face that are embedded into the chair, and look at the stars flashing by. “10 minutes until required slow down,” the computer reports. Space is a strange concept. No matter how far we look, nobody will ever get to the end of it. It’s endless. Anything could be out there. Maybe that’s what scares me.
My territory is a fair size, and I control a small trading route. People pay me ☄500 to get through. It’s a very small amount, mind you, but it’s so remote and off course I only get about 30 people a week. Not enough to get by. I take other jobs, like bounty hunting, or hunting a person down. Going after territory. That kind of stuff. You could say I live on the edge.
I reach into a compartment to the side, and pull out my AR glasses. It allows me to work with things I wouldn’t be able to in reality. I place them on, and pull up a scale of the ship. It’s real time, so I can assess the damage without having to leave the ship in a suit. I widen it with my hands, and turn it to look at the front. The hull is mutilated, almost beyond recognition. The dark blue text that reads Dark Ranger II is hardly visible. A bunch of the cannons have wiring exposed, and pieces are floating around in the emergency shields. The underbelly is a bit damaged, but not much. The glass in front of me isn’t cracked; it’s 5 feet thick. There are a few marks, though.
“Gyro, call all the bots to the control room here. We need to be able to leave. The only one who stays is Bask.”
“Yes, sir.” He types into his control panel, and sends a message. The screens change to photos of the bots. Text flashes underneath “waiting for confirmation…” and green check marks appear for 2 seconds in front of the photos before they disappear. In under a minute, all the photos are gone.
Bask controls landing and navigation manually. Think of him as a backup to the ship and myself, if I’m out. The ship can do it, but he can do it from down there if something goes wrong.
“Five minutes until required slowdown.”
The bots, one by one, file into the room and sit in chairs, chatting amongst themselves. Bots are very pricey, around ☄50,000 for a really good bot like Gyro. So I make them myself, and steal the A.I. from the dark web. I polish up the robots after they’ve been built. All said and done, it costs about ☄20,000.
I pull off the lenses and store them, and the chair glides to the main area. The bots greet me, one by one, and return to conversation. Normally I would talk as well, but today’s different. This is a serious situation, and they know this. They let me think, and I appreciate it. They all learn it over time.
“One minute until required slowdown.”
“Alright everyone,” I call out. They all stop chatting and look at me. “We’re going to dock soon, so listen up. I haven’t been at this station before, but it’s supposed to be a good one. Despite the reviews, we stick together until we know the place. Strek, make sure we’re on sentry when we dock.”
“Yes sir,” the robot calls out. Strek controls security.
“My construction bots, get the job done as quickly as possible, but don’t mess it up. We don’t know if that ship followed us.”
Confirmation.
“Gyro, Trace and Crane come with me. Make sure you guys have your laser pistols.”
Yes sir.
I clap my hands. “Sit in your assigned seats for docking, then.”
“Completing slowdown…”
Everyone leans a bit back as the velocity drops massively. Then it’s all back to normal. I glide to the window and look out the side. The docking station is in view, and it’s fairly big. Enough to buy and make repairs.
I pick up a comm. “Docking station one-nine-eight-two, this is shuttle Dark Ranger II, I.D. seven-nine-seven-three-four requesting to dock.”
I wait. A voice comes up after a short period. “Dark Ranger II, you have been confirmed and have been given permission to dock at station 21. Make sure all bots are disarmed, and you have papers ready for verification.”
“Copy.”
The ship slowly glides to dock 21 as Bask leads it up. The computer isn’t sophisticated enough to dock in such a crowded area. It slows and stops. A loud whirrr comes from the airlock as the bridge reaches out to the docking bridge. A sudden jolt, and we’re up and running. The ships lights dim to save power, and all engines shut off. They only turn on to make adjustments. The docks have no gravity, so all ships float and don’t have to waste fuel.
I stand from the gliding chair and it speeds back to the center of the room. After putting on my gloves and cape, I walk to the airlock and open both doors. Docking stations have air, so no need for the procedure. “Ready you three?” I ask the bots. They nod, and the other bots watch, relaxed. They can’t appear tense or they’ll be confiscated.
I walk out to the bridge and a guard is standing to greet me. We shake hands, and I give him my papers. He scans them over, pulls out a device to snap a photo of the code, and hands them back. “Welcome to the station, sir,” he says cheerfully.
“Thank you very much,” I say, putting my hands in my pockets. I walk to the center, and it’s packed. There are a lot of people and aliens, with shuttles surrounding the entire area. Only few stations are left open. We got lucky.
I check my bots are still behind me, and walk over to a repair booth. I go to the counter and ring a bell. A robot comes and greets me. “How can I help?”
“We were attacked and need massive repairs. Trace here controls the currency, and he’ll deal with that. Gyro can offer where the repairs are needed.”
The robot nods, and about 10 little bots float out of the ceiling toward Gyro. Trace walks up to the counter and plugs into a computer, uploading the information. Gyro’s jetpack activates, and they float off toward the ship. Crane stays with me. He has the weapons, so he’s not needed here.
Next I approach the weapons booth, and Trace catches up right when we get there. I look at the bot operating the shop. “How can I help you today, Mr. Blaese?”
“You already have my info?”
“When someone docks, all robots receive their names so communication is much more simple.”
“I see,” I mumble. “I have 16 cannons that need replacing, and around 20 shields as well.
Trace walks up and uploads our currency. The robot looks and frowns. “Your currency after this will be ☄45,000. Are you sure you want to continue?”
I suck air in through my teeth. So low, and we need to refuel on supplies. After that—
“After all our restocks, we’ll have around ☄10,000.” Trace saw it on my face. I nod. “Do it. We don’t really have a choice. Besides, the restocks will last another year or so.
The robot nods, and Trace unplugs. Crane floats off toward the ship with an assistant robot. The robot with him is gigantic, probably carrying the weapons and shields compiled.
I plop down on a seat, and sigh. Trace sits next to me, looking down, elbows on his knees. “How long can we go off ☄10,000?” I ask him. He frowns, and looks at me. “About 3 months. We have to get money quickly. We can’t live like this forever, you know.”
“I’m fully aware,” I reply. He looks to the ground again. I pat his back. It’s cold, hard metal, but he feels like family anyway. It stresses Trace when we go low on money. It’s his job, after all. If I go bankrupt, he’s on sale, and he knows it.
After about an hour, my wristband chimes. I look at the message. Gyro is reporting the ship is ready. “That was fast,” I reply. “Get you two on board. Trace and I are on our way.”
I walk up to the Dark Ranger II. Looks as good as new. Could use a paint job, if we’re being honest though. I walk through the airlock, and all my bots are there. Trace follows closely behind, and both airlocks close. The lights come on, and the cabin warms up to regular temperature almost instantly.
“Well boys, let’s get back to our territory. We got full supplies, and we need to find a quick job for some quick bit’s. Hop to it. Curfew at 2200.”
They all file out, and Gyro goes to his cabin. He is no longer needed for the remainder of the evening. I sit in my chair as the ship pulls out, and sigh.
Now what the hell am I supposed to do?
END OF CHAPTER 1
