Vivid Stars Online

I didn’t think there was much of a chance of people coming out here into the unexplored lands by chance, particularly not at the same time as us. After my straight-line trip to the mountain, we were quite far from the explored edge and I hadn’t sent back any map updates yet.

That meant they were almost certainly here for us. I didn’t think I had annoyed anyone to the point of coming after me, so that meant they were most likely here for the same reason I was.

“OK, they must be here for the same facility we’re after,” I said with a scowl. “I just don’t see how they would know we were out here after something good.”

“Hah,” Brian laughed in response. “You know that you're kind of famous right Jared?” At my uncomprehending look, he continued, “Now I’m not saying that everyone knows your name or anything, however, most people know that there’s some hotshot explorer solving the city’s problems.”

“And,” he continued in a more serious tone. “Those who pay attention to such things know you’ve been to the palace multiple times in just a few months. It’s not too much of a jump to think you might make another amazing find.”

Linnea nodded along next to me. “This is the first time in a month you’ve hired anyone else, right? The last two times you went off with a group, you came back with a big haul, so someone could have been watching that.”

“Oh,” I responded as I tried to process that. I wasn’t used to being the person others paid attention to. Back in the real world, people barely even noticed when I entered or left a room, let alone watch out for news or me.

In a way, it felt nice to have that kind of recognition. I could have done without the consequences of it though. “That makes sense, though there’s also another possibility to consider,” I said as I worked through my thoughts.

The Dutchess had often seemed to know more than I thought she would and it was possible she had decided to cut out the middleman and send people to find the facility herself.

I felt like that was the less likely scenario as she was going to get everything I didn’t keep for myself anyway, however; it was something I felt like I had to bring up. While being less likely, it was also the worst-case scenario, and I felt like the others had a right to know.

“It also might be the duchess sending men to find the same facility,” I continued. “I don’t think that’s likely unless I’ve kept something a lot more valuable than I thought, but we should consider the possibility, anyway. If that’s the case, it’s likely going to be a lot more dangerous than some random group of thugs.”

While Linnea and Elana looked worried at the suggestion, Brian simply laughed. “You might have a little fame, Jared, but I doubt you're a big enough fish for her to act like that. Besides, if she was actually going for it, she wouldn’t half-ass it like this.”

“Instead of sending a VTOL with a few guys to follow you, she’d just track you in the planet's communication network and deploy drop pods from orbit when you get there. We may not have much of a fleet, but we have enough for something basic like that,” he finished with another laugh.

“Oh,” I said again, half relieved and half worried about his answer.

Well, I guess he would probably know, having been in both the navy and the army. I wasn’t really thinking about her essentially being the government here, after all. If she really wanted to mess with me, I wouldn’t have a chance.

After resolving again to never make her angry, I returned my attention to considering the remaining possibility. “Right then,” I continued. “So they're following us, presumably hoping I will lead them to somewhere good. Is there any chance we can lose them?”

“Not likely,” Brian responded with a sad shake of his head. “There's nothing but the mountain for miles and we aren’t any faster than they are. If I had a proper military craft, then maybe, as it is the best I can do is to keep roughly the same lead on them.”

“OK,” I responded as I continued to think. Trying to attack them is probably out of the question. They have done nothing other than be suspicious, so if we attack them out of nowhere, then the law is going to be on their side.

That sparked a thought, and I pulled up my watch to look after the exact laws around claiming sites. A small smile grew into a large one as I continued reading.

“OK,” I said again in a much more upbeat tone. “The law is pretty clear here. As long as we get to the facility first, then we found it, and both the information and salvage rights are ours. If they try anything, then we have the right to fight them off as claim jumpers.”

Ideally, they would just leave us alone at that point. However, I had a bad feeling that anyone who would go to this much effort wouldn’t give up so easily. I’d had a lot of experience recently with how expensive it was to hire a group of people for an expedition like this and if they left at that point, they would lose a lot of money.

Even if all of them were here on the promise of loot rather than payment, they would lose money on supplies and the opportunity cost of other jobs they could be doing. I felt like all of that made a fight almost inevitable, and I turned to my companions with a frown.

“I understand this wasn’t what you signed up for. Fighting Beasts is one thing, fighting a group of presumably armed humans is another. If you want to head back with Brian, I would completely understand.”

I had actually considered turning back myself for a bit, however, I eventually decided that the risk was too high. It wasn’t like the facilities had been that well hidden after all, at least not from the ground.

From what I had been able to tell, they were mostly designed to be hard to spot from the air or from space, and they had mostly only gone undiscovered for so long because of their remoteness. Anyone determined enough to look around the mountain would find them eventually, and it was the only interesting thing to explore around here.

Linnea was the first to respond. “You hired me for protection. It doesn’t matter if that’s from Beasts or humans,” she said with a smile. “I’m with you all the way.”

Elana wasn’t far behind. “Hey, we're partners in this right? I help you out and I get those sweet, sweet robots in return. No one ever said it would be easy and a group of armed thugs isn’t any worse than a murderous AI.”

I thanked them both with a smile and an internal sigh of relief. While I had felt like it was the right thing to ask them, I hadn’t exactly been sure about what I’d do if they said no. While I’d gotten a lot better solo than I used to be, that experience had been against Beasts or unthinking robots.

Intelligent human assailants would be another thing entirely, and I was glad not to have to face it alone. Even then, I probably would have done it if I had to. Getting that third facility and the ritual chamber within was just too important to risk.

“OK then,” I said with a nod at the others. “We set down like normal then before rushing to the peak. I doubt they will attack before we get there since they want us to lead them to it, however, they might move ahead and try to anticipate our movements."

If they get there first we're just as screwed as they would be if we got there, so I expect more of a race than anything else until we arrive. After that, all bets are off. If we get there first, they might risk running afoul of the authorities after putting so much into this.

Linnea and Elana both nodded while Brian simply focused on landing the VTOL. While I certainly appreciated his information, I also understood that he didn’t really have a horse in this race. It would be up to the three of us to come through this successfully, and making it there first was the key to that.

If they made it instead, I knew I would have to let it go. The punishments for assault, murder and claim jumping all looked pretty severe and even the ritual chamber wasn’t worth permanently wrecking my character over.

While I might be able to come back from the dead, a long-term prison or labor sentence would kill everything I had built so far. I couldn’t make any money if they locked me up or forced me to work for free after all.

With that said, we all began checking our gear and making any preparations we could ahead of time. I was planning to leg it out of the landing site as soon as possible, hopefully getting a head start while the other ship looked for a landing site.

Since I had already mapped the area out, I could only assume we could land faster than them and I intended to milk that advantage for everything I could. Even with that, I suspected it would come down to a rush once the facility came into sight, but if I could avoid that outcome, I would.

Leaning over, I whispered to Linnea. “I can do a full dive for the next couple of weeks so I won’t have logout timeouts. While we will still need to rest, we might be able to do a big push at the end or something.”

She nodded in response with a grin, but also with questions in her eyes. Much like her, I hadn’t really discussed my real-life situation beyond a few vague references. Perhaps I would need to change that, to extend trust by opening up first.

Either way, I had signed up for full dive this morning before entering the game so I was good to go for now. While I didn’t want to run us so ragged that we lost combat ability at the end, we could still manage more distance each day without working around my limitations.

Brian's VTOL touched down, and we were already waiting in front of the landing platform as it extended. Before it even touched down, I had jumped from the plane and the other two weren’t far behind.

“I’ll monitor the other bird and give you a tip-off when it’s landed,” Brian shouted down after me. “And good luck out there. You're one of my best customers, so I don’t want you getting killed.”

While his words were tough, his softer-than-usual tone told me he cared a little more than that. “Thank you,” I shouted back without stopping, grateful for the extra help.

We settled into a mixture of jogging and walking as we moved up the mountain to make up the distance without exhausting ourselves. Luckily, even Elana had invested some points into Toughness, so we had endurance well beyond normal humans.

I was pretty sure I could have jogged most of the way and still only ended up winded at this point, however, I stayed pace with the other two for now. About fifteen minutes later, Brain sent me a message to say they had landed a little over the ridge.

“Looks like they want to avoid a conflict for now at least,” I said to the others as we moved. “As I expected, they probably won’t make a move until they know for sure where our target is.”

Linnea nodded in response before replying. “I can find a perch and check them out through the scope. I’ve got a lot of range, so I should be able to spy them before they spot me.”

I considered it for a moment before nodding in response. I trusted her sniping abilities and if she said she could do it, then I believed her. For a moment I wished we could just have her shoot them at the same time, however, I knew that wasn’t possible.

Whoever they were had done nothing yet, and if we shot first, then we would be the perpetrators. All it would take was for one of them to make a call before they died and then we would be the ones getting the flack for this.

It was only about ten minutes later that Linnea jogged up, looking grim. “It's Adam,” she said with a scowl as she approached. “And he’s got five other guys with him, all of them armed.”