Condition Evolution 2: A LitRPG / Gamelit Adventure by Sinclair, Kevin (the best electronic book reader .TXT) 📕

“Ember is all I have. All I care about. The whole universe could burn as long as I was with her.”

“That’s very sweet of you, Shaun,” said Ember’s voice coming from out behind the building.

I rejoiced. The people escorting her made a quick exit as I ran over to her and scooped her up in a hug, tears running freely down my face.

“Ugh! Get off me. You’re gross!” she cried.

“Too late for that. I’ve already covered you,” I said, then kissed her deeply. She didn’t stop me.

“Well, thanks for coming, Shaun. Not that I doubted you, my amazing buffoon. You’ve certainly made an impression on what’s left of the locals.”

“Did they treat you okay?”

“They did, actually. After a few hours of your rampage they were too terrified to do anything to me. They were going to use me as a hostage but couldn’t get you to listen. You just kept killing, apparently. I told them to send me out to you, but they thought I was lying. And didn’t want to rile you up anymore,” Ember explained, as we walked back over to Drabu.

“You know Ogun’s left us here, right?”

“Yes. I was told. What are we going to do?”

“Drabu is giving us a ship. I told him we couldn’t fly, so he’s agreed to teach us the basics. He’s gonna set our navigation system to fly to another planet where we might pick up a pilot.”

“Cool. Glad to hear you’ve things in hand for once. Normally, it’s just ‘I dunno’.”

We had reached Drabu, so I spoke to him instead of responding to Ember, who was being an ungrateful asshole. “Okay. What now?”

“I will take you straight to the ship. It is a hunk of junk, but is all we have available to give.”

C10

Flight of the Navigator

Drabu, the giant leader of this town, walked us back to the docks. They only had six ships in their hanger. I felt terrible that I’d decimated their people and was now taking an entire spaceship off them.

I turned to Drabu. “I’m sorry again that you have to give us a ship just to get rid of me. I don’t know what the future holds for us. Even so, if I can bring the ship back or repay you I will. I intend to really fuck the Fystr up, so I hope that helps you.”

“I don’t know why I believe you. I’m naturally a very cynical person, nonetheless I do. Are you controlling my mind somehow?” he said.

“No! I hadn’t even thought about entering your mind.”

“That’s a relief. What is also a relief is that the Fystr have bypassed our planet. We received a communication that they acknowledge we held your shipmates up, and there will be no repercussions.”

“Ah well. I’m happy for you. Kind of. I hope our shipmates don’t get caught.”

“Ogun is proving to be a pretty slippery customer so far,” Ember said.

“You noticed?” I said back.

“This means I can spend a little longer explaining the workings of the ship. It doesn't have a name, as such. Just its manufacturing number: MC-8314-Fe. I should be able to have you ready by tomorrow night. Then, I must ask you to leave or what remains of my town will become rather unhappy with me. As for sleeping, if you wouldn’t mind staying on the ship. The food synth machine should be full.”

“Yeah. We got no problems with that,” Ember said.

Drabu began talking us through an array of functions on the ship’s controls. I literally retained not one iota of information. By the time night had fallen, Drabu left us alone promising his return in the morning. I strangely trusted the big bastard, so we made our bed and fell sound asleep in each other’s arms.

The following day we went over what we’d been taught and then Drabu continued with his crash course. Ember was much better at taking the information in, but then she did have a Metal Clarity of eighteen percent, compared to my poxy two percent. I found all the information absolutely mind-curdling. When Drabu left later that day Ember and I were exhausted, and I still felt like we knew fuck-all.

When he came back the next morning, he plotted a route to a planet called Ipsis into the ship’s navigation system. He suggested we should definitely try to find a pilot, or we’d be totally screwed.

The planet we would head towards was a well-known mercenary hangout. Fighters mainly, but there would be pilots, engineers, and general shipmates. Few people carried a full-time crew, so there were always subcontractors needing work.

With our goodbyes said, Ember punched the launch sequence in from her notebook and we rose from the ground. It was a truly terrifying experience taking a ship that the owner had called a ‘hunk of junk’ up into the vacuum of space.

I mean, we were two clueless idiots who hadn’t even believed in spaceships just over two months ago. We had no business flying a spaceship. Yet, here we were! Freestyling it through a distant part of the galaxy. I couldn’t decide whether it was a fascinating, or absolutely terrifying experience. On the Thoth we were too busy training and living. We had been nowhere near the bridge and could easily forget we were flying through space. Now, on this tiny little bone-shaker that we had to actively fly; shit just got real.

Luckily, we didn’t have to actually fly the ship yet. It had coordinates and a flight path programmed into the ship’s computer. We only had to supervise and monitor the various screens and alerts. All in all, I was stressed to bits. Ember seemed to cope better. Still, that didn’t mean much.

During our seventh day of the ten day journey, the food in the synthesizer ran out. This didn’t fill me with joy. I was sick to my fucking core of starvation now. It just kept happening!

My new physique demanded lots of meat and now I was meatless. I wondered how horses were