GAME ON: Pledge Your Ships for Factional Fleet Service in Star Atlas
The spacefarers who cease at Bar Aria are usually after relaxation and recreation, however the room’s temper adjustments shortly every time a excessive bounty is broadcast by the beam. Crews from the identical ship huddle collectively. Captains who’re a part of the identical fleet strategize. Fingers clench slightly tighter round drink glasses. Whispers are traded to evaluate whether or not a mission was definitely worth the danger.
This bounty was somefactor new — a search and seize of… an unidentified ship that might remodel in-flight. The bounty description indicated the craft didn’t merely shift modules to reconfigure its hull. Moderately, it shifted kind and construction like fluid. No person within the room had ever encountered tech and engineering like that earlier than.
Menace degree? Unknown. However the ATLAS on supply carried sufficient zeroes to recommend heavy firepower was a prerequisite. The craft has been flying close to MUD provide ships. Although there hasn’t been direct battle, faction leaders fear that this can be a sophisticated fighter developed by a hostile group.
Whereas different captains are nonetheless weighing whether or not the bounty’s reward was value it, you’re boarding the Stronghold, a Pearce C11 fleet service and the delight of the MUD faction. Within the docking bay, you climb into your Pearce X5, the Maktoob, a pirate-hunting fighter by which you and your co-pilot have racked up a pair dozen kills.
The SCORE — Ship Commission on Remote Expedition — is a lifeline. Your ship is nicely stocked with provides — hydrogen fuel cells to maintain a burn of as much as three sols, food for 2 our bodies, basic ballistic ammunition, and hull repair kits to patch up after armed engagements and scratches from house particles. However you’re quick on ATLAS for ship upgrades.
Simply earlier than you had been able to elevate off and rendezvous with the Torch of Ulysses, a VZUS opod exploration and knowledge validation vessel that’s a part of your fleet and was already within the quadrant the place the shapeshifting craft was final seen, you obtain a misery sign from a Fimbul ECOS Greenader, a low orbit bomber with equal components firepower and eco-consciousness.
… stranded… out of gasoline… we’d like help… coordinates are…
Each explosive launched by the ships of the Earth Aware Ontological Society, or ECOS, comprises terraforming compounds. Some argue that’s the entire level, to show mining outposts into forests. Solely true radicals selected to helm these craft. You had been about to change off the open comms channel, however three phrases caught your ear.
… reward in ATLAS.
“Reset our path,” you say to your co-pilot. “Misguided as ECOS could also be, we can provide them an H-cell, take the reward, after which proceed to the Torch.”
Midway by your journey to rescue the stranded eco-terrorists, an Ogrika Jod Asteris, as soon as an intergalactic vacationer cruiser now hijacked and repurposed as a lethal battleship crewed by ONI freelancers, locks on to your service. They demand your meals shops in alternate for holding their fingers off the fireplace controls.
It’s ironic, you suppose, to be ravenous in some of the luxurious ships ever made.
A ship like that wants 15, 16 crew members to perform absolutely, or half that as a skeleton crew. The meals you will have onboard would hardly maintain them for a day, however they had been certainly ravenous, determined — harmful.
You veer into an asteroid area, its rocks lengthy strip-mined, in a bid to lose the ONI in your tail. The Asteris provides chase. The Maktoob shifts its configuration: protection mode for maximal hull plating protection to guard the craft because it rams by clusters of human-sized rocks, then pace mode with all thrusters at full punch, and assault mode when it’s important to blast bigger asteroids aside.
You’re looking out for Tufa ships, significantly Tufa Feists that could be camouflaged within the area, disguised as rocks, however the one means out is ahead. The Maktoob adjustments form because it navigates the sphere, every motion choreographed by you and your co-pilot. The Asteris retains up however slams into an asteroid roughly the dimensions of your craft. It punches a gap within the ship’s hull and, nicely, you didn’t cease to look at what occurred subsequent.
You survive the encounter, however your ammo is totally spent. When you’re to refuel the Greenader and search out the mysterious shapeshifter, you’ll have to resupply.
You set the decision out, and the pilot of a Pearce X4 solutions. He seems like he couldn’t be a day older than 15. That hardly mattered now. His bike may haul circumstances of ammo your means. An area station was 1 / 4 hour’s zip away.
“We’ll minimize you into our deal. Convey us some ammo, and we’ll pay for it in ATLAS as soon as we hand over some gasoline to a stranded Greenader. You’ll must sustain with us. That is meant to be a quick run.”
As a precaution, you concern directions to the Torch of Ulysses to converge with you and the X4 on the Greenader. Collectively, the 4 ships kind an unlikely fleet — one which piques the curiosity of a curious observer. You see a craft emerge inside line of sight, its silver physique shifting, gliding, reshaping like mercury gliding onto itself. It’s unattainable to say with certainty the place the bow and stern are. Two sides are wedges, the ship appeared as a single clean floor, its design pure grace.
“Photoli. It needs to be,” your co-pilot says.
You discovered it. The Shipmas bounty is yours. Earlier than you may hail it, the silver ship warps away. You spin up your drive and put together for pursuit…
That is Star Atlas. A pal as we speak might be a foe tomorrow. Factional warfare, guild skirmishes, financial leverage, and espionage are all a part of the sport. The yr is 2620. Put together for deep house exploration, fight, diplomacy, and conquest by visiting staratlas.com and be part of the Faction Fleet together with your ships at Play.StarAtlas.com/fleet.
