Chương 41: Chapter 42: Space Rogue

The spaceship and moon pick-ups went off without a hitch; however, as Adam arrived at the derelict ship and was about to retrieve the cargo, another ship dropped out of FTL and ordered him to leave the cargo or be destroyed. After scanning the ship, Spector's database recognised it as a pirate vessel with a bounty, so Adam decided to engage them instead of handing over the cargo.

Adam turned the Spector towards the pirate vessel as they both charged towards each other, and as they got within weapons range, Adam started to fire while strafing. Spector's anti-gravity drive was more manoeuvrable and quicker off the mark than standard thrust drive ships; however, he lost out when it came to top-end speed. Three basic rotating plasma cannons appeared out of hidden compartments on the front of the ship's hull just before Adam started firing at the pirates.

Two were placed on the top on either side of the cockpit, while the third was directly underneath the cockpit, on the bottom of the ship. The plasma cannons could be fired at different ships independently or all focus fire on a single target. They were relatively weak, though, since they were just the starter cannons; however, they worked at draining an enemy ship's shields. However, they were pretty much useless if used against a ship's hull.

While evading the pirates' attacks, Adam managed to drain their shields, causing them to collapse, so he started firing his basic ballistic repeaters, which, like the plasma cannons, appeared from hidden compartments; however, while the plasma cannons were two on top and one below, the repeaters were two below and one on top. The ballistic repeaters were similar to the plasma cannons in that they fired quickly but were not overly powerful.

Also, while the plasma cannons used energy from the ship's power core and you only had to prevent them from overheating. The repeaters used live ammo rapidly, so you had to make every shot count. Eventually, after several minutes of dodging enemy attacks while returning fire, Adam was able to destroy the pirate ship.

The kill would be recorded in the ship's log, which he could show to any law enforcement officers when he next came across them or contact them when he returned to a planet or space station they were located on. After destroying the pirates, Adam carried on with the mission and completed it. Like before, the broker congratulated him and gave him his pay before offering more work.

Adam continued on like this, doing random missions that had him experience almost everything a starship captain has to deal with, from starship repairs to scanning strange anomalies and investigating them to battles while being outnumbered. His final mission was to head to an abandoned space station to retrieve some data that had been left behind. Once there, he would have to EVA into the station because the station was without power, which meant no gravity and the docking system was broken.

Soon after entering, he got into a firefight, however. The game had only provided him with a basic laser blaster and laser sword as starter weapons. The sidearm lacked power, and it took Adam several shots before it could penetrate the attacker's armour and kill them. Since he was currently not as overpowered as he was when he was back on Earth, Adam had to start using cover and slowly whittling down the enemies, before finally, there was only one left.

The issue was that one of the enemies possessed a laser submachine gun, which fired far more rapidly than Adam's blaster and lasted longer before running out of energy. Adam was stuck behind a desk he had turned over for cover, occasionally exchanging fire with the enemy when he noticed what looked suspiciously like a fire extinguisher next to the attacker.

Adam shot what he hoped was a fire extinguisher, causing it to explode and send thick white foam all over the place, but after the initial force of the explosion, it started to just float around because of the lack of gravity. The thick white foam obscured the attacker's vision, causing him to pause his attack and let Adam vault over the table before using it as a launching pad to fly towards the attackers while pulling out his beam saber. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve.

Read this novel on the original website. As he passed through the foam and reached the attacker, he plunged the beam sabers laser into the attacker's helmet, killing him. After killing the last attacker, Adam took his laser SMG before retrieving the data and returning to the Spector without anyone else attacking him. As he sat in the pilot seat and transmitted the data via subspace, the broker called him to congratulate him and give him his pay as normal.

However, as the broker was about to offer him more work, the game paused and Spector spoke up. [Congratulations, you have completed the campaign's prologue. Continuing here will take you onto the main story; however, it is advised you switch to PvP mode for actual experience against other individuals.] Adam nodded before saying, "Return to the main menu." The cockpit disappeared, and Adam found himself back at the main menu, where he chose the PvP option.

The menu selections disappeared as several screens appeared before him. The left screen showed Adam's stats in PvP, such as his race, overall score, the number of games he had played, which, of course, was zero, along with his win-loss record and number of points available to spend in the points shop. The screen also featured information on the other players; both a top ten and top one hundred lists were shown, along with the function to search for specific players' usernames and check their details.

The right screen displayed the stats and equipment currently equipped to both the Spector and himself, while there was also a shop function where you could buy upgrades from the points he earned by playing PvP matches. The centre screen contained the match finder option. There was solo mode or team mode for those who liked to team up. Then there was tournament mode, which was currently greyed out but had red text under it giving the date of the next tournament.

A custom match mode where you could challenge specific players to matches and even alter the rules slightly if you wanted to mix it up from the pre-set rules. Finally, there was random match mode, which would match you up against someone who had a similar score to yourself in the game. Adam couldn't afford any upgrades yet since he didn't have any points, so in the end, he chose random match mode.

As he did, and the game started looking for an opponent, Spector suddenly spoke up with the words Adam had gotten used to. [Launching stream.] [[Stream description below:]] [[Stream Title: Training]] [[Mission Parameters: You have not wasted your last two years while travelling through subspace, you have learnt many things, including space combat. In order to put what you have learned into practice before arriving in the Sandanar Galaxy, you must compete against other players and gain experience.]] [[Missions Goal: Compete against other players to gain experience in space combat.]] [Forever1stCommenter (Earth): First] [Noobkiller9000 (Earth): Damn, the streamer finally returns after 2 years, and Foreverfirst is still the first in here.] [Prestigious3horns (Vinox 2): It appears he is still able to stream to Earth. I was wondering if he would lose the ability to after he left their galaxy.] [Beczontop (Imperial Down): What took you so long, streamer? You kept us waiting. Are you finally going to come visit me?] [1000yearsofdeath (Earth): Yeah, I almost forgot you existed. Kekeke.] [Tessisdabest (Imperial Down): I don't think he's here yet, after all, it's only been just over two years, and his stream is showing what appears to be matchmaking for a game. Why does it look so familiar?] [Handsome3horns (Vinox 2): I know this matchmaking design, it's Space Rogue.] [Tessisdabest (Imperial Down): Ah, that's why it's so familiar, we often use it for training aboard ship.] [StealthAssassin9 (Earth): Space Rogue?] [Handsome3horns (Vinox 2): It's a virtual reality game that's super popular because of its realism and ability to import your own ship designs.] [SciFifanboy (Earth): Virtual reality that's so SciFi.] [Sparesomechangebro (Earth): Bro can afford VR gear but refuses to give me change.] [Leonthemoneygiver (Earth): I can spare you some change if you want, bro?] [Sparesomechangebro (Earth): ….] [Gunlovergirl (Earth): Hahaha, Change is so used to getting turned down or ignored when he asks, he doesn't even know what to do when someone offers him some change.] [AlamoMatador4thewin (Earth): Lol] [Prestigious3horns (Vinox 2): Hey, look, he found a match.] [Devil_Prince_Asura (Deverinian 9): Never seen that account before, let's see if they're any good.] As the matchmaking completed, Adam was transferred into the Spector's cockpit again, where he saw information about his opponent below a countdown timer on the view-screen. [Match starts in: 59. 58 seconds] [Player: Devil_Prince_Asura] [Race: Deverinian] [Points: 7] [Wins: 9 - 2 Losses