1 - A cold day in hell with just 640 credits 

"Urg, fucking hell this is a special kind of hangover…"

Waking up with a head-splitting headache, Mike initially believed he had a bad case of hangover.

But within seconds the reality of the situation became clear as he realised how cold he was. Opening his eyes, Mike's headache was only exacerbated drastically by the sharp and bright light which initially blinded him. Only after the few seconds it took Mike's eyes to adjust did it become clear just how fucked he was.

"What the fuck is this!?"

Instead of finding himself in his shitty dorm bedroom, the 25-year old uni student found himself in apparent weightlessness strapped to a cold seat. Around Mike floated derbies and fragments of the armoured canopy cockpit which was shattered into countless pieces, but what was beyond the strangely familiar busted up controls and multi-display monitors were the cold vacuum of space sparsely lit by a lonely red dwarf star.

"Okay, calm down Mike, this has to be a dream… Yesterday I had classes like normal and no work after so I went drinking with classmates until late-night. After that, I went home and played Interstellar online, wrecked my fully outfitted and tuned Mark 7 before going to sleep… Wait a fucking second."

As his trashed spaceship continued to slowly spin around uncontrolled Mike got a good look of the densely packed asteroid belt that he had made his hunting ground the day before.

Starting to piece together the day before in order to figure out what was going on something suddenly became apparent, Mike's current situation perfectly mimicked the situation he had left for his in-game avatar in Interstellar online before going to sleep. Having gone pirate hunting in a very inebriated state after getting back from the bar, Mike had fallen prey to a pirate ambush and had his ship destroyed.

(So I'm suddenly stuck in the world of Interstellar online? What is this, some shitty web novel?)

Interstellar online was an extremely niche game that none of Mike's friends played. Technically an MMO game, interstellar online played more like a hard sci-fi simulator. With players being able to take control of their own starship with controls so complex that they were hardly able to fit on a keyboard or even a controller for that matter the bar for entry was surprisingly high. To fly a spaceship to its full extent, the game required a hands-on throttle and stick controller with flight pedals to properly fly one's starship, a setup Mike spent way too much money on obtaining after picking the game up on a whim. Aside from spaceship based combat, trade and exploration, Interstellar online also included both first-person and vehicle born shooter and exploration elements, allowing players to explore an open-ended galaxy and make their living as a mercenary, trader, explorer, pirate, soldier or a myriad of other professions.

Tl;dr, Interstellar online was a game for hardcore sci-fi nerds, nerds like Mike who had spent thousands of hours in the game exploring and mastering every facet of Interstellar online.

"This has to be a dream."

Coming to the conclusion that he was dreaming, Mike figured he might as well get his ship under control as he started looking over the multi-display monitors.

"Damage control, damage control… There we are."

Finding a working display Mike started pouring over the information available to him with one hand while attempting to manoeuvre the ship with his other that was still firmly grasping the stick control.

"The manoeuvre control thrusters seem to be working, that means I can at least translate around."

Reprogramming the small thrusters around the ship which normally was used to rotate the ship, Mike started exploring his immediate surroundings, finding he was inside an icy ring surrounding a large gas giant as he finished up the damage assessment.

(Everything besides auxiliary life support and RCT's are dead, my cargo is gone, navigation is impossible as is FTL and the reactor is barely holding on… Everything really is just as I left it when I logged out last night, except for my fucking wallet, where the fuck are all my hard-earned credits!?)

As Mike lumbered his half-destroyed ship around the nearby icy asteroids the subtle acceleration shifted the debris inside the cockpit proved so realistic that Mike realised he might not be dreaming after all.

(Shit. What the fuck is going on here?... No, that comes later, first is survival.)

With the main life support system destroyed, Mike was living on borrowed time. When the auxiliary life support ran out, he was going to choke, assuming he didn't freeze to death before that.

Luckily, Mike did have things working for him in this desperate situation, over the thousands of hours he had played Interstellar online had memorised not only most of the mechanics of the game, but also a lot of the lore the developers had created. Something else which also worked for Mike's chances of survival was how he had outfitted his in-game avatar, spending what most other players of Interstellar online would consider a needlessly expensive, first-class flight suit pack filled with features that were mostly just flavour text in-game but now proved extremely useful. Navigating his wrist-mounted control interface, Mike activated the emergency heating function of his vacuum suit.

"Ahh~"

From one second to the next, a pleasant warmth like he had just dropped into a warm bath spread all over Mike's body before the vacuum suit automatically adjusted itself to a comfortable 30 degrees celsius. According to the in-game flavour text, the suit could keep him warm for well over 72 hours on a full charge and because the reactor had been continuously topping up his suit up until the point where he had been ambushed through his pilot seat, so Mike didn't have to worry about freezing to death, just choking when the auxiliary life support ran out and flooded his suit with carbon dioxide instead of the usual low-pressure oxygen.

"Anything short of direct line-of-sight communication is down too so calling for help is off the table… I need to find some miners, or better yet, local security forces."

With a clear goal in mind, Mike powered down every non-essential system on his ship to save whatever power his crippled reactor could still manage to output. With that life-prolonging action done, Mike started navigating the frozen asteroid field, being careful not to get himself turned around and even more lost than he already was.

"5 hours left on life support, please don't let me run into pirates like this…"

Although Mike was extremely lucky that his in-game avatar had survived the earlier pirate ambush unscathed, it was like the very universe had it personally out for him.

-

"... I realise I jinxed myself but come on."

Within no time, Mike found his crippled ship surrounded on all sides by ships, and judging by the symbols on their hulls and the fact that their hardpoints scored weapons, not mining equipment it was safe to say Mike had run into a group of pirates. Working faster than he ever had in his life, Mike transferred all data from his stricken ship over to his vacuum suit's mainframe, wiped the ship's drives and turned off his suit's heating element before he unbuckled from the seat. Moving to behind his seat in the mostly destroyed cockpit, Mike removed a cover in the floor to access the ship's self destruct master override. Priming the device, Mike transferred the final self-destruct authentication to his vacuum suit's mainframe before finally poking his head out of the destroyed canopy with both arms raised above his head. There were 5 pirate ships in total, although they sort of resemble the sort of ships Mike was used to, their overall patchworked armour and poorly maintained weaponry looked far more realistic than they ever had in-game. Looking at the pirate ships which seemed to have far more variations among them than the NPC's Mike was used to, the tiny shards of ice and debris which floated around him Mike came to the conclusion that he wasn't dreaming, nor was this some kind of next-generation VR game; this was reality. This being the case there was no way Mike would let himself be taken alive.

(There's no way I'll become a fucking mindless slave. Kill me or try to place a behaviour control collar on me and I will blow this fucking first-class, overclocked reactor and give us all a great fucking light show.)

Mike was well aware of how pirates in Interstellar online operated. Stealing cargo and even ships was a given, but pirates also dealt in 'involuntary human labour' or 'soft automatons', in other words, slaves. Using crude biometric implants slaves could work around the clock against their will until they were spent.

"Come on, your move."

Signalling that he wanted to communicate, Mike armed his deadman's switch. Before long an open radio line started emitting.

[Good evening.]

With a rough sounding voice greeting him Mike could clearly hear the shit-eating grin on the pirate's face.

"Good evening, I happen to have a bit of a problem with my ship."

[Yeah I can clearly see that kiddo, would you like transport to the nearest station?]

If Mike was talking to a miner he would be inclined to believe what they were saying, but as he was staring down multiple burst lasers and chain cannons which were already spun up Mike had a hard time believing the words of the pirate.

"... Just like that?"

[Aha!- You sure catch on quickly kiddo. Of course, I'm not offering my humble services for free, It'll come at a slight price.]

Sounding like he was having a grand old time, the private started roleplaying some kind of old-world auctioneer.

"Sure, what about I don't show all of us here what a modded XGM class 4 fusion reactor can do when it melts down?"

[... No need to be drastic about anything here kiddo, I'm just an honest businessman looking to make a living.]

Having realised that Mike was not joking in the slightest, the pirate's tone changed considerably.

The pirate boss was scared, not that kind of emotion was an unreasonable response.

"And I'm just a mercenary on my last fucking leg here, there's no fucking way you're turning me into a freaking soft auto!"

[Hey hey hey! I think you misunderstand, there's no fucking way we deal with that kind of fucking filth! Everyone here is a local outfit you mercenary kind would never go after, the kind that just skims some corporate transports once in a while. If you want transport then it is going to cost, but we're not looking to die here, nor looking to kill either.]

(That opens up opportunities for parley.)

As the pirate leader spoke the weapons on the various ships around Mike pulled in their weapons, from the tone of his voice the pirate was clearly disgusted with the very mention of soft autos.

(Yeah they do look like a local outfit, which means poor cybersecurity. There might be a way out of this stalemate…)

Thinking fast on his feet, Mike found a way to get a hike out of his current situation.

(I have no way of paying these pirates as my savings have somehow been wiped out… But there's still-)

"Okay then mister businessman, you're on. What's your rate for transport? Could I perhaps pay with half a ton of Raligen alloy?"

[Raligen!? Y-yeah, that would work out fine. We'll get you to the closest station and you don't blow up your ship.]

Thanking himself mentally for spending so much on his now smashed up ship, Mike had the required payment for the pirates, namely the extremely light, expensive and proprietary amour still somewhat intact on his trashed ship that was worth a small fortune.

[Then how do we do this kiddo?]

With the pirate pressing him for an answer, Mike realised he had finally obtained a great deal.

"I'll board your ship and stay inside the airlock, space me and I will blow up my ship, decline and I blow us all up or accept and earn yourself a few million credits."

[Deal, get on board already.]

With one of the ships opening its outer airlock, Mike's usually cold expression turned into a smile as he leapt from his destroyed ship, catching the airlock door after floating freely in space for a few seconds.

-

"That kid sure is great at bluffing, if he wasn't a mercenary he would be perfect."

Onboard the pirate vessel black swan, the middle-aged second in command by the name of Alexsander breathed a sigh of relief as he wiped the sweat off of his brows.

"No, he wasn't bluffing in the slightest, that kid is fucking hardcore, there's no way he's just a mercenary."

Only the captain didn't share his second in command's assessment, the hand they held the controls to the ship they had made their home over the last decade was clenched so hard the blood stopped flowing to it.

"Did you see that kiddo's vacuum suit? It's a state of the art one, made for boarding operations. What's more, he fucking jumped over to our ship without using the thrusters either, he's very used to zero-g, what's more, his ship is a state of the art fighter that's covered in Raligen armour… That kid is a Spectre."

"Wha!?- Isn't he dangerous to keep around then?"

For all the time Alexsander had known, his captain had never been wrong when it came to calls like this, in that case, Alexsander wanted nothing to do with their passenger.

"Nope, but it will be dangerous if we try to space him so stop talking about it."

Glancing at the surveillance footage showing the airlock their passenger was occupying, the captain got a chill down their back when they looked at the black sun visor.

(You sure are sharp, 'captain'.)

Glancing up at the security camera he had long since taken control over, Mike stopped contemplating disabling the monoxide alarms on the ship and silently activating the fire suppression system which would flood the ship with non-breathable halide gas, displacing all air inside.

(From there could just walk in and pop a cap each in the sleeping crew, or even just space them to save ammo. I wonder how many times I've used that for boarding operations…)

Thinking back to his fond memories of playing Interstellar online, Mike was quickly snapped out of such thoughts when the ship's intercom system screeched to life.

[We're free of the belt, jumping in 5… Brace.]

At the 'captains' warning, the airlock started shaking around Mike as the ship's FTL drive kicked into action.

(Ah, the calibration is off slightly.)

One of the features which made Mike really fall in love with Interstellar online was the game's award-winning audio design. Every single sound in-game conveyed a specific story with utmost quality, down to the tiniest detail of a slight feed failure in the point defence system, every detail was masterfully created and given sound that Mike enjoyed listening to on his surround sound headset. Having spent literal real-world weeks listening to the sounds of Interstellar online, Mike had gotten to a level where he could tell the state of the numerous different ships he flew just by listening to them run for a few minutes.

[We'll be at the station in about 10 minutes.]

(10 entire minutes, huh? Then I might as well do these pirates a favour and update their firmware, they did save my life after all.)

Having jacked into the ship completely, Mike didn't need the pirate captain's update as he was already sneaking a peek at the ship's navigation data directly. Seeing that the pirates held their word, Mike spent the rest of his short trip fixing up the pirate ship's horrible cybersecurity.

This wasn't something Mike should be able to do, nor was there ever such a feature in Interstellar online, but it would be some time before he realised that.

As the captain had promised, the ship soon entered a space station and Mike was soon overcome with the familiar and long-absent force of gravity.

Well, one-tenth gravity anyway, but it was better than nothing as Mike wasn't mentally used to zero-g just yet.

[There we are kiddo, now get the fuck off my ship.]

Not a second after the shock of a docking clamp was felt throughout the entire ship was the pirate captain's voice heard over the intercom system, it seemed they were in a rush to get rid of Mike.

"Sure, I've left the code to disarm the proximity detonator on my derelict ship in your subsystems already, and I updated the security firmware while I was at it. Although I installed a fairly fancy package, you should really get an expert to-"

[I SAID: GET THE FUCK OFF MY SHIP ALREADY!]

Not even getting his full recommendation for software updates in, Mike was interrupted by the pirate captain who shouted so loud that the voice filter that made them sound like a middle-aged dude partly broke.

"Yeah, yeah you don't have to shout. I hope we never meet again, 'mister' pirate."

[The feeling is very much mutual.]

With the outer airlock door opening, Mike promptly disembarked the pirate ship.

(A hollowed out asteroid, so if I'm judging this on the in-game standard it would be a low-security mining station? Makes sense the pirates could dock here without issues, but that means no local security forces I can lean on to get back on my feet…)

Looking straight up Mike took note of the markings of a large freight ship docked on what would be the ceiling to him. The behemoth of a ship was currently being loaded up with what looked to be refined ore by a small army of dockworkers in vacuum suits with power assist, making use of the one-tenth gravity they manhandled containers filled with ore several times their own mass. The station seemed to be of the same kind as the ones Mike was used to, having a barrel shape that rotated to create the feeling of gravity. Currently in the centre of the station which was the docking area the rotational speed of the station created very low gravity, perfect for handling cargo while residential, industry and medical care were lower in the station where the slightly higher gravity made manufacturing and everyday life a bit easier. Snapping himself out of the awe-inspiring shock of actually being inside a large space station in the middle of an asteroid field, Mike looked down at his wrist-mounted display.

(I really have no fucking credits… This sucks.)

Feeling that his situation was hopeless, Mike luckily remembered that he had transferred all data from his derelict ship over to his suit mainframe.

If memory served Mike correctly, that data included automatically generated map data from the ship's sensor readouts doing his entire botched pirate hunting trip. That kind of data could be sold all over the galaxy in Interstellar online to the cartographers guild, it might even be enough for Mike to buy a cheap ship.

(Let's see… There we are.)

Counting up the data sets and doing some rough calculations, Mike's mounting hope proved short-lived.

(640 credits! That's just enough to buy a standard container of biowaste, oi!)

Suddenly finding himself stuck in a world just like that of his favourite game, Mike had no ship, no insurance, no contacts to help combined with just enough credits to buy about a ton of compressed and dehydrated human waste with no credits left over, Mike realised what kind of situation he found himself in.

(YOU GOTTA BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!? I'M SO FUCKED IT'S NOT EVEN FUNNY!)