Free Shepherd's Crook: Omegaverse: Volume 2 by G.R. Cooper

open.”
    “Pretty near the ground,” added Clancey, “so don’t panic.”
    Duncan went back to his inventory screen, selecting gear, donning armor.
    “Shannon,” said Matt, “can you find us some nice safe territory to land on?”
    “On it,” she said. “It looks like our little sector of responsibility is just to the west of a small town. I’ll put you down just behind a hill near there. It looks like it’s covering the line of sight to the down, and there’s a copse of trees nearby to the north.”
    “Sounds good,” said Matt.
    “But I’m going to drop Vince right damn in the middle of the town square.”
    “Even better,” laughed Vince.
    “One minute to drop!”
    Duncan had finished with his armor, and it, as well as his plasma rifle, were connected through to the shuttle’s conduit power feed. He checked that his m1911 .45 was loaded, a round in the chamber. He had plenty of grenades.
    “Thirty seconds to drop!”
    “Aw, shit!” yelled Duncan. “I know what I need.”
    “What,” asked Clancey, concerned.
    “10 seconds to drop!”
    “A friggin’ Pearlight conduit rail-gun with a Hawkeye scope!”
    “5 seconds to drop!”
    His friends all started laughing. Then they jumped.
     
    Duncan looked to his left, then to his right, then back to the front. All around him, and he assumed behind him, meteoric streaks of fire were etching through the atmosphere of the planet as hundreds of players dropped from shuttles spread over hundreds of kilometers. He looked down toward the rapidly approaching ground; still probably the better part of a hundred thousand meters below him.
    “How do I control this,” he asked.
    “Control what?” came Shannon’s voice, calm.
    “This drop. My attitude.”
    “Are you out of control?” she asked.
    “Not yet.”
    She laughed softly, “Don’t worry about it, sweetie. Your fall and landing are all automatic. If it gets too much, just close your eyes. You’ll be able to feel the parachute when it opens.”
    Duncan gulped. He was, he had to admit, not a fan of heights. Even standing on a ladder could make him woozy. He had recurring nightmares that involved merely standing on the edge of a tall building or cliff. Interestingly, though, he wasn’t bothered by heights as long as he was strapped into something. Roller coasters never bothered him; he’d even flown in a small, two seat, aerobatic open cockpit biplane through loops and rolls. He’d enjoyed that.
    Falling, however, affected him physiologically, even in games. Even in flat, non-VR games played on computer monitors. He couldn’t even leap off of a cliff or building in a game without feeling a lightness in his gut, an uncomfortable tingling in his scrotum. He looked upward, focusing on the streaks, now disappearing as the players all dropped into the atmosphere and slowed.
    “Where’s all this heat bleeding to?” he wondered aloud. “How are we not all burning up?”
    “It’s a game,” laughed Matt. “It’s magic masquerading as ‘old one’ technology.”
    “Isn’t that kind of lazy?” Duncan asked, “Game design wise?” He was trying to keep his mind occupied; to keep from looking below the clouds that were inching into the lower part of his vision.
    “As long as it’s internally consistent,” said Vince, “it doesn’t matter. What was that Asimov quote?”
    “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” answered Clancey, “and it was Clarke, not Asimov.”
    “Yeah,” said Vince, “that’s the one. They could probably justify actual magic-looking game aspects by some technological crutch.”
    “You could shoot magic-missiles from your fingers or lightning bolts from your eyes,” he continued, “and explain it away by saying it’s nanobots or some Tesla-esque electrical focusing device or some such.”
    “So,” responded Duncan, relieved as clouds enveloped his view, “as long as you have some bullshit pseudo-technical explanation you can