Free Start the Game (Galactogon: Book #1) by Vasily Mahanenko Page A

real world—though a few remained.
    “Hey, Surgeon, can you hear me? Wave your hand if you can!”
    Waving my blaster at the remaining player to tell him to leave me alone, I continued to watch the doors with interest. I was wondering whether the assault would come through the roof or through the doors. I was still extremely insecure about my ability to pilot this craft—I sure wouldn’t have tried to fly the way that marine had done it—so I knew that I needed to be prepared to resist without the benefit of maneuverability.
    “Perfect,” the prone recruit went on. “My name is Lestran. I’m a repairman but I also just passed the piloting exam. If you take me with you, I’ll help you get off this planet! Better think fast—pretty soon you’ll have no time for me.”
    “Getting out of here isn’t possible! And even if we do, the Empire is closed to us,” I replied neutrally, as if everything was under control and I knew exactly what I was doing.
    “You don’t trust me? Fine, but I know all about the pirates—if you doubt my abilities, check my status—I even won a local tournament. Do you even know how to get to it?”
    “Through the jail with the guard who has the thingy on his sleeve,” I ventured, growing more curious about this player. “Big deal…I’ve gotten myself a suit of armor—but you don’t see me bragging about it—whereas you keep going on about some tourney…”
    “Listen, I enrolled in training on purpose, so that I could get to the pirates. You, as I understand it, have already basically done it—but without my help, you’ll never get off this planet! I spent seven months finding a way out of here. Without me, you’re not going anywhere for at least as long! So make up your mind: Either you’re about to delete and restart, in which case everyone is already pissed at you anyway, or you can trust me and take me with you. You got three minutes left!”
    What else could I do? Trusting my experience, I made my decision: This player needed something and I could use that to my advantage. Anyway, as long as the current events didn’t take up too much of my time, I could allow myself to go on playing. I could always delete Surgeon, but I was still curious what the Qualians would do and how Lestran wanted to escape the Training Sector.
    “The armor has a medkit—first, you’ll need to heal me. The button combination is gel-pax-pax-glar-kree.”
    “Let’s speak human, okay? Qualian may as well be Greek to me.”
    “So how’d you manage to start the suit?” Lestran asked surprised.
    “The buttons are color-coded—blue, red and so on.”
    “Bunch of nonsense…Alright, hang on a second…The medkit is blue-red-red-orange-green. I can’t believe I’m even doing this…If anyone finds out, they’ll laugh their…”
    “If it works, it works,” I replied, bending down over Lestran and putting my arm beside him. Barely had I entered the necessary combination when a needle extended from my suit’s index finger and punctured the recruit’s body. His health began to rise.
    “Okay, now stay on my heels! We’ve got two minutes before they come!” yelled Lestran, jumping to his feet and running toward the doors. “Move it! We need to descend to the lower levels.”
    Lestran ran out of the hall so confidently that I had no other choice but to follow him.
    “Shoot it,” I took thirty or so heavy, metal-clanging steps, when I almost ran into him, standing still and pointing with his hand at a niche in the wall. “You need to knock that down with your blaster.”
    “Knock what down?”
    “The wall! What are you waiting for? The passage to the levels we need are on the other side!”
    I didn’t bother to ask how this player could be so sure of himself. Instead, I pressed myself to the opposite wall, aimed the weapon at the wall and pulled the trigger. Instantly, I hoped that Lestran had managed to dart behind a corner. Fragments of rubble flew everywhere, reducing the