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

Durability of my armor by 1%. This was followed by my temporary ally’s invective:
    “You dingbat! You couldn’t wait until I took cover? What are you standing around for? Heal me!”
    Before I could administer another dose of the healing injection, I had to remove two large boulders that had pinned Lestran to the floor. The wall’s demolition had turned out very realistic—there was so much dust that I even thought I was back in real life for a second. Typically, most games try to avoid taxing the capsule’s system resources on rendering such insignificant details.
    Bit by bit, the outlines of a passage began to flicker through the dust. Opening the instructions I had received from Stan, I entered the command to turn on the floodlights. Two bright beams split the murk and our eyes encountered a steep winding staircase, running both up and down.
    “This way!” Lestran ordered joyously and deftly squeezed through the opening in the wall. “We need to go down!”
    “One second,” I replied, squeezing through the opening with some difficulty, after which I stuck my arm and blaster back through it and took several shots at the walls and ceiling of the hallway we had come from. In a few minutes, the assault would commence and I didn’t want to leave an obvious trace of where we had gone. Let them suffer a bit removing the boulders, while I got to be Maniac for a bit longer. I needed to find out after all, how Lestran had learned about this secret passage.
    “Right on!” the player agreed with me, descending several steps lower. “No one knows that you can bust through there and since it’s all buried now, they’ll think of looking in the hangar last of all.”
    “Do you know what’s up there?” I pointed up the staircase.
    “Sure. General Trank’s office—he’s in charge of all of Training Sector Alpha-332. I managed to find this stairwell during my last life, but they caught me in the office and sent me to jail—and boy did my imperial Rapport suffer a hit. So I had to start all over…Otherwise, this is a very curious building, which I’ve managed to dig around in quite sufficiently by now…”
    “So what’s the deal? Do you think they’ll look for us there?” I asked Lestran, pausing my descent. “Is it very far up?”
    “Look for us?” Lestran also halted his descent and even climbed a few steps back toward me. “Doubt it. The office is three floors up and…Wait, don’t tell me you want to go take a look?”
    “Well what do you think would be better: If we approach the pirates with data we’ve stolen from the computer of the executive officer of the Training Sector or simply show up willy nilly saying ‘take us as we are—we’re so cute, after all?’” I said, applying pressure to Lestran’s sore point. Why was he so set on getting in with the pirates? And why wouldn’t I use that fact to my advantage? From my time in Runlustia , I could safely say that the offices of commanders typically had something worth stealing. At the very least, there would be some nice items up there.
    “Let’s go,” Lestran made up his mind, squeezed past me and began to ascend. “Though, on second thought, wait here. If there’s anyone in the office, we won’t go in—we can’t let them know where we are. If there’s no one in there…I gotta say, I’m damn lucky to have met you! What’s your guild anyway?”
    “Let’s do that later—the loot’s getting cold!”
    Lestran merely smiled and began climb the stairs.
    Just then, a menacing and mighty voice shook the entire building: “Surgeon! You refuse to listen to reason and will therefore be placed under arrest until the investigation has been completed! Commence the assault!”
    “It’s clear up there.” My partner said, returning. Then he nodded in the direction of the rubble, “D’you hear? They’re looking for you already.”
    I could hear one of the Qualian commanders issuing orders through the wall: “First team take the rec