Chapter 35 034: Docking Bay 88 And 035: Docking Bay 88 II

Cole had a million things on his mind, but none of them were more prevalent than the fact that in the over 40 minutes since he and The Scientist Brogan Bizet started their journey to docking bay 88, they had not been in a conflict of any sorts. It made absolutely no sense to him, and in a lot of ways he had suspected he had bad luck or something, and that had pretty much left him on edge the entire journey.

Eventually they came up to an open area, the bus was sealed as an open space was shown underneath. This was the docking area, and right now it was a complete mess as debris of ruined ships and vehicles floated about, most of them still on fire as an army of players and aliens battled for control. There was a main docking station that they had to get through, but right now it was sealed tight with a couple of soldiers standing there, all with floating mechs and massive rails cannons that were ready to put the fear of God on anyone who got too close…. Or a least any alien vessel that did.

Now they just had to find a way to get through, but even that seemed like a monumental task as between them and the docking stations was a literal battlefield straight out of a star wars movie. The bus they were in was a commercial vehicle with absolutely no combat capabilities, it would be nothing more that suicide to cross the divide, and that more than explained why there was so much debris around.

On a close look most of them looked like commercial vehicles that had been caught in the cross fire, or perhaps these were vehicles that were purposefully being attacked by the Nijat Aliens so that no one would be able to get to the docking stations and what was most probably salvation. Before Cole could open his mouth and make any sort of suggestion, Scientist Brogan floored it, speeding through a couple of debris with almost what Cole would only call Mathematical precision.

Cole wanted to scream, but the man's family were already doing enough of that as it was, all he could do was hold his breath and hoped that they didn't die. The bus for some reason became extremely maneuverable. It was going past, under and over multiple debris, it didn't take long for Cole to realize that the debris were being used as shields. It covered theirs escape route and made it so that the enemies didn't put any sort of attention to them. And the Brogan started speaking, communicating with the soldiers at the gate through a built in Intercom.

"This is Chief scientist Brogan Bizet identification number 111266788990003 requesting immediate assistance and access into the docking stations. I am in Qissan Civilian Class Airbus, plate number YT 3001, color scheme maroon with green highlights, respond over!"

[We see you sir, hold on and keep moving forwards, armed escort is on the way.]

And that was when things just went completely crazy, somehow it seemed as if they; the Nijat aliens in this case had intercepted the transmission, and above and beyond anything else they wanted to make sure that the old man and his family were eradicated. Their sips turned, running from their current fights as they rushed towards the bus, opening fire on them even before they got any closer.

*BOOM!*

A piece of asteroid floating besides the bus exploded, the rocks pelting it's Hull as laser shot blasted through the bus right in front of Cole's nose, boring a hold through the bust from on end to the other. Cole opened his eyes wide as he pushed the family of the Scientist down and yelled at the man.

"For fucks sake punch it or we're all going to die!"

The old man did not need to be told twice as the bus Lurched forwards, throwing Cole back who at that point for not have his feet firmly planted on the ground. He rolled backwards until his back hit the back of the bus. There was a loud scream and for a moment Cole thought that the bus doors would open and spill him out into the void of space. But it held as he found himself a seat and a window and pulled out his sniper rifle. He took one look through his scope and squeezed the trigger, the bullet flying true to smash through the reinforced glass of a ship and straight into the pilot's throat.

The ship veered to the side, slamming into another as Cole turned and opened fire on another Nijat ship, this one in particular being the one that shot lasers at his nose. He took aim for the engines and fire once, the bullet his the target but the ship still kept it's advance. Cole fired the next bullet, this time it went through the nozzle of the laser guns the ship was using, creating a small explosion that caused it's shield to ripple. He fired again, this time at the secondary engine and smiled all to widely at the explosion that took place behind him.

He turned again to the other side to pick up another target only for the massive glowing red eyes of a mech to stare right at him through the other window. He almost fired back in reflect but he quickly recognized the color scheme of the soldiers guarding the entrance to the docking stations. A couple of those ships reached them and began to open fire on the still approaching Nijat craft, but Cole could be at ease now, the Calgary had arrived.

"Put away your weapon sir, we will take it from here." Cole nodded in obeisance to the mech and stowed the rifle back into his inventory. He had played his part already. Their bus moved forwards flanked on both sides by mechs and ships, while the rest of them laid down the law on the Nijat Aliens and kept them away from the bus. By this point cole could not help but admit that the scientist was a lot more important than he was letting on, and even more so when the soldiers at the massive gate, even those in Mechs saluted him as he was escorted in….safe to say, there was more to the Quest he had taken than what he could see.

CHAPTER 035: DOCKING BAY 88 II

They traveled through a tunnel that pretty much reminded Cole of a destroyer class rocket engine, blinking lights lay within and Cole could see a couple of robots moving around fixing things and making maintenance on the tunnel. Cole half expected flames to come down from within and swallow them all, but then again, his imagination was really acting out a lot lately. He shook his head and kept silent as the scientist made small talk with the commander of the platoon that was escorting them, then they came to the end of the tunnel, in front of another set of extremely massive blast doors. Another stream of identifications later and they were let through.

This new area was long, extremely, so in fact as it seemed to be three to four times as long as the coliseum, but perhaps just half as wide maybe less. From east to west it was probably just about two football fields wide. Either way there was quite a lot of people down there, players and NPCs, and robots and parts of ships. It was a market, but that was synonymous with any dock or shipping areas whether in real life or in the game. There were a multitude of tunnels on both his left and right side of the docking area, many of them were closed off, but the important thing to note was that they were all numbered.

As soon as they got in, the soldiers in the mechs and ships saluted and then turned around, heading back to the battlefield as the scientist flew the Airbus past a couple of numbers until they came upon a tunnel that was pretty much isolated. There were even guards stationed in front of it, thought they were dressed different from everybody else having on actual suits with dark sunshades. Cole raised an eyebrow at that, because there was no major star in sight so what was the need for sunshades in a space station that's mostly lit up by energy.

The moment they saw the bus they quickly stood, at attention, the shoes they were wearing developed a neon green hue underneath them as they floated up. Brogan gave them a nod as a beam of green light scanned through the people in the bus with the inclusion of Cole. However once the scanning was done, everyone in the bus shone a bright green while Cole's form developed a red hue. Apparently he was not authorized to go into whatever the fuck is Docking Bay 88.

"I believe this is where you and I will have to part Aspirant Cole Night. Don't worry too much about it though, you get to pick an alias once you set foot on the second floor, after all there should be a name the universe will have to attribute to a hero like you." Cole raised his eyebrows so high that it almost seemed to disappear into his hair.

"You guys are players?" he asked, taking a closer look at the family. Apart from his wife, cause obviously the milf in the sundress has got to be his wife. Then their eldest daughter who seems to be going through a punk goth rock phase of something, it was even a crazier as it seemed as if she was in her early to mid twenties. Then his twin some that both looked to be about 12 or 13 each. Brogan smiled at Cole and said.

"Not exactly, we're not players in the same sense as you humans are. Since you have gotten this far it means you are now privy to certain information that would have otherwise remained a secret unless you are a part of the upper echelons of Sierra Corp but you have completed the first stage of this quest and there is still quite a lot to handle, but with completing this part you are now a major shareholder so you are privy to somethings Alexander."

Cole raised his head in shock, his middle name was not reflected on his stat page so why the hell was this man using it, plus he had said he wasn't a player, so perhaps he was an AI. But even if he was an AI this level of autonomous control was unprecedented, and while in this day and age advancements in artificial intelligence have been greatly made, true intelligence to the point of emotional response has never be achieved, which was why it was always so easy to identify AI in games, especially when it comes to differentiating them from generic NPCs.

"You don't need to think too much about it, I'll just get straight to the point. Titan Rising Online is a virtual world….or to be more accurate it is a digital universe that exists on a spectrum not energy and frequency that humanity has only recently come to discover. This frequency and the energy it releases has made it possible for this digital universe to affect reality in ways that I think you are now finding out for yourself. In the sense that your abilities are now being displayed in the real world as your body and reality is changed by the energy as you get more in sync with this universe.

In time, you won't even need a neural dome to log in, but rather your own body would jump into it with a thought. And in time, sooner rather than later, this digital universe will swallow your reality and earth and it's universe would become a part of it. You can think of Titan Rising Online as a Trojan horse, a universe that was used to test yours and to see the compatibility your universe and it's races had with the digital universe.

When the people who made the original discovery found out, in this case Sierra Corp they reached out to the few of us who are wholly against the complete subjugation and assimilation of real world universes to propagate growth that has no aim. But most of all, it is the slew of deaths that would come your way. As the moment your universe is Integrated, you would be invaded and many of not over 50% of 8.7 Trillion Population would perish. I can not give you all of the answers now, but if you do seek to find it, then move on to the next floor, and complete the quest chain that you have started. We are given you and your people a chance to fight back….. don't take it for granted."