That’s where the Achilles’ heel was — it was called trust.
Captain Panther used to think that it wasn’t hard to become one of those at the helm. In that process, he became a different person, losing old friends and gaining new ones. It was hard to make a decision that would turn your life upside down, exchanging fame, reputation, and honor for the brand of the greatest traitor in Sphere.
And for Vera.
He felt angry with himself. He had waited so long for that moment, but he couldn’t carry out his revenge! Strangely, rage spurred him on, making him reject all doubt. Damn you! Damn you all! This is Sphere!
Captain opened Pandorum’s alliance control interface.
Chapter 21
MICHAEL MCNUBB, also known as Phantom, woke up from the insistent vibration of his communicator.
Seven o’clock in the morning...what the hell? The calling number belonged to Kronk, one of the few players who knew Phantom’s personal contact.
“The fuck, Dick?” Michael mumbled sleepily instead of a hello.
“Why aren’t you answering? We have problems!”
“What problems?”
“Log in, now!”
Diving into Sphere, Phantom appeared inside a cabin on Erebus where he had left his character. The ship was moored at the captured castle of Condor: that’s where they had left their flagships after repelling the Russian attack the night before. The dull noise of explosions kept coming from the outside, and the hull was slightly shaking. It was a familiar sensation — was the juggernaut under fire? Were they being attacked?
As he climbed the deck, he reflexively tried making an announcement to the operative chat rooms and Courier channels and suddenly stopped. Was it a bug? There were no tabs other than the general chat with default settings. Clan, alliance, and other tabs were mysterious gone. A system malfunction?
Phantom opened the log, filtered the technical messages, and turned cold in a fit of dread.
You were kicked from Pandorum! Reason: Pandorum was disbanded!
You were kicked from Euthanasia! Reason: Euthanasia was disbanded!
You were kicked from the Pandorum Council channel! Reason: channel deleted.
You were kicked from the Pandorum Operative channel! Reason: channel deleted.
And so on, dozens of logs coldly informed him that someone ranked as Consul had pressed the “Disband” button first for the alliance and then the clan, previously deleting all communication chat rooms.
In Sphere, alliance was more than a title: it was a union of many clans with its own extensive set of features. Each alliance had a main clan, the leaders of which exercised control over the others. In Pandorum, this clan was Euthanasia, and it...didn’t exist anymore.
Just like the rest of his former clanmates, Phantom was clanless due to Euthanasia’s sudden dissolution. All clans that used to belong to Pandorum were scattered like leaves in the wind, having nothing to bind them together. They became neutral to each other and all other organizations of Sphere.
The consequences were horrific.
The interclan reputation system, the friend-or-foe identification system — everything had gone to hell in a basket. Enemies and allies lost their special marks. Figuring out who was on what side was impossible. Territory dominion reset, as many regions, castles, and outposts belonging to Pandorum and specifically Euthanasia turned neutral. Confused NPC garrisons set to defend their territory from everyone not marked as allies watched their former masters change color and become neutral. As most Pandorum players had red karma, the now-independent guards turned their weapons against them. Clan warehouses and airship berths became inaccessible, as did the ships moored there.
Chaos immediately set in.
As bad luck would have it, it happened when the alliance had the least number of people online. Logging in, many instantly died without realizing what was going on. They found themselves in a hostile environment, attacked by those they had considered friendly.
Erebus, where Phantom logged in, was also under attack. Condor’s arrow-slits flashed, raining volleys on the fleet crowded around air berths. For juggernauts, all that gunfire was no more than a mosquito’s bite, but smaller ships were already ablaze. The small garrison of NPC mercenaries was out of control, as were the restored castle golems. Phantom didn’t even want to imagine what was happening in other parts of his empire that had suddenly disappeared from the map of Sphere.
“Kronk, have you already announced raid call? Code red, tell everyone in Courier!”
Going by Kronk’s tone, he was shrugging.
“I can’t, dammit! Fucking retards blocked all our Courier channels! They had keys!”
Keys? Ability to manage alliance channels? Phantom realized that it was no malfunction.
It was a betrayal.
* * *
Malevolent contours of Atrocity bled through the pink haze of the Astral Plane. The area around that black bulging shard of land was surprisingly quiet and clear: not a single sail was in sight, as juggernauts and their support had left for Condor the day before. Only dragon-riding sentries lazily circled the citadel, and watchfires twinkled in the towers around the closed maw of the outer gate.
Most players on duty were probably offline — in their time zone, it was night or early morning when sleep was as sweet as ever. Theoretically, after a sleepless night, the Pandas should be out like a log.
Several dozen ships concealed by Veils prowled through the astral mist, slowly approaching the black citadel. Everyone was tense and silent, peering into the area ahead. I was skeptical. Even if Captain managed to somehow let us inside, the Pandas would immediately raise the alarm. A host of enemies would immediately return via clan teleport, quickly taking us down. Been there, done that. Atrocity was the strongest fortress in all of Sphere. What were they counting on? Getting close to the Heart? Fine. Let’s try it.
Time passed. At last, Komtur commanded the ships to slow down. We were right next to the Pandorum stronghold, its fanged shadow falling over us. The log
