Star Emperor

When the light vanished, Andrew was standing in a familiar small room.

He was confused at first as this was the starting module of a space station in the Star Emperor, but he didn't remember entering his game capsule or logging in.

Additionally, he was not in the body of his avatar but his own, and looking out from the viewport he saw identical modules all around him and each one of them had a person inside.

He pinched himself, but instead of waking up, he felt the pain.

-So this is reality.

He said quietly, starting to panic a bit.

-It won't help.

 He reminded himself and started to take deep breaths to calm himself down.

It worked as in a short moment he calmed down.

After that he started to think, scenarios going through his head one after the other, starting from the most probable to the most absurd.

Logic told him that this was impossible, but it was happening and the only thing he could do, aside from panicking, was to accept that this was reality and try to do something about it.

He looked around and found almost everything was the same as in the game.

The only exception was a chest placed next to a wall, next to one of the airlocks.

Deciding to see if there were any clues inside he opened it, only to find 21 packets that he knew from the game as the food rations his avatar had to eat and drink to regenerate his stamina and life points.

If the description from the game applied to them then each of them was a full meal.

Beside them, he found seven bottles of water 2 liters each a first aid kit, and a space suit.

Everything looked exactly like in the game.

-What is going on here?

He asked, but no one could answer him.

Just as he was thinking about it, a ping could be heard from the only console in the room.

He went over to check it and it was an incoming message.

The moment he sat in the chair the monitor lit up.

-Greetings.

A voice that wasn't human came from the speakers.

-I'm sure that you are all confused, angry, or scared but I don't care for your feelings.

This is the only explanation you will receive so pay attention.

This whole universe was created as an experiment, and you are nothing more than test subjects created for this purpose only.

The creators grew frustrated with all of you and decided to end the experiment.

However, as noble beings, they decided to give you a farewell present before they departed.

Since only a handful of races had reached for the stars so far amongst millions of species that were spread amongst the stars and even they didn't reach anywhere further than their nearest neighboring stars.

The creators spread the game Star Emperor among all of the species to prepare you for what is to come.

The more Andrew heard, the more he didn,t like where this was heading.

-Now that you and all the other races are placed in the beginning modules, let me explain the rules.

The voice paused for a moment and Andrew could swear that it was only for the dramatic effect.

-The only rule is the survival of the fittest, no other laws or rules apply.

You have been given seven days' worth of food and water, after that is gone you will need to fend for yourself or trade with the merchants that will appear every Five days.

This will continue for the first year after that they will no longer come.

That is all the help you will get.

After that, you are on your own, and to make this more fun, you will all be scattered among the stars, along with the other species, what you do after that depends on you and you alone.

To give you all a chance, the generous creators decided to allow you to choose five modules each for your stations.

That ends the explanation.

The next moment the light enveloped all the modules at once and they simply disappeared, like they were never there.

When it faded again, Andrew saw that he was in an entirely different place.

From what he saw his module was positioned on the edge of an asteroid belt in a binary star system.

-This is certainly not the sol system.

He muttered to himself.

-Where the hell am I?

He went back to the console to check his position and the options available to him.

His friend list from the game was downloaded into the console but next to every one of them there was a notification "out of communications range".

There were two additional pages to the communications "Family" and "Local group".

He checked the family page and just as he suspected, all of his family listed there, some of them he didn't even know, and all of them were also out of range.

The Local group had active icons, and it was the group that was placed in this system alongside him if he ever needed to communicate with them.

Looking at the list he counted seventeen others in this system.

Deciding to deal with it later he looked at other options.

The module acquisition page had only some of the basic modules available right now and in the right upper corner was a counter representing the available modules.

The other options showed the state of his energy reserves, air supply, and the structural integrity of the station.

To sum it all up, he had the supplies for a week right now.

Thinking about his next steps he decided to see the modules he could pick from and decide which of them would be most useful for now.

Seeing the options he had almost gave him a headache as there were dozens of modules available and all of them would be useful for him.

However, this was not a game where he could just restart if he made a mistake, this time if he screwed up he would die.

-Survival takes priority.

He decided, to use the search engine to find the life support module.

There were seven of them available and each one with different stats.

Looking over all of their stats he decided to get the smallest one for now as it required the least amount of power to operate while being able to support a crew of six.

The next on the list was a power generation module and since he was in a binary system, the choice was made to get the solar panel module as it came with a power storage unit.

-That takes care of air and power.

Andrew thought, but he needed more if he wanted to survive.

His thoughts were interrupted by a loud noise like something smashed into his station.

Immediately he looked at the structural integrity and it went down three percent.

He went pale seeing this.

-I'm a fricking sitting duck.

He said angrily to the empty module.

going back to the module selection options he quickly searched for a shield generator.

There was only one option available, but he had no choice if he wanted to survive for now so he added it to the list.

With only two modules left he quickly decided on the Drone recharging module, which was the smallest one available as the rest required research, but it came with six resource-gathering drones.

The last on the list was a resource-processing module which came with a built-in small storage area, capable of storing up to three tons of resources.

Andrew looked the list up and down several more times before he pressed the accept button and then the confirmation button.

As soon as he did that there was a flash of the same light that brought him here and the modules appeared right next to his.

He expected them to dock automatically like in the game, but they were just sitting there.

-That's what the space suit is for.

He said, finally figuring out why it was given to him in the first palace.

The problem was that he had no idea how to connect the modules, but the console helped him with this as there were instructions about that available in the Tab next to the detailed description of all the modules he had chosen.

The other problem he had was also solved as the suit had a user manual attached to it.

So he did as the manual said and put the suit on.

It was a nerve-wracking experience when he entered the airlock and was about to press the button to vent the air out.

If the suit had any problems or if he made a mistake putting it on, he would die.

Just as he pressed the button he remembered a phrase he heard somewhere.

"There are a million ways to die in space, and they all suck".

Fortunately for him, the suit was working as intended and he did everything right.

Now that he was out, the next module was only about three meters away and according to the instructions, all he had to do was to connect the cables that were placed next to both airlocks and then use the console to do the rest from the inside.

Andrew took the cables from his module and lightly pushed himself off to jump to the other one.

Each module had cables next to each of its airlocks to connect with more modules and after connecting the cables he went around the station and did the same for the other modules.

The best thing was that the suit had its own safety lines that he could attach to every module with ease and make sure that he would not drift into space by accident.

Connecting all the cables took him almost an hour since he was not used to the lack of gravity as the modules somehow had the same gravity as Earth, inside of them.

After returning inside and taking off the helmet he realized just how tired he was, it then hit him that he had been transported here right after supper and it had been at least a few hours since then.

In these hours, his life changed drastically, and right now he was doing the things he never even dreamt of doing outside the game.