Universe Online - Enter the Game: Complete Edition by Ryan 'Viken' Henning

to end up leaving the Space Station before my second day had even started.
     
    Finally at the hole, I attach the other end securely to the wall and take a breath.  Outside, the slowly spinning stars are quite the dazzling sight.  Without the attenuation of an atmosphere to obscure them, the stars appear as pinpricks of thousands of colors.  Some of clear, while others are cloudy and distant.  But they are all magnificent.
     
    I take another breath and gently push off the floor and float out into the true void.
     
    There is no transition.  No notion that the 'space' outside is any different from the environment inside.  Only the lack of surroundings.  It is like stepping out of a large warehouse into the open air on a planet.  Natural and connected.  There's no lag or any other notion that something had happened.
     
    The power of the Dive Pod is really cool.  Even with the other VR games, there was oftentimes a noticeable lag between large zones or areas.  But here there isn't.  None whatsoever.  From station to space was as smooth as a babies bottom, and several times more beautiful, to boot.
     
    Still, I keep my wits about me and slowly work out my short length of magnetic rope until I pull taut with a slight jerk around my waist.  Finally out in space itself, I can feel the slight suction that space has on matter.  Remember those old bulky marshmallow-men like spacesuits where the astronauts ended up spread eagle?  That's because space has a force all its own.
     
    But my space suit is powered just enough to resist it, so I can continue to move freely in this environment.  I can still feel it though, which is a bit funky.  There's only a very thin bit of material between my bare skin and space, after all.  It would make anyone nervous.
     
    But I have a job to do.  This trek into space is basically just recon.  So I pull my gaze from the spinning wheel of stars around me and turn back to look at the station itself.
     
    I get a bloody big surprise.
     
    And when I say big, I mean BIG .  I'm forced to swallow, simply looking at it.  The station is huge.  Easily twice or three times the size of the mining station from the Beta Test.
     
    And it’s beat all to hell.
     
    And freaking fracking huge.
     
    Holy shit.  Just where did they send me?!
     
    From my limited vantage point, the station looks to be the size of a bunch of mountains shoved carelessly together.  And I am very, very small.  Like a flea on the carcass of some sort of massive dead beast.  Like a dinosaur.
     
    And I cannot even see it -all- .  The hold my 'home' is in is on the outer concentric ring; connected to the rest of the station via support slats and corridors.  Working inward, the station's structure bulges out and broadens, gaining mass and height as it works inward toward the center.  Which is a tower structure that extends both above and below the rest of the station.
     
    But unlike blocky, cube-based stations, this one is oddly sleek and curved in most cases.  It is rather easy on the eyes in that way.  It also seems to have been built in a single go, instead of patched together with additions as it grows.
     
    It’s serious business.  This wasn't some small station that grew in a chaotic manner as it grew like a city.  This was built like a fortress; meticulously planned out from the get-go.
     
    And given that there's a big ass gun 'up' on the top of the outer ring from where I'm hanging, it seems to support that theory.  It was a military station.
     
    I'm simply amazed.  I'm amazed that the place wasn't ransacked by whoever it was that battled it and obviously won.
     
    The signs of battle are obvious.  Laser and mass driver damage can be easily seen; along with big blasted holes that look to have been made from missiles or torpedoes.  Or plasma weaponry.  Most of the really big weapons have been trashed as well.
     
    Including the one standing over me.  Half of it is melted and crumpled in