We had been traveling for two weeks in a large shuttle. Noa had done her magic, and the shuttle was now registered in my name. It would pass the inspection that the port of Mars would subject the ship to. We would dock at the upper orbit transit space station and then would ferry down to the surface. It had been decided that once we were on the surface, I would announce my survival and begin the legal shenanigans. Once all was said and done I would be a wealthy young man.

Maybe not really a man anymore, but a cyborg who is stronger, faster, and comes with a full scope of military upgrades. I could still bleed and die if enough damage is done. But the skin covering my exoskeleton and the fiber muscles that hid the plastic bones and carbon fiber casing rendered me almost indestructible.

The DNA was mine, cloned from my flesh and blood body that had unfortunately been destroyed when my emergency pod had ejected and crash landed on a small asteroid. That landing had saved my life, it turned out that the asteroid had been a secret Russian stealth military base, built many years ago and forgotten about over the course of the civil wars that had destroyed the old Russia. My ships AI Noa had taken over the base’s Ai and had found out that the base had cyborg facilities.

The cyborg wars had been brutal and had almost wiped out man, now the government controlled all cyborgs, a few were still around they existed for military applications and had a built in failsafe. Also, the terminally ill and the permanently crippled had a cyborg option but again it involved donating years to the military. What it all meant was if I was caught, well best not to think of that.

Even though this was only a game it was the most realistic game in the world and the virtual reality was amazing. Most people could not tell it apart from the world and that meant that the laws of the game were not meant to be ignored lightly. It would not be fun to spend the next twenty years of game time in a virtual reality prison pod.

I had things to do, my vengeance burned against Ong Bai, the man who had sold me a used game pod I found out had been used to hack into other accounts. The game master I had dealt with had not cared, and now my 70 levels and most of my equipment I had earned was gone. That account had been permanently banned. I had bought a new game pod and started out again only to have Ong Bai track me down and destroy the ship I was on to kill me, all to get his old game pod back.

The bastard would pay this I swore to myself. Meanwhile, I had to get to Mars and get my game life in order. I would need to run several simulations, think of them as vr games with a vr game. They were a great way to level up and learn new skills. I would need all the help I could get, Ong Bai was a pirate and would not be an easy target. I also needed to get back into the game arc to level past level 10.

My thoughts were interrupted by Noa saying “We are being hailed; I have sent them the transponder information and am awaiting landing coordinates. We will dock in 30 minutes, are you ready?”

I nodded and said, “Let's get this done I am ready to get back on a planet. If you need to talk, send me a message on low wave.” One benefit of having a cyborg manufactory was Noa now having her own body. And what a body it was, but the brain that controlled it was my greatest asset. She was what was making this all possible; to say I would be dead without her is an understatement.

The docking went smoothly, and we were soon on the station. I was worried that my identity might have been red flagged due to the pirates attack on the ship, but I made it through customs without a hitch. We had two hours to wait till the next shuttle departed and Noa wanted to ge shopping for some clothing. She may be an Ai but she was still a woman and that meant shopping. I agreed to meet her at the Open Airlock, a spaceport bar that was located 2 levels above the shuttle bay.

Walking into the bar I noted that it had a lot of old space equipment scattered throughout the two levels that comprised the bar. The top level was set up for meals and casual dining with the bottom level set up for the bar scene. The place was empty with only a few players scattered around eating and drinking. They were all between level 10 and 20 and I would guess that the space station was their starting zone.

An android rolled up and asked, “What would you like sir? I would recommend the Martian catfish captured wild in the underground canal system of Enoch, the largest subterranean city on Mars.”

I nodded, the food sounded good, it came with lemon steamed rice and leeks. I was surprised to learn that I was hungry at the thought of food. Suddenly a HUD appeared, and I read that while I could go indefinitely without food, my flesh and blood still needed energy and the simplest way to get it was to ingest food that would then be processed by an internal chemical stomach. I was amazed at both the HUD and the info it displayed and spent the rest of my meal learning about my new body and what it could do. Noa and I had spent the majority of the trip doing combat exercises and making sure we were familiar with what or cyborg bodies could to. All I could think of was we were stronger than Arnold had been in the old terminator movies but other than that we were an upgraded version of his cyborg. Cool.

As I was finishing my meal, I tuned into the conversations that the other people were having. I found I could hear with perfect clarity every word that was spoken if I targeted the speaker. It was mainly boring everyday life stuff, but the last two people I listened two mentioned something that caught my attention. Spacer one said, “Listen Mike, my cousin mentioned this, the ship won’t be coming in, Ong Bai took it out, turns out he is looking for some kid and I heard he wasted the whole ship to take him out. Word is if the kid somehow makes it here whoever sends out a three tone code on the directionally space buoy will come into some big coin.”

The rest of the conversation was just a rehash of what was spoken and I ignored it after a few minutes. That Ong Bai was still after me was troubling. He had to suspect I had survived and would eventually make my way to the port. I knew he had agents on the station and would look for me, in fact they probably had a holo of me taking from my boarding pass on the cruiser, this would make it more difficult, as I am sure that my mane had been flagged and they knew I was on the station.

Noa would have to be informed and then we could make plans on how to proceed, getting into a scuffle with pirates on the space station was not a doable solution. My thoughts were interrupted by two rather rough looking chaps who made their way through the bar stopping at each table and eyeing everyone. My guess was that they were looking for someone and I would bet a thousand sol credits that person would be me.

I quickly activated my cloaking mechanism and slowly moved to a spot on the wall cloaked in shadows. The cloaking mechanism was a military upgrade that my cyborg body came with. I stood and watched as the men finally stood at the bar and had a beer than left. I had already paid for my meal so I uncloaked and followed them. I had called Noa and explained what was happening; she had suggested that we meet up at the shuttle about 10 minutes before departure. I had a few minutes to burn and wanted to see where these two went, I activated the unseen follow protocol and suddenly I knew how to follow these two without being seen. I followed them for several minutes until it was apparent that they were going from level to level scouting through any bars shops or restaurants hoping to spot me. Deciding it was time to leave I made my way down to the shuttle bay and saw Noa sitting in a chair with two bags at her feet.

Her legs were long and her muscular body showed tight muscles under the skin tight outfit she wore. Her breasts were slightly above average in size and her complexion was dark which complemented her red hair. She looked fantastic, a head turner, and I was amazed that she had bonded to me as the last captain of her ship. Walking over I saw her look up and smile then stand and grab my hand. She pulled me into a kiss and then whispered, “I have taken over the space station's Ai, we will board the shuttle normally but the record of our passage will not be released until we are on Mars.”

I reached down and grabbed her bags and then we turned to enter the shuttle. After presenting our ID and boarding passes, we grabbed two seats near the front. It turns out we were the only two going down to the red planet, and we began to relax. Entry to Mars thin atmosphere was only bumpy for a minute then the long wings of the shuttle extended and the airbrakes were activated. We glided down; really it was almost a controlled fall until we were lined up with the runway.

At this point the retro rockets fired at the tips of the wings, this dramatically slowed us down allowing us to touch down, once the shuttle was on the ground long controlled rocket burn slowed us down enough for the wheel brakes and drag chute to become functional. Eventual we taxied up to the main building which extended a mobile airlock to us. Hearing the heavy clamps as the lock was secured to the shuttle, we noted the green for go light came on and stood up to make our way off the shuttle. It had been a normal flight, but it was still exciting. The whole space thing, it was amazing and I could only hope that one day our society would achieve in RL what we had in virtual games.

Once we landed it only took a few moments to go through customs. We grabbed the tram and made our way to the nearest hotel, during the trip Noa was in contact with both the insurance company and the shipping company. After electronically filing the insurance claims and filling out all the forms we arrived at the hotel. I was ready for a restful night, I suspected tomorrow would be crazy