Андреа Хёст - The Starfighter Invitation

Far sighed. "No theory makes sense, all of them sound reasonable."

"I think we’ve been listening to different theories," I said.

[g] Stream’s finally starting people.

[g] Hope you’re all still conscious.

I rechecked the [View Lan Challenges] list, and found that [The Wreck] had been pinned to the top. I followed the link, and settled back, eyes half-closed, to experience television in my head.

[[[[Welcome to the System Challenge.]]]]

"Oh, wow, it’s Ryzon."

Five men, three white and two East Asian, stood in a room very reminiscent of the viewing lounge from Demo 2, although the exterior scene showed only a slow rotation of stars, no planets. They wore sleek matching uniforms, with shoulder patches blazoned with the guild name, Pyres of Heaven , and had been standing back-to-back as if anticipating attack.

A much younger version of the Texan man I’d seen interviewed stepped forward. "Can you give us more details about the Challenge goal?"

[[[[The Wreck is a ship abandoned by a species driven to extinction before the rise of The Synergis. It is important to us not to lose information about extinct sapients, so the goal of this Challenge is to reach the centre of the ship and retrieve the systems core. The target is marked, but the path is dangerous.]]]]

"Is there a time limit?" asked a guy who had gone for a distinct Uchiha Sasuke look with his Core Unit, though the stream info told me he was the Dread Pirate Roberts.

[[[[There is no time limit—you can attempt and return until the Challenge is completed, or you die during the Challenge. You cannot substitute group members after you begin, and your access to the Challenge is not exclusive. Be aware that elite lan Challenges of this nature increase risk to your Renba.]]]]

"Wait, our Renba?" asked Redeemer. "You mean if our Core Units are taken out, our Renba could also be destroyed, and that would mean…"

[[[[Permadeath.]]]] Ryzon waited a suitably dramatic moment, and then added: [[[[You would no longer be able to access The Synergis.]]]]

" Oh. My. God ." TALiSON was audible, but made strangely distant and muted by the stream-viewing experience.

" Stakes are raised, ladies and gentlemen ," Silent added.

[[[[Explosions and fields of force are obvious risks to your Renba. Keep in mind that thirty seconds is considered the maximum safe transfer delay for Bios of your Rank, and set your Renba to your desired follow distance.]]]]

"Can other players attack our Renba?" Redeemer asked.

[[[[If they wish to be perma-banned. Attacking your Core Unit attracts no penalty, however, beyond the opinion of the audience.]]]]

" The stream shows us their names, even though most of them are anon ," Nova said.

"Is the Challenge completed once we reach this systems core, or when we return to the ship with it?" the Dread Pirate Roberts asked. "Could someone steal it from us on the way out?"

[[[[The Challenge completes once you have extracted the systems core from its housing.]]]]

Redeemer looked around at the rest of his party. "Still in this?"

There was a fractional hesitation, but then a firm affirmative.

"Go down in history or go down in flames," Spaceman Spiff said.

With impeccable timing, an enormous shape blocked the rotating vista of stars. Not perfectly round, but made up of countless flat surfaces, like a 10-thousand-sided die. The regularity of the form was interrupted by a massive hole piercing one quarter of the visible surface.

"How big is that thing?" Spaceman Spiff asked.

[[[[It has a diameter of ten kilometres,]]]] Ryzon said. [[[[Impeller sleds are available in Bay One when you are ready.]]]]

" Puny ," Silent said. " Less than a tenth of the size of the Death Star. "

" They weren’t trying to explore the Death Star ," Nova pointed out.

" Only five kilometres to the centre ," I said. " If there’s a convenient straight corridor. "

" A five kilometre corridor is a long walk ," Nova replied.

" No obvious rotation ," Silent added. " So it’s probably zero-G or near to it. Not sure that’s better or worse. "

While we waited for the Pyres of Heaven guys to head down to Bay One, suiting up in the Soup en route, we talked through potential difficulties of finding our way through such a large space in the likely event there were no five kilometre corridors.

"So, running out of air or getting a hole in our suits are the obvious dangers," Redeemer said, coming to the exact same conclusion we’d reached. "Floating debris, getting lost, trapped, or attacked by dormant ship defences. Our first choice is whether or not to go in via the big hole, or find a door. There looks to be a lot of debris in that damaged area. More than I’d expect."

"I expect that’s why the entry series was ninety percent shield Challenges," Weak Sauce said, in a slow, caramel-noted voice. "But let’s not get over-confident."

The impeller sleds had their own slots at the back of the big airlock, and looked more like a rack of oxygen tanks than any kind of vehicle. The Pyres group spent a solid quarter hour familiarising themselves with their function, checking on time limits for their oxygen, and how long the extra air supplies on the sleds would take them. They were methodical, cautious, and died within ten minutes of reaching the gaping wound in the side of The Wreck.

"Lesson number one: don’t go in the big hole," Silent observed, stretching.

"And more zero-G practice," Nova added. "I’ll see if I can find other Challenges that use those sleds. We can try a few out before or after going on with the gauntlet series."

"That was a little like the way I ping-ponged through the first stage of the gauntlet," I said. "The shield rebound in zero gravity is even worse."

"They could have survived that if they hadn’t used their shields," TALiSON pointed out. "They caused all those metal fragments to start bouncing around."

"Next group that goes will definitely try a different way in," Silent said. He smiled comfortably at Nova. "Wish we didn’t have these meetings. I want to get through the gauntlet and get up there right now."

"How long until you have to log?" she asked.

"Less than an hour, game-time. Not enough for any Challenges." He eyed his empty drinking bulb ruefully. "Well, not with my head swimming. I hope it’s true there’s no after-effects from this when you log, because right now I don’t have enough in me to even scroll through lists to work out what to try."

"Let’s walk then," Nova said, standing. "This music makes me restless."

I waved a hand to indicate my disinterest in walking, and TALiSON simply smiled benignly, and waited until they’d walked off to say: "I sense a hook-up."

"I guess?" I said, not having noticed any by-play. I frowned. "I hope my group for this gauntlet doesn’t fall apart."

"Silent’s too laid-back to get into arguments," Far said. "What’s this Nova like?"

"All business so far." Though I wondered whether she’d come here in an older-looking modal with Silent in mind. "Not uptight about winning, but focused."

"Do Silent good to get a little tangled, no matter how it turns out," Far said. "He’s been positively monkish since his wife died."

I blinked, because Silent had been a lone traveller through world capitals for as long as I’d been in the guild, and I’d joined when I was eighteen. But poking and prodding at my guildies' backgrounds had never been my style.

"The amount of sex going on in this game is going to keep divorce courts occupied for years," TALiSON said.