Андреа Хёст - The Starfighter Invitation

"Let’s head right in," Nova said. "We almost missed this."

"No thanks to our Cycogs, who didn’t bother to mention departure times," I commented, then hoped that my voice didn’t sound as weird to everyone else as it did to me. I needed more space.

[[With a System Challenge, never count on extra help,]] Dio replied.

" So long as you don’t actively sabotage, I guess ," I sent back.

Two people walked through the newly-formed shield instead of being directed away from them, the shield creating a gap and then reforming around them. We followed them into the clear circular space in the centre of the room, and then up a spiral ramp that led to a ceiling hatch.

"I guess we stand on these ridges?" said one of the two ahead of us, bouncing upward. They disappeared through the hatch, and Arlen and Imoenne, at head of our group, were quick behind them. The ramp took me right up to the ceiling, and halfway into the vertical cylinder of a room beyond, well provided with handholds, and notches in the walls that could work as ladders.

"It’s the airlocks that always get me," said one of the two strangers ahead of us, as the hatch below us rotated shut, and there was the faintest whine of equalising pressure. "More than anything else, the airlocks make the whole idea of outer space seem real."

"Going on a spacewalk didn’t do that?" asked the speaker’s companion.

"It’s something about how weighty the doors are," the first replied. "The EVA suits are so light they don’t seem possible, and the Snugs are pottery or something ridiculous, but the airlock doors feel like serious business."

The inner hatch slid open just then, and we climbed effortlessly upward into another airlock, this one squarer than the first.

"Allowing for post-Singularity magic science , everything reads as possible except when they suspend players," Silent put in. "They drop the illusion there, in favour of making a point."

"Magic science is the right word for it," the first stranger said, wryly. "I swallowed the tech as a possibility, up to the soul space travel."

"If it’s magic science, then all aboard the Hogwarts Express," said the second, and pushed upward as the innermost hatch opened.

The transport ship, named Delina , did have some faint resemblance to a train, for most of the entry level was divided into compartments—though no train featured such wide and comfortably moulded seating, with leg and head support, and safety straps. We followed our arrows into one of the few remaining empty compartments, and settled in, the door closing behind us.

"Good," Nova said, deactivating her focus. "The stream won’t start until we get there, so this will give us a chance to talk strategy. I take it everyone’s watched the attempts of the handful who’ve gone before us?"

These had not been as spectacular as the first unfortunate team. A half dozen groups, making cautious forays over the curving surface of The Wreck, searching for a hatch but failing to identify anything. They’d run short of air, and retired to a small satellite station that could be used as a staging ground in the absence of the Delina . Most had taken a rest break, and then returned to poke about the edges of the rift in The Wreck’s side, carefully venturing a level or two downward, and then exploring sideways, only to be defeated by a lack of any through-corridors.

Arlen, however, was more interested in Nova’s appearance than a planning session. "Is it that you can change the age of your Core Unit?" he asked, for Nova was wearing the older version of herself, and a simple jumpsuit rather than the magical girl outfit.

"This is my Core Unit. I was using an alt for the gateway series." Her attention flicked to her Cycog, perched on her shoulder. "Is there no way to suppress names in the live streams? I was hoping our group could fly under the radar."

Silent, with the faintest of wry smiles at our confusion, said: "Check out her info. She’s set to party-visible."

Nina Stella

[Artemis]

Rank: 10

Status: Online

Accepting: [Email] [Messages](friends only)

Location: [Delina]

I stared, and then laughed.

"Pick a number between one and ten," I said to her.

Nova-Nina gave me her usual dry smile. "I did think it a lucky number for you. Although this ridiculous notoriety might prove me the wrong choice after all."

"But is it not that Nina Stella made the trip to a new system while we were amusing ourselves in the park?" Arlen said, apparently caught between delight and suspicion.

"Yes. I took a transport back, since I wanted to recover my energy."

"No wonder I hadn’t seen anyone else’s Cycog wearing a synth," I said. "Is it something that comes with Rank Ten?"

[[A reward for me,]] Artemis said.

I was always disconcerted when someone else’s Cycog answered me: an especially weird reaction given that it sounded like there were only a handful of Cycogs pretending to be all the rest. Every Cycog here could really be Ydionessel.

The problem was a big one, though. While Artemis' synth wasn’t an obvious giveaway of Nina’s Rank, as soon as our livestream came up, her name wouldn’t be hidden any more. Going into a PVP-enabled area with Nina Stella was like painting a target on our group.

"Can we delay formally starting the Challenge?" I asked, glancing from Artemis to the rest of our accompanying drift of light motes and Renba. "I was thinking we should do that anyway."

"You were?" Silent said. "Why?"

"Because there doesn’t seem to be many options left other than heading further into that rift. And over a hundred people are going to try to do that at once. We could race to be first, to get into a side passage before the crowd sets the whole thing ping-ponging, but that would only make it more likely we’d injure ourselves being hasty."

"True enough," Nina said. "Can we delay starting, Temi?"

[[Yes,]] Artemis replied.

"We’ll decide how long to hold back closer to arrival," Nina said. "And concentrate for now on figuring out possible entry points." She put an image of The Wreck up in our shared visual space: one of the much-analysed annotated versions that were circulating on all the DS sites. "Presuming we do go in through the damaged area, the next big question is whether the area beyond the damage is still pressurised."

"It is a derelict," Arlen protested. "For many years. Centuries. Can there be any chance?"

Nina shrugged. "This is a simulation, and set up to be the most difficult Challenge in the system. There could be anything."

"Fair point," Silent said. "The important concern is that if we punch into an area that’s pressurised, we’ll be blown away by our own success—even if we don’t cause an explosion. But, here– " He added a set of diagrams where the images of The Wreck had been dimmed and overlaid by enormously detailed pencil lines.

"A group with the game’s strongest player, and a structural engineer," I observed. "I’m starting to think we could actually win this."

It shocked me to discover how much I wanted that to be true. I’d always considered it a near impossibility, a thing to give a try, with failure almost inevitable. But now that it seemed achievable, I kept remembering Dio talk about the Boon, about the prospect of real answers. I wanted to know what was really going on with this game, even if it only meant that I could finally relax and just let myself enjoy it.

Silent had smiled and shrugged. "I’m far from the only person who has put in this sort of work, but I have a few ideas that depart from popular opinion. You can see that the majority of levels exposed appear to be a combination of bulwark and large empty chambers—probably water or fuel storage. There’s even a few mini icebergs floating among the debris that suggest escaped liquid."