The Starfighter Invitation

37 horse trading

After trash-collecting the stars, returning to the gauntlet series felt constricting and dull. No view, and only the prospect of being hammered with blaster fire to look forward to.

Of course, the point of the series was clearly to prove a certain level of lan strength before attempting the System Challenge. A group of Rank Tens would probably stroll through it. I wouldn’t even have started this series yet, if I’d realised what it involved, and would have postponed the rest in favour of level grinding if not for my bet with Dio.

Waiting next to the mural, I played spot-the-alien among the colourful tiles, noticing that in each new mural they had changed their stance along with adding a new member, but not shifted their position relative to each other. I tried to remember the names of the species, and then found a way to look the whole primary set up. Darashi, Vssf, Ah Ma Ani, Shree, Kzah, Embyde. And Llura.

"So what does Llura actually mean, Dio?"

[[Medium.]]

I looked up at tem, but te just glowed inexpressively. "It’s a size designation? Do the other names mean large and small?"

[[Darashi is a combination of small and fast, but most of the other names are closer to the names the species call themselves. Llura is more complicated than size. Not the fastest. Not the slowest. Not the largest. Not the smallest. Not the smartest.]]

"So it’s an insult?"

[[Is that an insult?]]

"Hm." I didn’t know. "We’re the jack-of-all-trades species?"

[[Type Threes do like to run around calling themselves adaptable.]]

"Medium."

"Hey Kaz."

I turned to smile at Silent, then tried not to visibly react to his lowering frown. It was so weird to see my guildies. "You look annoyed."

Silent shrugged, and relaxed the straight line of his mouth. "Remember how I dropped anon to show off my new rank to the guild? Ever since, even though I put it back up after a few minutes, I’ve had a swarm of tells wanting me to join groups. Most people will never get one of these first-to-rank achievements, but being first to unlock the System Challenge seems more attainable, so everyone’s trying to build the highest-ranked teams possible."

Silent had made Rank Nine while I’d been gambolling in an EVA suit—a rank only around three hundred players had managed so far. I was fairly sure I was at least a 7 now, but was putting off ranking until the gauntlet was done. The fact that it bothered me to be the weakest member of the group meant I’d remained defiantly non-anon, with my Rank Six out for everyone to see.

"Think we’ll lose any of the others to poaching?" I asked. I’d seen guilds shatter under the strain of top members being siphoned off by more active raiders.

"Nope. These Challenges aren’t just a numbers game: there’s a group dynamic that’s just as important as strength. I don’t get the feel anyone in our group is going to get us killed running wildly ahead Leroy Jenkinsing, and no-one’s caught up in proving themselves the boss. The others will appreciate that just as much as I do."

"I invited Nova to the guild before she logged, but she only said she’d think about it."

"I’d probably wait longer joining a guild here myself. Heck of a different experience. What do you make of the next Challenge description?"

I hadn’t checked. "Where the Meadow Weeps, and the Dawn Blooms? A meadow in a cave? Maybe mushrooms?"

"Hope not. I’ve fought a few too many fungus-zombies in recent years."

"Fungus-zombies?"

"Hey Nova. Just speculating on what comes next." Silent lifted a hand in greeting, and then extended the gesture to Arlen and Imoenne as well. "Everyone good to go? Or do we need a strat talk before going in?"

"Find something that is liquid and apricot-coloured?" Arlen suggested. "They are not very complex, these Challenges."

"Just hitting harder each time," Silent agreed.

"Unless we can invent more efficient shields, I’m not sure there is more to this than shield and survive until exit," Nova said.

"Anyone notice the estimated time for this stage?" I said.

"Oh, hey, I didn’t see that," Silent said. "I wonder if that means a maze, a really hard exit to find, or something else?"

We went in triple-shielded, with two over the whole group, and one extra out front. After the traditional narrow entry corridor, the area opened up completely, and there we stopped. Not out of fear of blasters, but in awe.

A meadow beneath the stars. Three tiers of meadows, separated by pearlescent rises of ornamentally sculpted stone that channelled great cascades of water into complex and intricate shapes. Monumental, glorious, glimmering.

Silent, typically, was first to find something to say: "Is two hours just how long they expect it’ll take us to walk across this place?"

"It’s set up so that you can’t possibly just keep five shields active the whole time," Nova noted. "Exhausting."

"Perhaps we are to climb the waterfall?" Arlen suggested.

From this distance, in a half-light sourced more from the terraced wall than the stars, stairs weren’t obvious—and would be a slippery proposition if they were somehow woven into that criss-crossing fall. The area was almost as wide as it was long—must be in an outlying crevice of the great Chasma Marineris—and empty of anything much except grass, wildflowers, and the towering rise of falling water: a concave curve of it, rather than a straight line. If there were blaster ports, they’d be extremely distant, waiting for us at the walls…or hidden in grass. Even if nothing happened, it would take most of our allotted time to reach the top.

"I’d guess at a good half hour walk to the first tier, and however long it takes us to climb it," I said, studying the decoration visible on the main rim of the first waterfall: flowers, birds, leaves and a wide variety of symbols. "Not possible to do all three tiers in two hours, even if nothing shoots us. Uh, not unless we use skids, which I don’t recommend. So this must be all the rest of the stages."

"A walk in the park," Silent said, with forced cheer. "Why does something so lovely feel so creepy?"

"Because we’re waiting for it to shoot at us?" Nova took a single step forward, and stopped. "I’m sure I could shield myself the whole way, but probably not if I’m constantly pounded by blasts."

"A lot depends on whether we get that warning noise," I said. "How about we take turns double shielding until we get shot by something, and if the blaster is still making that buzzing noise, we switch to taking turns with a single shield, but everyone else tries to throw up an additional shield when we hear the warning."

"That’s asking for a damn quick reaction time," Silent said, but not as if he thought it impossible.

"I don’t see many other options," Nova said. "Let’s start out triple-shielded, though. We’ll adjust when we know more."

There were no paths, just grass, mats of clover, and occasional small flowers—mostly daisy-type. Familiar plants beneath familiar stars, with only the gravity and that honeycomb glimmer of the ceiling to proclaim absolutely that this could not be Earth.

The grass was spindly and very soft, and walking over it produced a sharp green scent. My straining senses discovered insects, birds, and even a faint breeze, despite being in an enclosed habitat. Speculating on whether the waterfall was generating the breeze, I almost missed the bare whisper of a whine. But I was so keyed up for an attack that I responded to it even before the buzzing warning sound, snapping up a shield over the three existing, only to have it blown immediately away by a triple series of bolts. The next shield down also went, leaving Silent’s and Arlen’s, and then Nova adding hers over the top.

"Shit, that was heavy," Silent said. "Where did that even come from?"

"You shielded before it made a sound?" Nova asked me.

"There was a noise before the buzzing. Very soft, mechanical."

"Perhaps it’s another mech," Nova said, looking around alertly. "Swatting a couple of those would be easier, in a lot of ways. It’d have to be much smaller than the first—the grass is barely long enough to hide a rabbit."

"Let’s keep the triple shield at least until the next round," Silent said.

Nova nodded. "And concentrate on listening."

I was inner shield this time around, which should have been less nerve-racking, but only made me keenly aware that if I didn’t hold, injury or death would follow. As it was, when I heard the precursor whine, I stiffened, trying to turn lan to adamantine. Imoenne threw up an outer shield, and Silent added his a few moments after the blasts.

"Something, it came out of the grass," Arlen said. "Just over this way."

He pointed, then waited, since under the shields we moved as a group, or not at all. We approached as if expecting attack snakes, and only after persistent searching in the gloom found a silver circle embedded between stems of grass. Not one of the blaster apertures we’d seen before, but a cap to something that had risen from the ground

"Like a garden sprinkler," Silent noted. "But more sizzle."

"I heard it lift that time," Nova said. "With the extra warning, we can probably risk only two shields, bringing up extras as soon as we hear the sound. If these things are evenly placed all over the field, trying to maintain more than two constantly is going to be too much for us."

"Before we move on, I think we need to pick a direction," I said. "I mean, we can keep going straight ahead, but unless the exit happens to be that way, we’re going to facing a lot of extra walking and being shot at."

"Yeah." Silent surveyed the waterfalls. "There could be only one exit, or lots of them. And the way the whole thing’s curved means no point of it is closest. Anyone ever play Myst?"

"I will gladly switch out being hit by lasers for a pretty puzzle game," Nova said.

"This one looks easy enough—a good thing since there’s shooting involved. Anyone see anything that symbolises dawn among all that carving?"

"Where the Meadow Weeps, And the Dawn Blooms?" Nova said. "I don’t see anything that’s clearly a sun. There’s a half-circle, but not oriented correctly."

"There’s a circle in a square," I said doubtfully. "And a teardrop near it."

"Three radiating lines over there," Silent suggested, indicating the opposite side of the grand curve. "Could represent light."

"Blooms could also indicate a flower," Nova said. "A sunflower, perhaps. Or lotus, flower of the dawn."

"Suddenly this puzzle doesn’t seem so simple," Silent said.

"Let’s go for whichever options are clustered closest together," I said. "That way, if our first guess is wrong, we won’t have to trek far to try again."

"That’s almost guaranteed to make the one sitting off to the side the right choice," Silent pointed out. "But luck aside, I agree that’s a good approach."

Since the blast point we were standing near didn’t seem inclined to rise again, we took our time looking over each and every symbol, and finding a way to edit a shared photographic record of it using our Link. All symbols that could possibly match the quest description were circled, and a cluster including radiating lines, three circles and maybe a lotus chosen as our destination.

"We’ve really been underusing the computers-in-our-heads aspect of Dream Speed," Silent said. "Incredible resource."

"Maps, overlays, GPS. We will not be lost here." Arlen bounced on his heels, then laughed as our shields jostled.

Our break had been uninterrupted by shooting, and the knowledge that we could stop and rest had buoyed everyone’s spirits, and gave me confidence about my ability to get through an endurance Challenge. Two hours was only an estimate, not a time limit, so we had no need to hurry through this making mistakes.

Only a quarter hour later we were close enough to the next tier to make out detail, and see that there was a sizeable pool between the meadow and the base of the wall. Narrow white bridges arched elegantly over the water and disappeared into the misting streams of the fall.

"A bridge for every symbol," Silent noted. "I can’t make out any doors on the far side."

Even when standing on the very edge of the pool, there was no hint that any particular bridge led to an exit. The section of wall rising directly above the far side of the pool was not conveniently glowing it, but had a pleated, concertina look that threw plenty of shadows and made it difficult to definitively say there was an opening or not.

"May as well try the radiating lines first," Silent said. "Then lotus, then circles."

"Five shields up," Nova added. "If there’s going to be a big attack, this will be the time."

The bridges were wide enough to walk across easily, but not for two people to move side-by-side. We rearranged ourselves into a line, set up our shields, and took careful steps onto the simple, flat arch. The lack of hand railing, and a certain level of slickness caused by the misting water, made it nervous going, but there was no attack in response to touching the bridge.

That, of course, was timed for when we were out in the middle.

We’d been braced for blasts, of course, but low gravity was our undoing. I let out a startled yip as Arlen stumbled and lost his shield, and then Silent’s shield took on a barrage and his feet slid from under him. All our shields struck each other—and us—as he went down, and then I was falling too, my ears ringing, to plunge into the pool below.

I’d lived by enough beaches to make swimming no issue, but I was dazed, and slow to surface, and then had to contend with Nova, who had found me as the nearest handhold, and was trying to climb. I went back under, tried to remember what I should do to rescue a non-swimmer, fought to get my head above the surface, and then the weight of panicked party member pulled away, and I gasped, coughed, breathed.

Silent’s long arms to the rescue. He’d found the edge, and then dragged Nova across to it. Arlen and Imoenne were further out, but were dog-paddling gamely in the chop caused by the water plunge from above.

Recovering enough to make it to the side myself, I coughed some more, then checked that Arlen and Imoenne were making progress. Only when all five of us were clinging to the wall did anyone speak, and that was Silent.

"Well, shit."

I coughed some more—I’d breathed in at just the wrong moment—and managed a croaky: "Definitely."

"Embarrassing, would it not be, to survive the blasts only to drown?" Arlen said, though without his usual ripple of laughter. "And the question now is whether it is possible to leave this water without further attack."

"Hold a couple of shields up there, and I’ll climb up to check whether it triggers the blasters?" I suggested.

"Right," Silent agreed, and built a shield.

Imoenne added one on top, and I clambered up into a glimmering tent. Nothing shot me, so I reached down to Nova, still clinging in grim, shivering silence to the pool’s edge.

It took a combination of Imoenne and Arlen gently helping her to coax Nova to release her grip. And when she was out, sitting on the edge of the pool, I surprised myself by curling an arm around her waist and tucking her against me. I’m far from a touchy-feely person, but Nova’s transformation from mature and collected to small and bedraggled called for something more than a let’s get going.

Truth to tell, I wasn’t really ready myself, and appreciated that the rest of my group simply joined us in a line on the pool’s edge until the immediate shock had worn off. The cool light breeze discouraged anything but a temporary lull, but we still waited until Nova finally straightened up.

She’d deactivated her focus, and now squeezed water from hair that had fallen out of its twin tails, tidying it as best she could. Then she took a deep breath. "Let’s not fuck up like that again."

"One bath per Challenge is my limit," Silent agreed.

"This is the second time lower gravity has nearly been my downfall," I said, and entertained everyone recounting how I’d made it through stage one.

"Speed’s not a bad idea, but I don’t think we’ll be outrunning these blasters," Nova said, now sounding as dryly unperturbed as she’d begun. "If four of us stay on the bank and firm footing, we can keep a shield over someone while they check if there’s an exit."

"Me," I said. "Everyone else is higher rank." And only Silent and I seemed to be strong swimmers, I added to myself.

"We’ll keep one shield over us and three over you," Silent said.

With a little experimentation, we put this into action, and I walked across the bridge to find a wall, and no way to go either forward or sideways. I repeated this beneath the lotus and then the circles symbols, and then we paused to consider the enormous curve, and all those symbols with their slippery bridges.

"Pick nearest or revise our choices?" Silent asked.

For a moment no-one answered, every one of us aware that three bridges had already taken too much energy. Then Imoenne said, barely audible: "That one, please."

We looked where she pointed: a symbol only five bridges to our right. One large star surrounded by five tiny ones.

"Could represent the dawn star, I guess," Silent said, after a moment’s hesitation. "Let’s give it a go."

It hadn’t been on our original list of symbols, but Imoenne was normally so quiet that I think we would have tried it even if we hadn’t been able to see any connection at all. It was at least nearby, and we’d found that the blasters by the pool only triggered if you went onto the bridges.

Except for this bridge, where no blasters triggered at all. I stopped in the middle of the flat arch, started to speak, but then kept going forward so that I could confirm that the pleating of the wall on the far side of our fourth attempt was in fact two angled walls that did not quite intersect, but instead simply concealed the fact that they were an exit.

"Imoenne, you are awesome."

I doubted she could have heard me over the roar of the falls, so I repeated myself once everyone was safely across in the inevitable tunnel.

"What made you so sure this was the right one?" Nova asked, giving Imoenne an approving little nod.

Imoenne ducked her head, and told her feet: "The descriptions, they always, they better fit the previous Challenge."

"They do?" Silent said, then paused, clearly looking back over his Challenge log. "Enter the Maze; Choose a Path; Find Your Way Down; Behind the Shadows; Beneath the Stars; Where the Meadow Weeps, And the Dawn Blooms."

"It’s true that we found a way down in the Behind the Shadows Challenge," Nova said, thoughtfully. "And everything was shadowy in the Beneath the Stars. I don’t remember much down in the Find Your Way Down Challenge."

"They was maybe a slight downward curve to some of the paths," Silent said. "But it did match Choose a Path way better."

"Hm." Nova shrugged. "Let’s shield up and confirm that this is officially the way out first. If it is, then I think you might have handed us the key to the whole Challenge series, Imoenne."

"Yes, dry clothes and proof of my sister’s genius, this way," Arlen said proudly, and was very shortly rewarded.

"No-one else here," I said, gazing around the inevitable staging area. "Not that it necessarily means other groups haven’t made it this far, then logged or gone ahead already."

"But no, I am sure it means we are the first," Arlen said, bouncing ahead of us with redoubled enthusiasm. "And now that Imoenne has given us the key, we will have an advantage for the last parts, and we will be the first to unlock the System Challenge, and everyone will know our names!"

I wondered whether I’d like that—the kind of notoriety that only a couple of players had so far faced in-game—and thought it would at least be good advertising for the Bio of The Synergis and My Core Unit is a Lie patches I’d added to my uniform.

"I’m starting to believe a first is actually possible," I said.

"If unlocking the System Challenge has a custom ship reward, then I absolutely want to push hard to get it," Silent said. "If everyone’s not feeling too tired, want to take a half hour break and then take on the next stage?"

"Well," Silent said, after a small pause. "Looks like we’d better aim for beating the System Challenge instead. Who’s with me?"

Nova laughed. "Sure. Let’s do it."